confusing email problem

Hi,

I keep having a problem with emails failing whenever I use a certain client's template (its a word doc with 2 or 3 lines - nothing major or complicated).

I am using an alias to send through my domain name to go to my primary zen email address.
for example ([email protected] forwards to [email protected])
whenever I send an email using this client's document it bounces failed delivery notice from their mail server but I am not sure why. I have just been told that I am the only person this happens to and nobody else

I need to try and find out if its Zen, my domain or their email provider causing the bounce and how to rectify it. I am guessing it is something within that word document that one of the servers does not like but I'm no expert and I could be completley wrong LOL

Does anyone know how I can find out any of the above at all pls?

TIA
Helan

There are several possibilities here.

You don't say so, but does your email go to a long recipient list (e.g. it's a mailer type email) and the number of recipients is causing rejection at the sending end (Zen's mail server is refusing to send your email due to this)?

Secondly, could be a reverse check on the sender: I can't quite work out what you're doing when you say it forwards (aliases are normally on the receiving end, not the sending end) but if you are sending it as helan.co.uk you need to check the DNS for your domain name includes the Zen mail server. Otherwise the receiver might do a reverse check, find that the mail server for helan.co.uk is at your website host, not @ Zen, and then bounce it back.

Thirdly it could indeed be the content of the template - if it's HTML produced in Word, that may well explain it

Look at one of your bounce back messages and see what the specific reason is. If no joy there look in the headers of the bounce back notification to see if there's a line in there stating the reason.

Hi Mark

Thank you for the reply

Email only goes to 1 recipient, I send all day long to them various emails/templates/work etc and nothing ever bounces but this 1 email. It had (this time) approximatley 9 attachments all small but sometimes its 2 attachments sometimes 1.

okay Im probably going to confuse you now but my email address to/for this particular client is [email protected], so I ask my domain to fwd any mail to that email address to my primary zen address (hidden from my client). I then receive it in Thunderbird and have a rule so any mail to/from that client goes direclty into a specific folder.

I did find some part of the failed message saying it was their server that had rejected it but it didn't say why below is what it said::

Reporting-MTA: dns;mail.sandg.co.uk
Received-From-MTA: dns;smarthost02.mail.zen.net.uk
Arrival-Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 14:36:08 +0100
Final-Recipient: rfc822;[email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.2.3
X-Display-Name: Supervisor

I can't work out anything from the headers/source it confuses me no end LOL sorry!!

I dont *think* there is HTML in the word document but I wouldn't know how to check that. What is weird/strange is that others who use same template can send back no problem, its just me that they have this problem with

In reply to a post by MarkHampshire:

There are several possibilities here.

You don't say so, but does your email go to a long recipient list (e.g. it's a mailer type email) and the number of recipients is causing rejection at the sending end (Zen's mail server is refusing to send your email due to this)?

Secondly, could be a reverse check on the sender: I can't quite work out what you're doing when you say it forwards (aliases are normally on the receiving end, not the sending end) but if you are sending it as helan.co.uk you need to check the DNS for your domain name includes the Zen mail server. Otherwise the receiver might do a reverse check, find that the mail server for helan.co.uk is at your website host, not @ Zen, and then bounce it back.

Thirdly it could indeed be the content of the template - if it's HTML produced in Word, that may well explain it

Look at one of your bounce back messages and see what the specific reason is. If no joy there look in the headers of the bounce back notification to see if there's a line in there stating the reason.

Making a few assumptions here, but assuming the receiving MTA (mail transport agent) is an Exchange server, then the error code (ie. Status 5.2.3) would suggest the email being sent is too large:

Exchange Error 5.2.3: "Recipient cannot receive messages this big. Server or connector limit exceeded."

It may be worth trying to split the attachments up, or try one attachment per message, just to check...

523 is "too large", I think. In other words the message, with attachments, is larger than they are permitted to receive.

Paul

Hi Dan & Paul

Thank you so much, that is exactly the problem, attachments were too big. I did a test this morning sending all attachments individually and no bounce/failed error messages yaaaaay

thank you both very much, will send individually from now on, PITA but needs must

If no one else has this problem, might this suggest that you are processing some of the attachments in a way that leads to bigger files than other people generate? E.g. non-optimal image formats, that kind of thing; hard to say more without knowing what they are.

Paul

In reply to a post by pwhodges:

If no one else has this problem, might this suggest that you are processing some of the attachments in a way that leads to bigger files than other people generate? E.g. non-optimal image formats, that kind of thing; hard to say more without knowing what they are.

Paul

Sorry for delay Paul, I didn't get an email to say someone had posted a reply!!!

Its all sorted now, it was the company's template that was the problem it had huge graphics in it apparently taken away and it all sends fine now