| Email
2.1 I just sent an email to a friend, and I got
a message back saying it couldn't be delivered! What's up?
Well, this depends a lot on where you were sending the email.
If you sent an email to a friend who is not a geeksnet user, then
it's not our mail server that said the user didn't exist. Your
friend's ISP has its own mail server, and it is the final authority
on users that exist there. Our mail server connects to other mail
servers on the Internet, and it says it has email for a specific
user there, and if the other mail server says there is no such
user...then there is no such user.
This is how a bounce will look when you've sent email to a remote
site and their mail server rejected it:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program
at mail.geeksnet.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work
out.
<friend@wherever.com>:
208.212.213.05 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 <friend@wherever.com>... User unknown
Giving up.
--- Below this line is a copy of the message.
Return-Path: <you@geeksnet.com>
Received: (qmail 27534 invoked by uid 1698); 03 Nov 1999 12:43:17
-0500
Message-ID: <19974512973416.48734@mail.geeksnet.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1999 12:43:17 -0500
From: "Me" <you@geeksnet.com>
To: friend@wherever.com
Subject: hi friend!
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
X-Mailer: Outlook Express 5.01
Hey.. how's it going?
Your friend
Now, if you sent it to a geeksnet user, you'll probably see somewhere
in the bounce where it says, Sorry,
no mailbox here by that name.
In any case, look carefully at the bounce you got. Chances
are, you'll notice that you misspelled your friend's email address,
or misspelled the domain name.
It's important to note that our mail server does not return emails
without a very good reason.
2.2 I'm telling you, it's not possible that this
email bounced, because I am just replying to an email my friend
sent me, and they can't send me an email without a valid address.
It's time to make a statement in big bold letters!
Just because you receive an email from someone doesn't mean their
return address is valid or even works.
What this means is that you may, from time-to-time, receive email
from persons who have mistyped or otherwise incorrectly specified
their return address in their mail software settings. When you
reply to their message, your mail will bounce.
What can you do? Well, if their error is obvious, just fix their
email address in the To line of your mail composition,
and make sure to let them know their error!
The other possibility is that your friend's ISP's mail server
is misconfigured. If you contact your friend and tell them of
the bounce and they assure you that address is correct, it could
be that mail server has problems. In that case, you should be
a good netizen and contact their postmaster or webmaster. It is
required that all domains have a working postmaster address, and
to reach them you simply email postmaster@theirdomain.com.
For example, to reach geeksnet's postmaster, send an email to
postmaster@geeksnet.com.
When telling the postmaster of the trouble, make sure to forward
the failure notice you received along with your note.
2.3 My friends tell me that they keep sending
email to me and it's bouncing!
We've found that the vast majority of problems like this are
because users send out email with invalid return addresses (the
From line in an email, usually). When your friend replies
to you, their email software will use the return address listed
in your email to them. Well, if your return address is wrong and
your friend doesn't notice it, it will certainly bounce.
If you are certain that everything is OK with your setup, please
give us a call. It would be very helpful if you had a copy of
the bounces that your friend(s) are getting, or you can tell them
to email the bounces to support@geeksnet.com
Netscape users:
Most problems with return addresses come from people using Netscape
to send and receive email.
It's very important that you make sure you have specified a correct
return address in Netscape's mail options. Specifically, problems
with Netscape mail tend to be caused by users using an address
like this in the section labeled Email address in Netscape's
mail options:
Your name yourusername@geeksnet.com
A correct options setup would be:
Name field: Joe User
Email address field: joeuser@geeksnet.com
Reply-to address field: joeuser@geeksnet.com
2.4 I am getting email but there is nothing in
the message!
Netscape users often have trouble because the mail window in
Netscape uses panes. Sometimes the horizontal pane has been dragged
all the way to the bottom and all that you can see is your inbox.
To fix this, drag the pane up the window until you can actually
see the text of the email you are viewing.
2.5 I'm having big trouble retrieving my email.
I keep getting the same messages over and over, or the transfer
of my first message is timing out.
Very often this is due to you having been sent a very large email
(1megabyte or larger). Dialup users can sometimes have trouble
when trying to download large emails. Please also make sure that
your e-mail program is set to delete messages off the server after
retrieval.
2.6 When my mail software connects to geeksnet,
I get the message Authentication failed.
Many new users make the mistake of specifying that their POP3
username is username@geeksnet.com. That's incorrect! Our
POP server will reject your connection because of an invalid username.
Of course, if you are sending the wrong password, that will also
cause you trouble. Remember to check your caps lock key.
Your username is the portion before the @ in your
full email address.
2.7 I should be able to get huge emails, all of
my friends do. I think your mail server is broken.
There are a number of issues that make the sending of extremely
large files via email a bad idea. There are much better ways to
get large files. For example, most large files can be had if the
sender decides to not attach it, but rather send an email with
a URL so that you can go on the web and download the file yourself
if you wish. There is also FTP. Both of these protocols were designed
for the transfer of large files...email was designed for the transfer
of small to moderately-sized messages.
The POP3 server has a specified timeout on the transfer of mail
to you. If we set the timeout to be too long, the mail server
could get bogged down or behave poorly due to lack of resources.
Most Internet providers also have decided to not have drastically
large timeouts for POP3 transfers.
Most often, however, the issue with downloading large mails lies
with the particular mail software that is being used on someone's
computer, since the timeout kicks in only if the connection is
idle (there is no traffic being passed between the mail server
and your computer).
2.8 I sent an email and a few hours later received
something from MAILER-DAEMON. It says my email has been undeliverable
for 4 hours. Is your mail server working?
Yes, our mail server is doing exactly what it's supposed to!
It happens quite often that email you send may not be delivered
right away. This can be due to a number of reasons, such as:
The remote mail server is down.
This is the mail server that handles the email for the recipient's
domain. Computers are machines, remember, and they can fail.
The remote mail server is refusing connections.
This is likely because the remote machine is overloaded with
connections, as often happens when sending email to large
companies such as AOL.
The remote mail server is unreachable.
This can happen when there are problems with a router between
us and the remote mail server.
You are using an invalid return address.
Many mail servers on the Internet are now checking that the
return address of incoming email points to a valid domain
name. If you have an error in your mail setup, such as misspelling
geeksnet.com or adding a space AFTER geeksnet.com,
your email will not be delivered. Instead, the remote mail
server will continue to reject it with a soft error,
meaning that it isn't rejected outright, just deferred.
So, if you are actually being told by our mail server that your
email has been delayed, you may assume that things are perfectly
well on our end! Our mail server will keep trying to deliver your
email on a regular basis for seven days. If, at the end of that
time, it is still not deliverable, you will be sent a failure
notice and your email will be removed from the queue.
If you want to know specifically why your message is being deferred,
forward the deferral notice to support@geeksnet.com
and we'll check it out.
Replying to Spam (bulk email). You will almost never be able
to reply to a spam and have your message delivered successfully.
Most spams are sent with invalid return addresses, so replying
with REMOVE is probably useless. You'll likely get a bounce
or a delay notification.
You mention that using an invalid return address can cause
my email to not be delivered. How can I make sure it's set correctly?
You can send yourself a test email. After you have downloaded
the email you sent to yourself, look closely at the return address.
Pay particular attention to any spaces that shouldn't be there.
If it looks like ' you@geeksnet.com", then you'll need
to fix it.
2.9 Who is this MAILER-DAEMON guy?
MAILER-DAEMON is not actually a real person. It's the address
that the mail server uses when it needs to send email for whatever
reason.
If you receive an email from MAILER-DAEMON, it will always be
some sort of notification regarding email that you have sent.
Sometimes, it will be the MAILER-DAEMON here at geeksnet, and
other times it will be from a remote mail server, probably someplace
you have recently sent email.
To define the word, a daemon is a program that runs all
the time. Naturally, our mail server is running 24 hours a day,
so therefore is considered a daemon.
2.10 Do you sell your client list?
No. geeksnet never sells nor distributes our clients'
names or email addresses.
2.11 I use Netscape mail, and it prompts
me for my password all the time. It's a pain.
Yes, Netscape will prompt for your password the first time you
check your mail in a particular session.
You can work around this by clicking on Edit then choosing
Preferences. Double-click on Mail & Groups then
click on Mail Server on the left-hand side. You'll see
a button that says More Options. In there, click on Remember
my mail password.
2.12 Why can't I send e-mail through
geeksnet when logging through another domain?
In an effort to maintain a high level of security and prevent
outsiders from accessing and using our servers, we have set our
servers to refuse log-in from outside our domain. It's an easy
fix for Outlook Express and Netscape users.
In Outlook Express:
Click Tools-Accounts. Select Properties, then
Servers Tab. Under Outgoing Mail Server, please
check My server requires authentication.
In Netscape:
Click Edit-Preferences. Click the + sign next to Mail
Servers. Under the section Outgoing Mail Server,
type in your username in the box labeled Outgoing mail server
user name:.
Done!
2.13 Every time I check my mail using Outlook
Express I get disconnected from the Internet. I have no problems
staying connected any other time. What is going on?
Outlook Express has an option that, when checked, will disconnect
your computer from the Internet after sending and receiving. If
you do not wish to disconnect from the Internet after “sending
and receiving” then use the following instructions to change
that setting on your system.
Open Outlook Express.
Click on Tools located on the top left of the
Outlook Express window.
Choose Options from the menu that appears.
Click on the Connections tab.
Uncheck the second check box labeled “Disconnect
from the Internet after sending and receiving."
Press Apply and then OK.
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