Message to myself...late...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kenneth
  • Start date Start date
K

Kenneth

Howdy,

I run OL2000.

Yesterday, I had an experience that I still cannot quite believe:

On occasion, I have reason to send myself an email. Yesterday, OL
notified me of an incoming message. I opened it, saw immediately that
it was of the test sort that I sometimes send to myself, but did not
remember having sent it.

Then I looked at the date:

May 7, 2003.

This message sat somewhere for 11 months...!

I called my ISP to ask how that might happen, but, as we might expect,
they offered no insight.

Might you help me to understand this?

Thanks,
 
Look at the message headers to see where it sat. Those message headers
log the passage of an email through the various machines it traverses.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms
 
agreed... the header should list the queues that it passed through while on
the way to your inbox. sounds fishy, i've seen email delay up to a week...
but 11 months is nuts. Do you send from an exchange server? or do you use
OL with pop mail and maybe it sat on a server that was downed for a period
of time? basically i'm asking if you are in control of the smtp server?
 
Look at the message headers to see where it sat. Those message headers
log the passage of an email through the various machines it traverses.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms
Click to expand...

Hi Rob,

Here is the portion of the header that shows the "delay" but it tells
me nothing about where the message sat. Can you spot something
informative?

for (e-mail address removed); Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:58:42 -0500
Message-ID: <000001c405f7$c5a0b080$0100a8c0@kenneth00>
From: "Kenneth Sole" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 09:56:39 -0400


weird...

Thanks,
 
agreed... the header should list the queues that it passed through while on
the way to your inbox. sounds fishy, i've seen email delay up to a week...
but 11 months is nuts. Do you send from an exchange server? or do you use
OL with pop mail and maybe it sat on a server that was downed for a period
of time? basically i'm asking if you are in control of the smtp server?
Click to expand...

Hi Sonny,

I just posted the relevant part of the header, but it tells me nothing
meaningful.

To answer your other questions in order: "No", "No", and "No" <bg>

I dialup to an ISP and send via POP.

One funny aspect of all this is that when I called the ISP to see if
they had a clue I reached a tape that said that they were experiencing
"extended latency" on sending some messages from their POP servers. Of
course that would seem to be little more than a coincidence and I
suspect that the "latency" to which they refer was something
(typically) shorter than 11 months! (I realize as I am writing this
that I might be wrong. I suppose that they discovered something that
had messages hung up and posted the taped message to warn people to
expect some (very) old messages to be sent. When I spoke to a
"technician" however, he did not have a clue.)

All the best,
 
Kenneth said:
Here is the portion of the header that shows the "delay" but it tells
me nothing about where the message sat. Can you spot something
informative?

for (e-mail address removed); Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:58:42 -0500
Message-ID: <000001c405f7$c5a0b080$0100a8c0@kenneth00>
From: "Kenneth Sole" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 09:56:39 -0400
Click to expand...

Well, you didn't include all of the headers, The ones above what you
included here would have shown the problem.
 
Well, you didn't include all of the headers, The ones above what you
included here would have shown the problem.
Click to expand...

Hi Brian,

I thought that I was simplifying things...

Here's the complete list:

Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from mr07.mrf.mail.rcn.net (207.172.4.26 [207.172.4.26])
by ms05.mrf.mail.rcn.net (Mirapoint Messaging Server MOS
3.2.2-GA FastPath)
with ESMTP id EBS45624;
Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:58:51 -0500 (EST)
Received: from virtual.mrf.mail.rcn.net (virtual.mrf.mail.rcn.net
[207.172.4.103])
by mr07.mrf.mail.rcn.net (MOS 3.4.4-GR)
with ESMTP id BTG13859;
Tue, 9 Mar 2004 11:58:50 -0500 (EST)
Received: from smtp03.mrf.mail.rcn.net ([207.172.4.62])
by virtual.mrf.mail.rcn.net with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #4)
id 1B0kZ7-0003Zg-00
for (e-mail address removed); Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:58:49 -0500
Received: from dialup-67.74.201.27.dial1.manchester1.level3.net
([67.74.201.27] helo=kenneth00)
by smtp03.mrf.mail.rcn.net with smtp (Exim 3.35 #4)
id 1B0kZ0-0000IA-00
for (e-mail address removed); Tue, 09 Mar 2004 11:58:42 -0500
Message-ID: <000001c405f7$c5a0b080$0100a8c0@kenneth00>
From: "Kenneth Sole" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 09:56:39 -0400
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0005_01C3147E.F43E6330"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165


I thank you for any further information you might provide,
 
Kenneth said:
Here's the complete list:
Click to expand...

These headers seem to indicate that Level3 didn't even accept the message
until just before you received it. This would indicate that your test
message sat on your computer from May 7 until March 9 for some reason.
 
These headers seem to indicate that Level3 didn't even accept the message
until just before you received it. This would indicate that your test
message sat on your computer from May 7 until March 9 for some reason.
Click to expand...

Hi Brian,

I would not reject any thoughts on this, but would not my outbox have
indicated a "stuck" message (or some such) for those 11 months...?

Thanks,
 
Kenneth said:
I would not reject any thoughts on this, but would not my outbox have
indicated a "stuck" message (or some such) for those 11 months...?
Click to expand...

I can't explain it based on the headers, since all the dates with the
exception of the "Date" header are correct. The "Date" header is, in fact,
just data as far as SMTP mail is concerned. Mail transports neither know
nor care whether that header is there or not. They do put their own date
info in the Received headers and, since those were all recent, I don't have
any other conclusion.
 
I can't explain it based on the headers, since all the dates with the
exception of the "Date" header are correct. The "Date" header is, in fact,
just data as far as SMTP mail is concerned. Mail transports neither know
nor care whether that header is there or not. They do put their own date
info in the Received headers and, since those were all recent, I don't have
any other conclusion.
Click to expand...

Very sincere thanks Brian,
 
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