slow mail

Host a domain through zen and am experiencing a lag on SOME emails (notably those from Germany and Norway and from Tiscali customers in the UK) - up to a day in some cases. Just wondered if anyone else is having probs?

Thanks

Your right, i just sent myself 3 emails from some various free providers i use *hotmail etc* and they took a good 5mins too get to my zen dsl email inbox.

Normaly its near instant. They all arrived tho as long as they do in the end i wouldn't worry servers prolly abit backed up or something.

Blackmsa8

You can look through the Received headers to see where the delay occurs

Zen have a problem with sending email. Reminds me of my time with PN(:

Sample headers from a delayed email sent to a non Zen account. 3.5hour delay between pythagoras and doppler.

for [email protected]; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:54:35 +0000
Received: from [212.23.3.140] (helo=pythagoras.zen.co.uk)
by doppler.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1H9j3T-00036V-IJ
for [email protected]; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:24:51 +0000
Received: from [82.71.57.89] (helo=Spica.milpower.co.uk)
by pythagoras.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1H9iyb-0000L1-HN; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:19:51 +0000

Perhaps pythagoras in some sort of time warp? It appears from your headers that pythagoras received the email before it was sent!

(yes I know it's because the clocks aren't sync'd, I was only joking....)

why ?

each SMTP hop will add his comments on top of the header...

We use a split system for sending email. If the mailhosts (pythagoras, heisenberg and rutheford) can't immediately send an email to the remote site they off-load it on to two "queue-only" hosts (fizeau and doppler).

Pythagoras received that email at 14:19 and 5 minutes later (after a connection timeout) handed it over to doppler. Doppler then took 3 hrs 30 to get a connection to the remote server. I can't find anything obvious in the logs (I've VPNed in whilst writing this to check) to say where the delay came from. The queues on that box are currently small, so that should have no effect.

If people see this happening a lot let us know and we'll see if there's something going on that we don't see through our normal monitoring.

What is the missing top section of this? You've got the part where it's received from the sender with 82.71.57.89 passing it to Pythagoras at 14:19. You then have Doppler receiving it from Pythagoras at 14:24.

The next server in the chain then doesn't put it's stamp on it until 17:54 - what is that server? Can you post the entire headers so we can see where the delay is occurring?

Just to break it down, as I believe you're reading the headers incorrectly:

Received: from [82.71.57.89] (helo=Spica.milpower.co.uk)

This is the source.

by pythagoras.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50)

This is the server taking the mail from the source.

id 1H9iyb-0000L1-HN;

This is the unique message ID assigned to the e-mail.

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:19:51 +0000

This is the time of the transaction between 82.71.57.89 and Pythagoras.

The top line of the sample you have quoted: for [email protected]; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:54:35 +0000 is therefore the end of a transaction that you are not showing in it's entirety.

regards,
Phil.

As requested. The email was a copy sent back to myself for filing. easymedia host web and provide mail for one of my companies. I send via mailhost.zen. This is the only delayed email I've had today so I have no obvious problem with easymedia.

Delivery-date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:54:35 +0000
Received: from [212.23.3.27] (helo=doppler.zen.co.uk)
by hs10.easymediasolutions.com with esmtp (Exim 4.63)
(envelope-from <[email protected]>)
id 1H9mKR-0008E6-F9
for [email protected]; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:54:35 +0000
Received: from [212.23.3.140] (helo=pythagoras.zen.co.uk)
by doppler.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1H9j3T-00036V-IJ
for [email protected]; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:24:51 +0000
Received: from [82.71.57.89] (helo=Spica.xxx.co.uk)
by pythagoras.zen.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
id 1H9iyb-0000L1-HN; Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:19:51 +0000
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.1.0.9
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:19:47 +0000