I am unable to send emails to Comcast.net. What can cause this?

[Ed Wendling]

A few weeks ago, Outlook stopped sending emails properly to Comcast.net. I
do not have trouble with any other email provider. I receive no error
messages and everything appears normal but the recipients do not receive my
email. I use Embarqmail as my ISP and am able to send emails to comcast when
I log on to my Embarqmail account online . What could possibly be causing
this?

 

[John Blessing]

A few weeks ago, Outlook stopped sending emails properly to
Comcast.net. I do not have trouble with any other email provider. I
receive no error messages and everything appears normal but the
recipients do not receive my email. I use Embarqmail as my ISP and
am able to send emails to comcast when I log on to my Embarqmail
account online . What could possibly be causing this?

Get a google mail account and see if emails from there get blocked.

Might be that Comcast have blacklisted an IP address block that includes
yours, or they might not like Embarqmail
--
John Blessing

http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com - Help Desk software
http://www.room-booking-software.com - Schedule rooms & equipment
bookings http://www.lbetoolbox.com - De-Duplicates MS Outlook
http://www.repeatmail.com - schedule mass individual emails

 

[Ed Wendling]

A few weeks ago, Outlook stopped sending emails properly to Comcast.net. I
do not have trouble with any other email provider. I receive no error
messages and everything appears normal but the recipients do not receive my
email. I use Embarqmail as my ISP and am able to send emails to comcast when
I log on to my Embarqmail account online . What could possibly be causing
this?

My problem seems to be tied to MS Outlook. When I use my wife's computer,
which is running Thunderbird, my emails go right thru. When I access
Embarqmail on the internet and write an email to a comcast recipient, they go
right thru. It is only when I write the email message in Outlook that they
are not getting thru.

 

[Ed Wendling]

Get a google mail account and see if emails from there get blocked.

Might be that Comcast have blacklisted an IP address block that includes
yours, or they might not like Embarqmail
--
John Blessing

http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com - Help Desk software
http://www.room-booking-software.com - Schedule rooms & equipment
bookings http://www.lbetoolbox.com - De-Duplicates MS Outlook
http://www.repeatmail.com - schedule mass individual emails


My problem seems to be tied to MS Outlook. When I use my wife's computer, which is running Thunderbird, my emails go right thru. When I access Embarqmail on the internet and write an email to a comcast recipient, they go right thru. It is only when I write the email message in Outlook that they are not getting thru.

 

[N. Miller]

Ed Wendling wrote:

Get a google mail account and see if emails from there get blocked.

Might be that Comcast have blacklisted an IP address block that includes
yours, or they might not like Embarqmail

It is very unlikely that the poster's IP address is listed. It is much more
likely that the Embarqmail relay server IP address is listed. At this time,
Comcast, Embarq, and MSN all have 'nlpi015.prodigy.net', and
'nlpi029.prodigy.net' blocked, but none of the other 'nlpi0xx.prodigy.net'
mail servers that I can tell. Comcast blocks Embarq, Hotmail blocks Comcast,
and all three block AT&T. That is just the way email works, today, so long
as spammers can successfully hijack computers, for use as mail hosts, and
email accounts, for authenticating to ISP message submission servers.

 

[N. Miller]

"Ed Wendling" wrote:

My problem seems to be tied to MS Outlook. When I use my wife's computer,
which is running Thunderbird, my emails go right thru. When I access
Embarqmail on the internet and write an email to a comcast recipient, they go
right thru. It is only when I write the email message in Outlook that they
are not getting thru.

There is nothing specific about Outlook, itself, that would be a problem.
OTOH, if you are attaching a signature with a URL in it, that could be a
problem.

 

[Ed Wendling]

There is nothing specific about Outlook, itself, that would be a problem.
OTOH, if you are attaching a signature with a URL in it, that could be a
problem.

I do use a signature with a URL in it and have for a long time. I will
remove that URL and see if that helps. Thanks for the tip.
What is even more ridiculous is that I can send successfully to Comcast if I
use Outlook Express - same computer, same settings and no problems.

 

[Ed Wendling]

There is nothing specific about Outlook, itself, that would be a problem.
OTOH, if you are attaching a signature with a URL in it, that could be a
problem.

Itried it without the signature but had the same results. Here is something
really bizzare: I opened Outlook Express and set up an email account exactly
as I have it set in MS Outlook and it works just fine. Do you think there is
any benefit in reinstalling MS Outlook? Perish the thought!

 

[Brian Tillman]

Itried it without the signature but had the same results. Here is
something really bizzare: I opened Outlook Express and set up an
email account exactly as I have it set in MS Outlook and it works
just fine. Do you think there is any benefit in reinstalling MS
Outlook? Perish the thought!

It is unlikely that a reinstallation would affect this issue.

What exactly happens to the messages? You said what doesn't happen, but the
absence of a symptom can't be used to diagnose a problem. You can't, for
example, tell your doctor your knee doesn't hurt if you wish him or her to
diagnose a pain in your elbow. Exactly what are you doing? when you click
Send, does the message go to the Outbox? Do you get any errors (and if so,
exactly what do they say)? When you click Send/Receive, do the messages
move to the Sent Items folder? Do you get and non-delivery reports? What
version of Outlook? Since you mention Comcast, can we assume your account
is a POP/SMTP account? Are you specifying a Comcast server for the incoming
and outgoing servers? How about for the domain of the mail address?

 

[Ed Wendling]

It is unlikely that a reinstallation would affect this issue.

What exactly happens to the messages? You said what doesn't happen, but the
absence of a symptom can't be used to diagnose a problem. You can't, for
example, tell your doctor your knee doesn't hurt if you wish him or her to
diagnose a pain in your elbow. Exactly what are you doing? when you click
Send, does the message go to the Outbox? Do you get any errors (and if so,
exactly what do they say)? When you click Send/Receive, do the messages
move to the Sent Items folder? Do you get and non-delivery reports? What
version of Outlook? Since you mention Comcast, can we assume your account
is a POP/SMTP account? Are you specifying a Comcast server for the incoming
and outgoing servers? How about for the domain of the mail address?

I'll take them one at a time but understand I am 40 yr computer professional
and have been using MS Office and Outlook for about 20 years.
The problem is that there is no apparent problem. It is of course POP/SMTP.
However, I am not a Comcast user so my servers , in and out, are Embarqmail
and have been for at least 3 years. My problem is in sending to Comcast
users and it only recently started - last 4 or 5 weeks. I have no problem in
receiving from them. The problem I have in answering many of your questions
is that my problem is symptomless. Outbound goes thru the Outbox and appears
to be sent. It appears in my sent mail folder. Zero failure or error
messages of any kind. It just does not arrive at its destination and is not
sitting in my Embarqmail Outbox either. To simplify my response I just
installed Thunderbird on my computer and set up the email accounts with the
same exact settings I have in MS Outlook and the mail goes thru just as it
should. I'm running MS Office/Outlook 2003 home edition and have been ever
since it hit the market. When I send emails to a distribution list, people
on that list who have comcast email addresses do not receive the emails -
non-comcast users receive it just fine. I know this because I have been
verifying with them both via email and telephone in trying to diagnose what
is going on. The problem is not limited to distribution lists however.

I wish I could be more helpful but as you suggest I am not telling you my
knee is fine when in fact it is my elbow hurts. There are only two known
symptoms and they are 1) it is only comcast users who are affected, 2) mail
does not arrive at it's destination for these users. One last thing, when I
receive an email from a comcast user and do a reply, it is not received
either so it is not that I am typing in a bogus email address.

 

[Brian Tillman]

It appears in my sent mail folder.

This is a fairly reliable indicator that, in fact, your messages are being
delivered to the mail server. Only when Outlook receives the
acknowledgement from the server at the end of the SMTP transaction that the
message has been accepted by the server does Outlook move it from the Outbox
to Sent Items. Your SMTP server is failing to route the message on to the
next hop in the chain. You can prove this to yourself by enabling
diagnostic logging and seeing the completion of the SMTP session.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300479/en-us Your beef, then, is with the
people who run whatever SMTP server your account uses.

 

[Ed Wendling]

This is a fairly reliable indicator that, in fact, your messages are being
delivered to the mail server. Only when Outlook receives the
acknowledgement from the server at the end of the SMTP transaction that the
message has been accepted by the server does Outlook move it from the Outbox
to Sent Items. Your SMTP server is failing to route the message on to the
next hop in the chain. You can prove this to yourself by enabling
diagnostic logging and seeing the completion of the SMTP session.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300479/en-us Your beef, then, is with the
people who run whatever SMTP server your account uses.

Where that appears to breakdown is the fact that I am also running
Thunderbird on my computer - I just installed it yesterday. It uses the same
SMTP server, SMTP.Embarqmail.com, as does MS Outlook and it works just fine.
I will do as you suggest but now you can see where the frustration comes in
on my part. What appears to work correctly is not! Why is something that is
being sent to that server by MS Outlook failing and something being sent to
that same server by Thunderbird working just fine? Hence my frustration.

 

[Ed Wendling]

This is a fairly reliable indicator that, in fact, your messages are being
delivered to the mail server. Only when Outlook receives the
acknowledgement from the server at the end of the SMTP transaction that the
message has been accepted by the server does Outlook move it from the Outbox
to Sent Items. Your SMTP server is failing to route the message on to the
next hop in the chain. You can prove this to yourself by enabling
diagnostic logging and seeing the completion of the SMTP session.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300479/en-us Your beef, then, is with the
people who run whatever SMTP server your account uses.

You are correct. I ran logging and the messages for both Comcast and any
other provider are being sent to the Embarq server in identical fashion with
a status of being completed.
I will be on the horn with Embarq in the morning.
By the way, I don't have a beef with anyone. I just had a problem and being
that it is a multi vendor issue, like most are, I was being passed from pilar
to post without anyone taking ownership. You know what that is like I am
sure.
Thanks for the help.

 

[Brian Tillman]

By the way, I don't have a beef with anyone.

I didn't mean to imply I thought you were angry at anyone. Poor word choice
on my part, perhaps.

 

[Ed Wendling]

I didn't mean to imply I thought you were angry at anyone. Poor word choice
on my part, perhaps.

After informing my Embarq guy this morning about what the log records show,
he said that just proves that the SMTP server is working just fine and the
problem is in all likelihood still in Outlook. Now you can get a sense of my
frustration. I will be calling Embarq later to see if I can chat with a
supervisor. The problem still could be further downstream in that Comcast
could be rejecting these messages but in the meantime, I am screwed.

 

[Brian Tillman]

After informing my Embarq guy this morning about what the log records
show, he said that just proves that the SMTP server is working just
fine and the problem is in all likelihood still in Outlook.

Huh? If his server accepted the message and then is failing to forward it
on, how could that possibly be an Outlook issue? He could at least look in
the server logs to see what happens to the message after the server accepts
it and, perhaps, examine the message data to see if it looks correct as its
on the server.

 

[Ed Wendling]

Huh? If his server accepted the message and then is failing to forward it
on, how could that possibly be an Outlook issue? He could at least look in
the server logs to see what happens to the message after the server accepts
it and, perhaps, examine the message data to see if it looks correct as its
on the server.

That is the kind of flawed logic I keep running into with them and hence my
frustration. You don't have to be an IT guy to know that if someone receives
something and then it disappears, they somehow lost what they received. duh!

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

: That is the kind of flawed logic I keep running into with them and hence
my
: frustration. You don't have to be an IT guy to know that if someone
receives
: something and then it disappears, they somehow lost what they received.
duh!

Well, at least you know it's not an Outlook problem if their server is
accepting the email.

 

[Ed Wendling]

: That is the kind of flawed logic I keep running into with them and hence
my
: frustration. You don't have to be an IT guy to know that if someone
receives
: something and then it disappears, they somehow lost what they received.
duh!

Well, at least you know it's not an Outlook problem if their server is
accepting the email.

YEP!

 

[N. Miller]

"Brian Tillman" wrote:

That is the kind of flawed logic I keep running into with them and hence my
frustration. You don't have to be an IT guy to know that if someone receives
something and then it disappears, they somehow lost what they received. duh!

Embarq does need to look at their logs; but it may still be disappearing at
the Comcast end. Without detailed logging enabled, my server shows the
following:

| T 20080813 182433 7cc Begin processing job MO00003E from %User_ID%@hupkid.us
| T 20080813 182445 7cc Job MO00003E from %User_ID%@hupkid.us processed OK.

I know that this is the transaction between Mercury/32 (my MTA) and
'mail.pacbell.net'. My server handed off to ATTIS successfully. What happens
next depends upon ATTIS *and* the gateway mail server for the destination.

The administrator at Embarq should have similar logs to the ones I am
showing; depending upon which application they are using (probably not
Mercury/32).

I know nothing about how MS Outlook works. Pegasus Mail does not show a
Message-ID string for email in the "Copies to self" folder (same as MS
calles, "Sent Items" in Outlook Express; again, don't know about Outlook).

I'd have to Cc: myself, and check the Cc:'d account to get the Message-ID
string. What you would be looking for is something like this:

| Message-ID: <[email protected]>

Which I would pass to the Yahoo! Mail administrator, or this:

| Message-ID: <[email protected]>

Which I would use to check my own server logs.