Emails being blocked by NTL

[jdogsbody]

Although I seem to be getting mail to NTL addresses from my wanadoo address at long last,( I assume so, as none have been returned to me for a couple of weeks now), it would appear that not all receipts for mail are getting back to me from at least one of my NTL contacts. So it would appear thay there may still be a problem somewhere in the system.

I believe NTL were rather slated on "Watchdog" a while ago - perhaps a few more letters to them, or "Which" , would bring to the public view the problems that NTL subscribers, and those who deal with them, have encountered over the last few months.

AS Guygamps rightly points out, many people may have been totally unaware of this problem and will have possibly missed important emails. The only reason I knew mail wasn`t getting through was because 2 of the people I e-mail on a regular basis are with NTL.
I`m not saying wanadoo are brilliant, but a definite for NTL based on recent events!

[simbr]

I seem the recall that receipts from outlook don't work on ntl, iirc the receipts are sent with a sender of <> which the mail server rejects.

[Halcyon]

FINALLY !, I seem to be receiving E-mail from Wanadoo again.
Whoever sorted this problem out a big to you.
Let's hope this issue is sorted.

[jackclare]

A year ago I congratulated myself that NTL had been persuaded to sort out the problem of emails from the French Freeserve (Wanadoo) server and last week, foolishly, deleted the emails involved. It looks now as though I must go through the whole question again. Emails from Wanadoo are again being blocked to NTL. I hesitate to send messages again to NTL because the answer will come back ' it is a problem for Wanadoo to sort out, not ours' Wanadoo will say 'it is NTL doing the blocking so they must sort it out' Does either of these firms feel any responsibility towards customers?
Perhaps we should revert to pigeon post!
Does anybody have any ideas on what to do - perhaps knocking of heads together would be of benefit - if we could find the heads.

[frankkinghorn]

NTL seem to be adopting a most dishonoarable practice of blocking e-mails from other ISP's in a rotational basis, presumably to get them a bad name and to get their customers to change to NTL! I've had various friends affected by this over the past 6 months and going into even the NTL forum gives no answer when I insert the error messages my friends hhave been receiving. A recent example is "Error 421". Maybe the answer is to move from NTL!!

[jackclare]

I hesitate to subscribe to the idea that the blocking is deliberate, it is more likely to be a matter of incompetence but even that is a little strong, possibly it could be ascribed to something in the nature of children squabbling. It looks as though I will have to start my badgering again, last time it seemed to get results. First of all it was not a matter for NTL, then a problem was acknowledged, then the engineers were working on it, then it was cleared(3 weeks I think). Since then the amount of spam has increased again so NTL will be blaming Wanadoo but after all it is the blocking firm paid by NTL that will have put the mockers on so why cannot NTL tell them to take the block off? Oh me, oh my these things are sent to try us and they do!!

[nedsram]

Originally Posted by frankkinghorn

NTL seem to be adopting a most dishonoarable practice of blocking e-mails from other ISP's in a rotational basis, presumably to get them a bad name and to get their customers to change to NTL! I've had various friends affected by this over the past 6 months and going into even the NTL forum gives no answer when I insert the error messages my friends hhave been receiving. A recent example is "Error 421". Maybe the answer is to move from NTL!!

Whilst it's a nice conspiracy theory, the truth is much more prosaic - if no less frustrating. NTL ignore all email which has originated from, or passed through, a host registered on either of two databases of hosts known to relay "spam". One is SORBS. ISPs can get their hosts removed from the SORBS database, but they will reappear if more spam appears.

Recently Yahoo! has been intermittently blacklisted, which is a pain for many of us who are registered with Yahoo! forums - and in at least one case a forum moderator!

But why should NTL "Play god"? I still get masses of spam (80% of which is intercepted by NTL). So there are two issues. First, that there is no way that NTL can prevent spam (any more than anybody else can). Second, they have filters in place which can trap most of it in any case. So why ruin the email service for thousands of people, by reducing it to little more than a lottery? What if somebody sends me something urgent, and NTL decide that because it "could be spam", they will just ignore it? And now many other such emails have NTL thrown away which I am unaware of?

[Toto]

Originally Posted by nedsram

Whilst it's a nice conspiracy theory, the truth is much more prosaic - if no less frustrating. NTL ignore all email which has originated from, or passed through, a host registered on either of two databases of hosts known to relay "spam". One is SORBS. ISPs can get their hosts removed from the SORBS database, but they will reappear if more spam appears.

Recently Yahoo! has been intermittently blacklisted, which is a pain for many of us who are registered with Yahoo! forums - and in at least one case a forum moderator!

But why should NTL "Play god"? I still get masses of spam (80% of which is intercepted by NTL). So there are two issues. First, that there is no way that NTL can prevent spam (any more than anybody else can). Second, they have filters in place which can trap most of it in any case. So why ruin the email service for thousands of people, by reducing it to little more than a lottery? What if somebody sends me something urgent, and NTL decide that because it "could be spam", they will just ignore it? And now many other such emails have NTL thrown away which I am unaware of?

They don't use SORBS anymore, they use Spamcop and continue to use Spamhaus.

[jackclare]

I wonder if we are being a little harsh on NTL. This morning the floodgate seemed to open with emails coming through from Wanadoo. I saw that there were some planned outages last weekend-could this have been the reason? It should be noted that these outages did not seem to cover the regions I was concerned with. I believe that the problem started early last week so far as the south of England was concerned . Incompetence? or lack of concern for users?
Will we ever be able to find a reliable way of sending messages?
I made a mistake in an earlier posting when I said that I had been involved with the same problem a year ago - it was earlier this year - time flies.

[nedsram]

Originally Posted by jackclare

I wonder if we are being a little harsh on NTL. This morning the floodgate seemed to open with emails coming through from Wanadoo. I saw that there were some planned outages last weekend-could this have been the reason? It should be noted that these outages did not seem to cover the regions I was concerned with. I believe that the problem started early last week so far as the south of England was concerned . Incompetence? or lack of concern for users?
Will we ever be able to find a reliable way of sending messages?
I made a mistake in an earlier posting when I said that I had been involved with the same problem a year ago - it was earlier this year - time flies.

What happens when NTL ignores an email is that the sender will assume that the NTL mail host is down, and will retry - usually at intervals of a day - until either it finally gets through, or the sender finally gives up. If during this time, the sender (or possibly an intermediate relay, which probably explains the geographical effect) gets removed from the blacklist, it's likely that several emails originally sent several days ago will finally be accepted, so you will see a "cluster" of them. However older ones which have already timed out are lost for good. Look at the sent timestamp of the emails. I bet that some were first sent days ago. It happens to me regularly with emails from Yahoo! Groups.

In the case of Yahoo! Groups, it keeps track of the number of "bounced" emails, and after a while flags you as having a "bouncing email address". It then stops sending any emails at all until you reply to an "unbounce" email - which of course you may also never receive!

As for SORBS, I stand corrected but the same principle applies. While NTL persists with this policy, its email service is fundamentally flawed - perhaps even unfit for purpose - as you will silently lose an unknown number of emails. However I've banged on about this before, so I'll leave it at that.

[hatedbythemail]

Originally Posted by nedsram

While NTL persists with this policy, its email service is fundamentally flawed - perhaps even unfit for purpose - as you will silently lose an unknown number of emails. However I've banged on about this before, so I'll leave it at that.

agreed. i had this row with them some time ago and now figure the only way the message will get through is if i finally bite the bullet and ditch ntl. if i do, they'll lose the telly and phones, denying them of monthly revenue from me of circa £150-£180 per month. given broadband is looking less and less of a bargain with each day that passes its looking highly likely.

so if any ntl honchos are watching on, have a think. i suspect i am not the only one fed up with intermittent loss of a trustworthy email service.

[jdogsbody]

Originally Posted by nedsram

In the case of Yahoo! Groups, it keeps track of the number of "bounced" emails, and after a while flags you as having a "bouncing email address". It then stops sending any emails at all until you reply to an "unbounce" email - which of course you may also never receive!

Is it, then, that the recipients of my emails from wanadoo/orange are to blame for not replying to my emails (the ones that get through, that is!) on a regular basis???

I am getting mail returned again after 3 days or so - I have no way of knowing if they`ve reached their intended destination until I have a reply- or a return.

I`ve been able to get mail through by sending messages via ebay, bluemountain cards, etc - and the odd stray one has found its way through - but it really is a ridiculous situation in this day and age when technology is supposed to be so advanced! Perhaps we should go back to phone calls and snail mail!!

[nedsram]

Originally Posted by jdogsbody

Is it, then, that the recipients of my emails from wanadoo/orange are to blame for not replying to my emails (the ones that get through, that is!) on a regular basis???

I am getting mail returned again after 3 days or so - I have no way of knowing if they`ve reached their intended destination until I have a reply- or a return.

I`ve been able to get mail through by sending messages via ebay, bluemountain cards, etc - and the odd stray one has found its way through - but it really is a ridiculous situation in this day and age when technology is supposed to be so advanced! Perhaps we should go back to phone calls and snail mail!!

You are seeing the same symptoms, which suggests that either NTL itself is blacklisted, or a relay the email message passes through is blacklisted. Whilst it's likely that a relay is to blame (so traffic in both directions through it will be affected), it would be ironic indeed if the people blacklisting email hosts were themselves on the blacklist! I've had emails from beeb.com dumped because a Demon relay the messages passed through was on the blacklist. The Beeb's fault of course.

The reason that some occasionally get through is probably to do with the route the message takes - i.e. occasionally it isn't routed via the blacklisted relay. But as you say, it does make a complete mockery of the email system. The ten or so spam emails NTL traps and puts in my spam folder every day get through unscathed, whilst genuine emails are thrown away "because a computer somewhere on the route it took has been forwarding spam". So as well as wrecking the email system, it doesn't even stop spam. And how do you define spam in the first place? I've had perfectly genuine emails from people in my address book dumped in the spam folder by NTL before now.

No win for NTL, really, not to defend them, but trying to be realistic, previously people complained when any mail was let through, whether it was spam, full of nasties, whatever. Now they try to filter it & people still complain.

One thing is for sure, people consider their email to be much more important than NTL do. As far as NTL are concerned it is just part of the overall service, and, as such, has no guarantee or SLA.

I'd be interested to hear if any other ISP has a SLA for email on domestic accounts, as I'm of the impression that they are all pretty much the same??

[nedsram]

Originally Posted by homealone

No win for NTL, really, not to defend them, but trying to be realistic, previously people complained when any mail was let through, whether it was spam, full of nasties, whatever. Now they try to filter it & people still complain.

I'm not complaining about the filtering. They provide a spam folder and you can log in via webmail and decide which if any you want keeping. This Spamhaus thing isn't filtering. It's blanket rejection of emails from certain sources regardless of content. There's a big difference!

Worth adding that I have never once had a spam email from Yahoo!, so they are shooting at the wrong target anyway. The email protocols are so insecure, and there are so many compromised PCs out there spewing out spam with forged headers, that it's difficult if not impossible to figure out where the spam originated from. The only way to ensure that no spam is received is to block everything from everywhere. Either that or introduce decent email protocols with proper authentication.