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April 1997 |
| Why Does My
Email Bounce? |
-John Stock
|
There can be many reasons that email returns to
you without being delivered. Normally a message bounces
because of human error. To understand why the email has
been returned to you, it will help to be able to
interpret its header. You may want to take a few minutes
to review How to Read
Email Headers in the March 97 issue of TechNotes. In
the header of the returned message you will see several
possible reasons for the email to have been returned.
These reasons will be indicated by error messages such as
user unknown or host unknown.
Both of these errors indicate a problem with the email
address to which the message was sent.
If you get the user unknown message,
the problem is that the portion of the email address
before the @ symbol has been rejected by the recipient's
email server. Please check the email address that you
sent the message to; you may have mistyped the address.
Otherwise, the email address may have been canceled and
is no longer valid. Below is an example of the header of
an email message that bounced because of user
unknown.
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.
|
Return-Path:
<MAILER-DAEMON>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:59:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem
<MAILER-DAEMON@mindspring.com>
To: <support@mindspring.com>
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)
The original message was received at Thu, 10 Apr 1997
08:59:38 -0400 (EDT)
from brickbat9.mindspring.com [207.69.200.12]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal
errors -----
xxxxxxx@mindspring.com
|
Notice the very last line,
which indicates the address to which the original email
was sent. The delivery failed because there is no mailbox
with the name xxxxxxx, at MindSpring. The email continues
below.
|
|
----- Transcript of
session follows -----
... while talking to localhost.mindspring.com.:
>>> RCPT To:<xxxxxxx>
<<< 550 xxxxxxx...User unknown
550 <xxxxxxx@mindspring.com>... User unknown
Reporting-MTA: dns; camel10.mindspring.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; brickbat9.mindspring.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:59:38 -0400 (EDT)
Final-Recipient: RFC822;
xxxxxxx@camel10.mindspring.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; localhost.mindspring.com
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 xxxxxxx...User unknown
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:59:38 -0400
(EDT)
Return-Path: <support@mindspring.com>
Received: from brickbat9.mindspring.com
(brickbat9.mindspring.com
[207.69.200.12])
by camel10.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id
IAA32741
for <xxxxxxx@mindspring.com>; Thu, 10 Apr 1997
08:59:38 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from internal.mindspring.com
(bronx.mindspring.com [207.69.183.53])
by brickbat9.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP
id IAA16526
for <xxxxxxx@mindspring.com>; Thu, 10 Apr 1997
08:58:37 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id:
<1.5.4.16.19970410120110.218f1288@pop.internal.mindspring.com>
X-Sender: support@pop.internal.mindspring.com
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:01:10 -0400
To: xxxxxxx@mindspring.com
From: Support <support@mindspring.com>
Subject: IE 4.0 Beta
|
| If you get the host unknown message,
the error is caused by the portion of the email address
after the @ symbol. Usually, the email
address has been mistyped; however, there may have been a
network problem on the receiving end, at the time you
sent the email, which prevented the message from finding
the recipient's email server. The example below includes
the email header of a message which bounced because the
address name was incorrect. |
|
Date: Thu, 10 Apr
1997 08:59:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem
<MAILER-DAEMON@mindspring.com>
To: <support@mindspring.com>
Subject: Returned
mail: Host unknown (Name server: mindsrping.com: host
not found)
|
Notice that
"mindspring" is misspelled above. If the
address is not spelled correctly, the email cannot be
delivered. The header continues...
|
|
Auto-Submitted:
auto-generated (failure)
The original message was received at Thu, 10 Apr 1997
08:59:25 -0400 (EDT)
from bronx.mindspring.com [207.69.183.53]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal
errors -----
<support@mindsrping.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 <support@mindsrping.com>... Host unknown (Name server:
mindsrping.com:
host not found)
Reporting-MTA: dns; brickbat9.mindspring.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; bronx.mindspring.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:59:25 -0400 (EDT)
Final-Recipient: RFC822; support@mindsrping.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.2
Remote-MTA: DNS; mindsrping.com
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:59:26 -0400
(EDT)
Return-Path: <support@mindspring.com>
Received: from internal.mindspring.com
(bronx.mindspring.com [207.69.183.53])
by brickbat9.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP
id IAA16714
for <support@mindsrping.com>; Thu, 10 Apr 1997
08:59:25 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id:
<1.5.4.16.19970410120157.218fc8dc@pop.internal.mindspring.com>
X-Sender: support@pop.internal.mindspring.com
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (16)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 08:01:57 -0400
To: support@mindsrping.com
From: Support <support@mindspring.com>
Subject: IE 4.0 Beta
|
| Of course, this article explores only
two possibilities of error messages. The majority of
bounced email, however, can be attributed to one or the
other, symptoms of an incorrect address. For further
information, you may wish to look over the material
listed below. "Standard for the Format of
ARPA Internet Text Messages" (RFC 822)
Request for Comments-- official documentation of Internet
Protocols and Standards
http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc822.txt
|
John Stock
is a Sport in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania office of
MindSpring Technical Support |
|
TechNotes+ is a publication of MindSpring
Enterprises, Inc.'s Electronic Services, and is provided
as a service to MindSpring customers. Copyright © 1997
MindSpring Enterprises, Inc.
|
end. |
