Mail checking very slow for anyone else?

[bagel50]

I wouldn't count on it. that has consistently been the worst thing about HG in my experience - explanations of issues. It's as if they're worried about our reactions to the fact that they couldn't figure the problem out for however long it was, as if we don't already know. The backlash from angry customers who dislike the lack of explanations ( i can remember only a few individuals from this forum, at least half of which have left) is surely far worse. I just don't understand their attitude.

Olly.

[karz10]

You might be right Olly, here was the response, 4 days later:

************************
This happens from time to time with Earthlink; we get SMTP timeouts from Earthlink servers, earthlink claims nothing's wrong, and the issue disappears on its own.

Also, as of this morning, mail has been recieved from earthlink's mail servers.

2005-08-07 18:47:31 1E1urb-0004A6-HL <= [hidden]@earthlink.net H=smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net [209.86.89.67]:42798 I=[67.19.156.130]:25 P=esmtp S=13940 id=410-22005807234638285@earthlink.net T="FW:" from <[hidden]@earthlink.net> for [hidden]@[localdomain.com]
2005-08-07 18:47:31 SMTP connection from smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net [209.86.89.67]:42798 I=[67.19.156.130]:25 closed by QUIT

This mail was delivered to the account on Chrysler with no problem.

Thanks for choosing HostGator!
************************

Ummmmmmm, yeah. That's basically what I reported to support, that EMAIL WAS WORKING AGAIN. I pointed out to them that the server time out issue w/ earthlink, and my email server issues started at approximately the same time 6 weeks ago, and were both mysteriously fixed on 8/4 and specifically asked what happened that day, and pointed out we should try to figure out how it got fixed or broken in the first place.

And all I get back is "This happens from time to time with Earthlink"

Why do support people in general, and in this case ones w/ HG, always have such linear thinking? Why can't they look at a problem from the big picture, and answer more than one question related to a problem? If I ask two questions, I should get an answer that touches on both questions. If someone that worked for me responded in such a manner, they wouldn't have a job very long, I don't understand it. I've been seeing this attitude repeatedly while dealing with this problem. I hate repeating myself, and yet I have to explain the problem several times to the same people and NEVER get a complete response.

I was/am happy that email is working again, but I can't help but still feel frustrated with the fact that no one has recognized the problem for what it was for 6 weeks, no one has apologixed to me for my time in troubleshooting or dealing with the problem, no one has thanked me for bringing it to their attention, and as you pointed out Olly, can't offer any reasonable explanation for anything.

Regards,

Karz

[karz10]

Well, I sent this to sales, since support was of no help:

****************************
Hello,

Since support is not able to answer my questions effectively, maybe someone
in sales can attempt to retain my business and respect.

I specifically asked the following questions (well, ok they were demands
made as statements in this case, since previous questions went unanswered)
in my last correspondence with support:
***********************
I would like someone to acknowledge my feelings, explain to me if they agree
with my analysis, and if not, then why they think this logic is wrong.

I would like to know if you can determine what was wrong so we can avoid
this problem in the future. I feel I have been very patient for 6 weeks, I
was trying to bear with the problems in hopes they would be fixed, I would
feel a lot better about being so patient if there was a logical explanation
and commitment to avoid this problem in the future.
***********************

And all I get back is "This happens from time to time with Earthlink..."

I'm sorry but that is not an acceptable answer. If you look at the ticket, I
clearly explain that there were two problems. One w/ the delay from the
server refreshing my IMAP folders & checking email, and another problem
where an Earthlink customer couldn't send me mail due to server time out
errors. These problems both started at the same time around 6 weeks ago, and
ended ON THE SAME DAY 8/4

David only commented on the Eathlink issue, and the problem solution was
"earthlink claims nothing's wrong, and the issue disappears on its own"

While I realize that things are hard to troubleshoot sometimes, I also
realize that 99% of the time there IS a logical explanation for seemingly
mysterious events, and simply chalking it up to the issue disappears on it's
own is not acceptable. I have not been able to receive mail for 6 weeks from
Earthlink subscribers, and I don't feel that enough attention has been
provided to this issue to even attempt to fix it. Someone should have at
least attempted to fix it on this end, OR CONTACTED EARTHLINK to jointly
work on the issue. Not doing so shows me that HG is not particularly
concerned about me as a customer.

Especially when I make significant effort to explain other problems I'm
having with accessing the email server myself during the same time period.
Which, the resolution to that problem was to ask me to go to another
location and attempt to check email from an alternate Internet circuit,
never mind the fact that I tried on 2 computers and the fact that I had 47
milliseconds round trip latency to the Chrysler server.

I was playing along until BOTH PROBLEMS WENT AWAY ON THE SAME DAY. You can't
make me believe that my alleged network issue, and Earthlink's connection
issue mysteriously went away w/ no manual or automated action on the
HG/Planet side that somehow affected both issues, on the same day after 6
weeks of consistent problems.

When I asked for someone to acknowledge my feelings, explain to me if they
agree with my analysis, and if not, why they think my logic is wrong, and
when I requested to know if you can determine what was wrong so we can avoid
the problem in the future, why can't someone respond after FIRST reading and
understanding the entire email (to comment on both problems, not just
focusing on one problem), and indicated some interest in me as a customer,
apologize for the inconvenience, tell me why or why not regarding my
analysis, and give me some indication that they'll at least attempt to
understand how the problem got fixed, rather than chalking it up to chance?

I understand how an individual's connection, computer, or some other
Internet related issue can affect the experience of your customers. But it
is your job to determine when there is a slight chance the customer might be
right and attempt to fix his problem. I feel I've demonstrated patience,
professionalism, as well as a logical case that there's a chance these 2
problems were HG's responsibility, and yet I get the brush off every time I
try to HELP YOU DIAGNOSE the problem, and get told that it's everyone else's problem, and not HG's

Please CALL ME to discuss this problem, UNLESS you have a well thought out
email response that CLEARLY ADDRESSES what went wrong, how it got fixed,
some sort of acknowledgement of my problems, if not an outright apology.

Regards,
****************************

fun, fun, fun

[karz10]

I received this on 8/8
****************
I understand your frustration. I spoke with the admin who was working on your issue and have also checked around. Nothing on our end was done to cause the problem or correct the problem. There's nothing apparent in the logs that shows mail failing on our end. We could have tried to contact earthlink to help resolve this.. but from what I've heard from techs they only really work with their "customers" when contacting their support department. It would be the customers responsibility to contact earthlink to see why mail is failing. We cannot accept all the blame on this issue. If we had caused any mail issues... then it would also affect atleast one of the other 1000+ users on the server. If there were also any fatal mail issues going on I would know about it well before today. I'm also not happy about the cold response you've received from the tech and I've also mentioned that while speaking with the tech.

Thank you for allowing me to assist you!
****************

To which I replied today...

****************************
Good day,

Thank you for your response. First, it is not an easy problem to diagnose, some users have complained as posted in my thread and through private messages to me but got the brush off as I did initially, so to say no one else is having the problem is not entirely correct, they may not be as diligent or as articulate as I am attempting to be, but to say they don't exist is a very optimistic assumption at best.

I am running some tests on the inbound email issue again to see what is happening as of today, because the delayed server response for checking mail and refreshing folders is back again as of today 8/11. So everything was working fine for 6-7 days, and now it is broken again, so I want to report that.

I will continue to test both problems on my side, but please try to see what is going on on your end and call me directly if you have any questions.

Regards,
****************************

karz

[karz10]

They replied...

***************
> OK. Please make me aware of any additional information you discover.
>
> Thank you for allowing me to assist you!
**************

And I have learned that the inbound Earthlink emails are failing again!!!!
******************************
Well, as I expected, it seems email is failing from Earthlink again. As soon as the mail server slowed down again, which affected my ability to check mail in a timely fashion, I asked someone from Earthlink to send me mail and it is not getting to me. I'm sorry but that is more than a coincidence.

Please try to figure out what's going wrong or eventually this will warrant a change for me, and I'm not looking forward to shopping for another host and changing everything. I want to stay w/ HG, and the slow email is bad enough, but as a business owner I can't continue with a service that won't keep the server running well enough to where it blocks mail from such a large ISP as Earthlink, it's just unacceptable.

Please advise,
******************************

This is crazy...

Karz

[twin-dad]

Yes, it IS crazy. Have been following your thread because I've been having some issues with how HG has recently decided to configure Exim 4.50, their mail transfer agent (MTA) on each server.

In my opinion, it all boils down to the fact that we're on shared hosting plans. Any number of other customers are on the same server box, and none of us has any way of knowing who else is doing what or how much of the server's resources they are using.

I don't know why your problems with EarthLink emails are happening or if it's related to how HG has configured the Exim MTA on your particular box.

Regardless, I'm shopping around for virtual private server (VPS) hosting. That way a set portion of the server's resources are reserved for my domains and I can configure Sendmail and SpamAssassin however I want. No more lame responses from support staff and Admins who seem not to care about the problems I'm having.

Hope this helps,

Sean

[bagel50]

be warned, though, that there is a large learning curve associated with moving to vps. you become responsible for configuring exim etc yourself. I'm running a vps in parallel, and I have found that I need to make a significant time investment into making sure that things work properly. When they get there though, it's good to have guaranteed resources and to know exactly what's going on with your server!

Olly.

[twin-dad]

Understood, bagel50, and am already making my way through a TechRepublic Linux Primer. It's been years since using the Unix CLI, so the refesher is quite welcome! The document compares groups of related Windows commands with the Linux equivalent, so it is pretty helpful.

I'm also perusing several sites for free CGI and Perl scripts so I can tweak and tune to my heart's content. I agree that the learning curve for server configuration and site tuning will be a challenge, but it'll be worth it because then I'll also be familiar with Linux. A very good thing since that's the wave of the future, imho. Over the past couple years I've chafed more and more at being held in captivity on the Micro$oft farm.

<Please, discuss hosts in apropriate forums, like WHT.
Thx, Stef>

Sean

[bagel50]

discussing other hosts... inappropriate in this, a hosting company's forum!
I'll get in contact with you another way.
Olly.

[twin-dad]

Oops, OK. Guess I'm still rather peeved with HG, but I understand.

[karz10]

Ok, so here's the latest back and forth with no resolution...

*************************

HG: Where would this e-mail be coming from? I'll check the incoming mail logs.

ME: It would be coming from xyz@mindspring.com through the earthlink
server...still hasn't gotten here yet, I know this person is busy, but
eventually they will send me the 24/48 hr no delivery responses from
Earthlink, like the ones I provided to HG support before indicating a server
time out issue...

HG: mail from that address isn't even touching our mail server.
even checking the past 48 hours I see mindspring connections.

ME: So what are you trying to say?

The mail is being sent and timing out as undeliverable.

The server worked fine for 9 months and people could send me mail for 9
months. Then we have a 6 week period where the server is slow for me and
other people can't send me mail. Then both work fine again for a week, and
now the server is slow for me again at the exact same time other people are
having problems sending me mail, that's all I'm saying.

I want to find a solution, don't you want to find a solution to both of
these problems? Don't you think it's odd that I had no problems for 9
months, then both things happened for 6 weeks, then both were fixed for a
week, and now they're both broken again?

HG: If it's timing out on their mailservers and returning undeliverable.. yet these people can access the website. This is clearly saying their mailservers are having issues. If these same people who can't email cannot also reach your website.. then that's a entirely different problem.

ME: With all due respect, are you not listening to me? I clearly stated that
there are two completely separate and distinct issues here, and they come
and go at the same time.

Issue # 1 which you are trying to explain away onto Earthlink is the
ability, or lack there of, for their users to email me.

Issue # 2 which you have not addressed at all in recent correspondence is
the fact that there are server delays for me to communicate with the server,
despite the fact I have a 47 milliseconds (round trip) connection to the
server.

The fact that you point out if people cannot access the website being an
entirely different problem is one way to look at it. However the other way
to look at it is that there isn't anything wrong w/ the 'web' server, and
there is something wrong w/ the 'email' server portion of the server. I
believe the latter is more likely in this case.

You cannot simply blame the email issues on Earthlink and the connection
issues on me when they come and go at the same time. They both are relevant
to the email servers ability to process requests, and they both come and go
at the same time, and yet the other end of each equation could not be more
different, Earthlink is having problems connecting to the mail server on
Chrysler and I am having problems connecting to the mail server on Chrysler
from completely different paths.

Will someone please accept responsibility for this problem and at least
ATTEMPT to diagnose it and fix it?!?

Maybe you can offer to move me to another server or something, if you're not
willing to fix this one?

I'm open for ideas, but my patience is wearing thin.
******************************

And I just sent like 6 failure notices from Earthlink to them as well...

How can they blindly say that a timeout issue is Earthlink's problem when A) I'm having issues w/ the server too, and B) It's probably a combination of both companies. My theory is that the Earthlink servers this user is on are set to a particular time out interval and when these on again off again problems start up on the Chrysler server, I believe that the server takes just a little too long to respond to the Earthlink server so the connection times out. In other words, I believe the email server on Chrysler is responding, but slowly, and it knocks the connection from Earthlink offline due to whatever parameters they're set at, and so when the Chrysler email server is working normally there are no problems, but when the delay kicks in again, it slows my email down and connections to other servers.

There is no way around the fact that there are two distinct problems here and that all signs point back to HG.

Karz

[karz10]

Still haven't fixed my problems, mail is still slow, still can't receive email from Earthlink...now on SPAM list again!!!



Sent to support:

 

PLEASE GET US DELISTED FROM THIS AND ANY OTHER APPLICABLE SPAM LIST
 
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=ch...=67.19.156.130
 
Query bl.spamcop.net - 67.19.156.130
   (Help) (Trace IP) (Senderbase lookup) 
67.19.156.130 listed in bl.spamcop.net (127.0.0.2)


If there are no reports of ongoing objectionable email from this system it will be delisted automatically in approximately 10 hours. 

Causes of listing
SpamCop users have reported system as a source of spam less than 10 times in the past week
Additional potential problems
(these factors do not directly result in spamcop listing)

System administrator has already delisted this system once
Because of the above problems, express-delisting is not available

Listing History
In the past 184.8 days, it has been listed 5 times for a total of 3.3 days 
Dispute Listing
If you are the administrator of this system and you are sure this listing is erroneous, you may request that we review the listing. Because everyone wants to dispute their listing, regardless of merit, we reserve the right to ignore meritless disputes. 
Dispute listing of 67.19.156.130

[karz10]

Ok, my issues are still not resolved, so I did some more testing and informed HG about it, I hope they will look into this now...............


Sent to HG:
#1 - I still cannot receive mail from earhlink.net subscribers

#2 - It still takes an incredibly long time for me to connect to my mail server

#3 - Since earthlink claims that our server times out before they can connect, and since the server almost times out for me every time I try to connect, even though I have 47 milliseconds round-trip connectivity to the server itself, my suspicion has always been that there was something wrong w/ the mail server portion, possibly a setting of some type causing a delayed response from the mail server specifically, so I did more testing. Here is my result.

I was helping a T1 customer of mine troubleshoot his connection and his in-house mail server, which reminded me of a site where you can test such things, and this is what I found when testing mail.mydomain.net:

This is from :
Getting MX record for mydomain.net (from local DNS server, may be cached)... Got it!
Host Preference IP(s) [Country]
mydomain.net. 0 my.IP.add.ress [US]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1: Try connecting to the following mailserver:
mydomain.net. - my.IP.add.ress
Step 2: If still unsuccessful, queue the E-mail for later delivery.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trying to connect to all mailservers:
mydomain.net. - my.IP.add.ress [Could not connect: Could not receive data: Operation timed out.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2000-2005 R. Scott Perry
************************************************** ****************************

So then I did a test on the domain itself and received the following:

Mail FAIL Connect to mail servers ERROR: I could not complete a connection to any of your mailservers!

mydomain.net: Timed out [Last data sent: RCPT TO: ]
If this is a timeout problem, note that the DNS report only waits about 30 seconds for responses, so your mail may work fine in this case but you will need to use testing tools specifically designed for such situations.

************************************************** *****************************

THIS HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES. Do you believe me now? And can we please address this problem?????? I realize on the second test they mention how long they wait to respond, and mail may work in this case, but my question is, how long should they have to wait???? How long should I have to wait????
Clearly this is why Earthlink claims there is a 'time out' issue when connecting to my mail server. Can you please try to figure out a way to reduce the DELAY this mail server is responding?????????????????????

-----------
Please help me HG, please.

Karz

[karz10]

HG response:

Hello,

Please check now. If still you are facing any problem regarding this issue please provide us the email address with paasword for which you are facing problem so that we can investigate it further.

Please let us know if you have any further queries we will be glad to assist you.
Warm Regards,

[karz10]

I replied:

No it is not fixed. This is an ongoing issue. My mail was fine for 9 months,
then was broken for 6 weeks, then it was fixed for about a week, and now
it's been broken again for about a month again...

As you read this response, please note, I do provide the requested accounts
at the bottom of the email, and this is a multi-part response to help you
get caught up to speed. Also keep in mind I have reported now 3 distinct
issues that all point to a server time-out issue:

1 - Take a long time for me to check email and refresh folders

2 - Earthlink subscribers can't send me email because the server times out,
or their connection times out waiting for a response from our server,
however you want to look at it

3 - Now I can confirm from an independent source that they cannot get our
server to respond in a reasonable amount of time, i.e. 30 seconds...

Currently, it takes about 20 seconds to refresh an IMAP folder, it used to
take about 1-2 seconds. Every time you click on an inbox, sent box, or any
other folder in your email client when using IMAP, it 'refreshes' that
particular folder. So when I get a new email in a given account, or I need
to check for an incoming message in a given account, or need to go to a
specific email in another folder to read, copy, or forward a msg, this
requires me to click on said folder/box, which in turn refreshes the folder,
and since it takes 20 seconds to do this, compared to 1-2 seconds, it is
quite frustrating.

Additionally, when my email client does a mail check every 15 minutes, it
now takes 6-10 MINUTES to check my email, even if no emails are there. My
download capacity from the server is very fast, but it takes 15-20 seconds
for the server to 'respond' to each request for each folder of each account.
It USED TO TAKE under 1 MINUTE to check mail for all accounts. So it takes
6-10 times longer than before.

Here are some previous tickets for your review:
[HGSupport #MRX-59077-846]
[HGSupport #ABT-91719-167]
[HGSupport #FPR-29042-836]:
[HGSupport #GHJ-76554-612]:
[HGSupport #STV-71622-934]:
[HGSupport #BCN-31627-715]:
...not necessarily in that order, but who can keep track...


Here is a thread I've documented the communication:
http://forums.hostgator.com/showthre...2&page=1&pp=25

Here is the web site which test mail and DNS issues that shows my mailserver
timing out:
http://www.dnsreport.com/

Here are the reports I generated where the mail server fails do to time out:
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/mail....o@mydomain.net
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsre...n=mydomain.net


Here is a fairly recent email failure notification from an earthlink
subscriber that I can get my hands on:
**********************
From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net>
Date: September 9, 2005 5:13:31 PM EDT
To: user@mindspring.com
Subject: Warning: message 1EDTTu-0000TV-SX delayed 24 hours

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
recipients after more than 24 hours on the queue on
smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net.

The message identifier is: 1EDTTu-0000TV-SX
The subject of the message is: Whassup?
The date of the message is: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 16:53:37 -0400

The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
me@mydomain.net
Delay reason: Connection timed out:
SMTP timeout while connected to mydomain.net [my.ip.add.ress] after MAIL
FROM:<user@mindspring.com> SIZE=2005
************************
************************************************** ************
Here are the accounts affected which I've sent to people before. Please
note, I have to have IMAP service, so these are all used as IMAP accounts.
Accounts are as follows, and servers used are mail.domain.com/net so
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, etc., the first block are all
mydomain.net, then I have 1 email account I check per secondary domain, that all
have email forwarding into them for support, sales, etc., but I was trying
to consolidate those into just one email for those domains:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The current password is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

************************************************** *************

Please call me if you have any questions.

Regards,

Karz

[karz10]

HG reply:

At present there is no such mail issues on server mails are working fine, if you are still facing problems with it then please provide IP address of your local machine and test email address and password so that we can investigate deeper and get this issue resolved as soon as possible for you.
If you have any more problems or questions please let us know.


--------------

Are you kidding me? I already gave them the test emails and pw, they obviously did not read the email response.

Here we go again...

Karz

[karz10]

So I sent:

Hello XXXX,

With all due respect, did you read my reply to XXXXX? I supplied the log in and password for all my accounts already,. or did no one bother to read my email?
--------------
No issues on the mail server? According to DNSREPORT.COM the server is timing out, so it's not just me:
mydomain.net. - my.ip.add.ress [Could not connect: Could not receive data: Operation timed out.]
--------------
So, I'm not sure what you need my IP address, but to assure you that I have ample connectivity, here is a copy of my ping report, where I have a total of 48 milliseconds ROUNDTRIP to the mydomain.NET server @ my.ip.add.ress
Target Name: www.mydomain.net
IP: my.ip.add.ress
Date/Time: 9/21/2005 3:32:44 AM

1 8 ms 8 ms [xxxxxxxxx]
2 18 ms 9 ms xxxxxxxxx[xxxxxxxxxxx]
3 9 ms 9 ms xxxxxx.com [xxxxxxxxxxxx]
4 9 ms 9 ms xxxxxxxx.xxcom [xxxxxxxxxxx]
5 9 ms 9 ms xxxxxxxxx[xxxxxxxxxxxx]
6 14 ms 14 ms xxxxxxxxxx.com [xxxxxxxxxxxx]
7 24 ms 26 ms xxxxxxxxx.net [xxxxxxxxxxxx]
8 30 ms 26 ms xxxxxxxxxxx.net [xxxxxxxxx]
9 -32764 ms 44 ms xxxxxxxxxevel3.net [xxxxxxxx]
10 -32764 ms 45 ms xxxxxxxxxxx.net [xxxxxxxxxx]
11 47 ms 49 ms [xxxxxxxxx]
12 -32764 ms 47 ms xxxxxxxx.theplanet.com [xxxxxxxxxx]
13 -32764 ms 49 ms xxxxxxxxxxx.theplanet.com [xxxxxxxx]
14 -32764 ms 49 ms xxxxxxxxxxtheplanet.com [xxxxxxx]
15 48 ms 48 ms xxxxxxxxxxcom [xxxxxxxx]

And here is the ping to the shared IP xxxxxxxxxthat hosts the mailserver @ 50 milliseconds roundtrip:
Target Name: xxxxxxx.websitewelcome.com
IP: xxxxxxxxxxx
Date/Time: 9/21/2005 3:34:35 AM

1 10 ms 9 ms 11 ms [xxxxxxxxx]
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms xxxxxxxxxxcom [xxxxxxxxx]
3 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms xxxxxxxxxcom [xxxxxxx]
4 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms xxxxxxxx.com [xxxxxxxxxx]
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms xxxxxxx.com [xxxxxxx]
6 15 ms 17 ms 17 ms xxxxxxx[xxxxxxxx]
7 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms xxxxxxx[xxxxxxxxxxxx
8 27 ms 27 ms 28 ms xxxxxxxx.net [xxxxxxxxxx]
9 46 ms -32764 ms 47 ms xxxxxxxxxnet [xxxxxxxxxx]
10 -32764 ms -32764 ms 49 ms xxxxxxxx.net [xxxxxxx]
11 50 ms 50 ms 51 ms [xxxxxxxxxx
12 -32764 ms -32764 ms 49 ms xxxxxxx.theplanet.com [xxxxxxx]
13 49 ms 49 ms 51 ms xxxxxxxtheplanet.com [xxxxxxxx]
14 51 ms 51 ms 51 ms xxxxxxxx.com [xxxxxxx]
15 50 ms 50 ms 50 ms xxxxxxxx.websitewelcome.com [xxxxxxx]
-------------------

In case you need those password and log ins for my account, or need to read
my last response again, here it is for your convenience:

No it is not fixed. This is an ongoing issue. My mail was fine for 9 months,
then was broken for 6 weeks, then it was fixed for about a week, and now
it's been broken again for about a month again...

As you read this response, please note, I do provide the requested accounts
at the bottom of the email, and this is a multi-part response to help you
get caught up to speed. Also keep in mind I have reported now 3 distinct
issues that all point to a server time-out issue:

1 - Take a long time for me to check email and refresh folders

2 - Earthlink subscribers can't send me email because the server times out,
or their connection times out waiting for a response from our server,
however you want to look at it

3 - Now I can confirm from an independent source that they cannot get our
server to respond in a reasonable amount of time, i.e. 30 seconds...

Currently, it takes about 20 seconds to refresh an IMAP folder, it used to
take about 1-2 seconds. Every time you click on an inbox, sent box, or any
other folder in your email client when using IMAP, it 'refreshes' that
particular folder. So when I get a new email in a given account, or I need
to check for an incoming message in a given account, or need to go to a
specific email in another folder to read, copy, or forward a msg, this
requires me to click on said folder/box, which in turn refreshes the folder,
and since it takes 20 seconds to do this, compared to 1-2 seconds, it is
quite frustrating.

Additionally, when my email client does a mail check every 15 minutes, it
now takes 6-10 MINUTES to check my email, even if no emails are there. My
download capacity from the server is very fast, but it takes 15-20 seconds
for the server to 'respond' to each request for each folder of each account.
It USED TO TAKE under 1 MINUTE to check mail for all accounts. So it takes
6-10 times longer than before.

Here are some previous tickets for your review:
[HGSupport #MRX-59077-846]
[HGSupport #ABT-91719-167]
[HGSupport #FPR-29042-836]:
[HGSupport #GHJ-76554-612]:
[HGSupport #STV-71622-934]:
[HGSupport #BCN-31627-715]:
...not necessarily in that order, but who can keep track...


Here is a thread I've documented the communication:
http://forums.hostgator.com/showthr...12&page=1&pp=25

Here is the web site which test mail and DNS issues that shows my mailserver
timing out:
http://www.dnsreport.com/

Here are the reports I generated where the mail server fails do to time out:
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/mail...fo@mydomain.net
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsr...in=mydomain.net


Here is a fairly recent email failure notification from an earthlink
subscriber that I can get my hands on:
**********************
From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net>
Date: September 9, 2005 5:13:31 PM EDT
To: user@mindspring.com
Subject: Warning: message 1EDTTu-0000TV-SX delayed 24 hours

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.
A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
recipients after more than 24 hours on the queue on
smtpauth07.mail.atl.earthlink.net.

The message identifier is: 1EDTTu-0000TV-SX
The subject of the message is: Whassup?
The date of the message is: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 16:53:37 -0400

The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
me@mydomain.net
Delay reason: Connection timed out:
SMTP timeout while connected to mydomain.net [my.ip.add.ress] after MAIL
FROM:<user@mindspring.com> SIZE=2005
************************
************************************************** ************
Here are the accounts affected which I've sent to people before. Please
note, I have to have IMAP service, so these are all used as IMAP accounts.
Accounts are as follows, and servers used are mail.domain.com/net so
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, etc., the first block are all
mydomain.net, then I have 1 email account I check per secondary domain, that all
have email forwarding into them for support, sales, etc., but I was trying
to consolidate those into just one email for those domains:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The current password is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

************************************************** *************

Please call me if you have any questions.

[times]

FYI -would like to report that email downloads on Eclipse have been extreemly slow for the last several days. Perhaps this issue is related to the previous posts.

[karz10]

HG Response:

Hello,

Please try this (as well as the DNS report test now), as you should find it working. Everything checks out and is working fine, but due to domain resolution configuration files, a small portion of domains weren't resolving in a reasonable amount of time and this seems to be why the connection was timing out. This should now be resolved, but please test again and confirm this on your end as well. Thank you.

[karz10]

My thankful reply:

Hello XXXX,

Well thank you for taking the time to figure this out. The last time I complained about the 6 week 'outage' they never figured out what was wrong, and it fixed itself. I tried to get them to figure out what changed, as to why it was suddenly fixed and they had no idea, so they claimed to not be responsible for it being broken, or being fixed, they said it had nothing to do with them. Then it was broken again before they could figure it out, and it's already been a month again where it was broken.

I have to wait for someone from earthlink to send me an email to test that portion of the timeout between us and earthlink (which I've already requested).

But I can report to you that the other two symptoms have been cured.

#1 DNSreport.com is now able to successfully test to an account on my domain, instead of timing out

#2 My email seems to be working well again, like it did for my first 9 months w/ HG, and a short week in between the last 2 and half months of problems.

Now, it only takes 1 second to refresh a folder, instead of 15-20. And now it only takes 69 seconds to check all my accounts, instead of 6-10 minutes. I'm back to FANTASTIC again.

I do pray that this performance will continue and that you will notify everyone on your staff what this haunting problem was, so it never happens again to me or anyone else. I was seriously considering moving elsewhere, and probably would have already if I had more time, but if all goes well, I will be here for awhile.

Thank you to you and your team for fixing this ongoing problem.

Regards,

Karz

[karz10]

HG: Hello,

Thank you for the information and your feedback. I have made notes about this issue and should this transpire again, we will have a quick means to remedy the issue. It is possible this was not the fix, but by all accounts it seemed like it would be and after making the change, it worked again immediately. The name server issue can be a mystery until you see it happen since by all accounts, unless it is at the time of testing it will appear as though everything is operating normally. Since the name resolution servers rarely fail to work (and we have redundant, multiple servers listed to fall back on), this might explain why this wasn't discovered previously--assuming that it turns out to be the case (which I believe it was at this time). However, should you experience any further issues, please let us know and we'll look into it for you promptly and ensure that this doesn't occur again. Also, let us know if the tests from Earthlink fail. Thank you.

[karz10]

This was back on 9/21 but I got busy and hadn't updated the thread, but in case anyone was following along...

**************
FYI

Just got the email from Earthlink, it looks like it fixed that issue as
well, so after the fix, all three problems went away.
************************************************** ******
----- Original Message -----
From: "user" <user@mindspring.com>
To: "me" <me@mydomain.com>
Cc: "me at home" <me@personalemail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 4:55 PM
Subject: greetings
************************************************** *********
So thanks again....

**************

So, I sent this to HG, letting them know that all three problems went away when they made the DNS tweak. This also explains why not everyone was complaining, since it was only certain domains on certain servers getting delayed DNS resolution, so every time I went to check mail, or certain servers tried to send me mail, it would take more than 30 seconds for our server to respond, which would time out the process, while other mail servers with longer time windows, would send mail normally....

So it's been a couple weeks now and ever since they changed the DNS setting, all has been well, just like it was for the first 9 months...

Karz

[Mobikob]

Just wanted to let you know you are not alone in this issue. I am having the exact same issues with service and support on the email side. I guess the only fix for this problem is finding a new host. I know I have tried way more to fix this issue han any customer should ever have to.

one very discouraged customer,
Mobikob

[karz10]

i'm sorry to hear you are having a similar problem, for what it's worth, mine is still working well ever since they made the DNS tweak I talked about....

if you really think it's similar, maybe you should direct them to this post, particularly the latest posts on this page, I asked about it and as they stated in one of their responses above, they said they made notes about my issue

also, a couple posts back, i reiterated some of my trouble ticket numbers, maybe they could cross reference the problem and resolution that i had w/ your problem and see if they can make a connection

as i said, knock on wood, all has been well now for awhile, so i'm keeping my fingers crossed

good luck...

karz

[karz10]

I guess my knock on wood didn't do me any good!!! Here we go again, hopefully they can resolve more quickly this time....

Just sent this to support:

Hi, this is happening again. My email is not working properly. There must be a DNS issue again resolving my IP within your servers, as discussed in the below email from Tim Greer where they fixed the problem back in September. Please review the below info I've provided to back up my complaint, and respond with action taken to resolve.

My email client takes 30 seconds to check each box, or 6-10 minutes to check all mail, and at least 15 seconds to refresh a folder when clicking on a new folder within the mail client.

***********************
According to dnsreport.com my mail server is timing out, just like it did before:
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/mail.ch?domain=me@mydomain.com

Getting MX record for mydomain.com (from local DNS server, may be cached)... Got it!

HostPreferenceIP(s) [Country]mydomain.com.067.19.XXX.XXX[US]

Step 1: Try connecting to the following mailserver:
bmgc.net. - 67.19.XXX.XXX
Step 2: If still unsuccessful, queue the E-mail for later delivery.


Trying to connect to all mailservers:
bmgc.net. - 67.19.XXX.XXX [Could not connect: Could not receive data: Operation timed out.]
************************

Please help me resolve this ASAP. Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Karz