AOL bouncebacks

P

Parpar

I've been getting a lot of bouncebacks from messages sent to AOL
addresses. The addresses are correct, but every bounceback contains the
identical delivery-failure message that the "host is not accepting
mail." Our tech guy told me that he already contacted Microsoft
Entourage and AOL about this, without any luck whatsoever. Is there
anyone else experiencing this same problem, and if so, what can be done
to solve it?
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

I've been getting a lot of bouncebacks from messages sent to AOL
addresses. The addresses are correct, but every bounceback contains the
identical delivery-failure message that the "host is not accepting
mail." Our tech guy told me that he already contacted Microsoft
Entourage and AOL about this, without any luck whatsoever. Is there
anyone else experiencing this same problem, and if so, what can be done
to solve it?
Click to expand...

Are you running postfix or some other mail server?

AOL will block mail originating from a server that lives on a dynamic IP
address.
 
P

Parpar

Thanks for the quick response, Barry. Our tech guy says that we don't
have Postfix, and believes that the problem lies with AOL, not
Entourage or with our servers. Every single message I've been sending
to AOL recipients has been bouncing back. It's dreadfully frustrating.
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

Hard to tell why in that case - can you post the text of a bounce message in
full?

AOL are a law unto themselves. They don't play nice on the internet at all.
 
P

Parpar

Thanks again. Here's an example of an actual bounceback message
involving my attempt to contact a colleague associated with the Helen
Keller National Center. (I've removed her other address, since it's a
more private one, and added the spaces, but you get the idea.) All of
our AOL bounceback messages are worded this way:

The following message could not be delivered to
HKNC5LJT @ aol.com at host aol.com (205.188.158.121) because the host
is not
accepting mail.
554- (RTR:BL) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbl.html


Reporting-MTA: dns; webhostgroup.net
Arrival-Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:13 -0400

Final-Recipient: rfc822; HKNC5LJT @ aol.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 554- (RTR:BL)
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbl.html


Received: from [67.51.201.62] (67.51.201.62) by webhostgroup.net with
ESMTP
(Eudora Internet Mail Server X 3.2.6); Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:13 -0400
User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.1.6.040913.0
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:11 -0400
Subject: Congratulations!
From: "Matthew S. Moore" <[email protected]>
To: <HKNC5LJT @ aol.com>
Message-ID: <C0F3D517.40EDB%[email protected]>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="B_3237205272_31143239"

When the tech guy contacted AOL to complain about the bouncebacks, he
was essentially told "We're fine, no problems here." I take it you're
not surprised.

Parpar
 
B

Barry Wainwright [MVP]

Ah, that's wonderful AOL for you.

If you follow the link in the bounce message you get this explanation:
* 554 RTR:BL
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbl.html

EXPLANATION:

This error message indicates that a block has been placed against your IP
address because we have received numerous complaints concerning mail coming
from that IP address.

SOLUTION:

Please have your ISP or server administrator contact AOL for assistance.
The mail administrator should request a feedback loop that will alert them to
reported spam from their network. You can access the Feedback Loop request
form here.

If you need additional information pleas
Click to expand...

Your ISP has been 'blackholed'

AOL used to operate an entirely automated 'Blackhole List' so that is any
AOL customer reported a message as spam, that ISP would get blackholed.
Pretty soon AOL customers were complaining they couldn't receive any mail
from most people, so they modified the routines a little, but this sort of
experience is all too common.

In my opinion, AOL is a totally incompetent ISP, and I'm sure that people
only use them because they don't know any better.


--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
Check out the Entourage User's WebLog for hints, tips and troubleshooting
<http://homepage.mac.com/barryw/weblog/weblog.html>


From: Parpar <[email protected]>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage
Date: 22 Aug 2006 15:25:25 -0700
Subject: Sample AOL bounceback text: the mystery continues!

Thanks again. Here's an example of an actual bounceback message
involving my attempt to contact a colleague associated with the Helen
Keller National Center. (I've removed her other address, since it's a
more private one, and added the spaces, but you get the idea.) All of
our AOL bounceback messages are worded this way:

The following message could not be delivered to
HKNC5LJT @ aol.com at host aol.com (205.188.158.121) because the host
is not
accepting mail.
554- (RTR:BL) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbl.html


Reporting-MTA: dns; webhostgroup.net
Arrival-Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:13 -0400

Final-Recipient: rfc822; HKNC5LJT @ aol.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 554- (RTR:BL)
http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/554rtrbl.html


Received: from [67.51.201.62] (67.51.201.62) by webhostgroup.net with
ESMTP
(Eudora Internet Mail Server X 3.2.6); Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:13 -0400
User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.1.6.040913.0
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:41:11 -0400
Subject: Congratulations!
From: "Matthew S. Moore" <[email protected]>
To: <HKNC5LJT @ aol.com>
Message-ID: <C0F3D517.40EDB%[email protected]>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="B_3237205272_31143239"

When the tech guy contacted AOL to complain about the bouncebacks, he
was essentially told "We're fine, no problems here." I take it you're
not surprised.

Parpar

Hard to tell why in that case - can you post the text of a bounce message in
full?

AOL are a law unto themselves. They don't play nice on the internet at all.

--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
Check out the Entourage User's WebLog for hints, tips and troubleshooting
<http://homepage.mac.com/barryw/weblog/weblog.html>
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
S

Scott

Parpar,
I'd bet money that this is an issue with your ISP, and not anything
with Entourage or your set up or anything you're doing. Our ISP,
DreamHost, recently got severely slapped by most of the major servers,
like AOL, because DHost had become the source of some spammers. For
awhile, about half of all of my sent emails were not getting through.
DreamHost isn't the only one, either. So it's where I'd check next.
On a side note, related to this, I found out that ones ISP (at least
with DreamHost) is willing to negotiate the maximum number of emails
they'll allow someone to send out at one time, and the max they'll
allow out per day. Once I showed them why I needed to often send out
2,000 emails a day (in bulk), they allowed it to occur.
 
P

Parpar

Thanks again, Mr. Wainwright. I appreciate your expert advice. I'll
talk to our tech guy when he returns. Meanwhile, we keep getting more
bouncebacks...it simply isn't possible to find alternative addresses
for all of our contacts.

Parpar
 
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