Delayed Emails: NTL or BT's Fault?

28-01-2005, 16:48

OK, this afternoon I've received two emails from a friend that were sent from her btconnect address on Wednesday afternoon/evening. They arrived in my inbox, not tucked away with Wednesday's arrivals, but amidst today's. One was sent at 2.03 Wednesday and arrived with me at 15.57 today. Is there a way I can trace where the delay occurred or is there someone far brighter than me who can explain how and why it happened. Rest of my emails as far as I can tell are arriving OK.

Cheers for any advice

Andy

danielf · 28-01-2005, 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by andyl

OK, this afternoon I've received two emails from a friend that were sent from her btconnect address on Wednesday afternoon/evening. They arrived in my inbox, not tucked away with Wednesday's arrivals, but amidst today's. One was sent at 2.03 Wednesday and arrived with me at 15.57 today. Is there a way I can trace where the delay occurred or is there someone far brighter than me who can explain how and why it happened. Rest of my emails as far as I can tell are arriving OK.

Cheers for any advice

Andy

If you look at the long headers (in OE, select the message, then view - properties (i think, I'm not at a pc now)), you can see how the message was relayed. This also gives you a time stamp, which should show you where it was delayed.

nostra · 28-01-2005, 16:58

e.g.

Received: from ics0037.ics.ntlworld.com (vip.tvc.ntl.com [212.250.7.7])
by nostrais.co.uk (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j0SJGmDV115089
for <xxx@xxx.xx.xx>; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:23:48 GMT
Received: from ntlworld.co.uk ([172.19.75.38]) by ics0037.ics.ntlworld.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.5.1877.537.53);
Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:23:48 +0000
From: <xxx@xxx.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:23:48 +0000

28-01-2005, 17:19

Cheers good folk. Gotta dash now but I'll do as told later.

Have a good weekend.

28-01-2005, 18:09

OK......

Return-Path: <xxxxxxxxxxxx@btconnect.com>
Received: from aamta01-winn.mailhost.ntl.com ([212.250.162.8])
by mta09-winn.mailhost.ntl.com with ESMTP
id <20050128144902.LXQI29900.mta09-winn.mailhost.ntl.com@aamta01-winn.mailhost.ntl.com>
for <xxxxxxx@ntlworld.com>; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:49:02 +0000
Received: from dswu83.btconnect.com ([193.113.154.14])
by aamta01-winn.mailhost.ntl.com with SMTP
id <20050128144901.LWPL15415.aamta01-winn.mailhost.ntl.com@dswu83.btconnect.com>
for <xxxxxxx@ntlworld.com>; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:49:01 +0000
Received: from administrator5 (actually host 136.202.133.81.in-addr.arpa) by dswu83.btconnect.com with SMTP-CUST (XT-PP) with ESMTP; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:15:46 +0000
Message-ID: <003501c503d4$b4e56610$88ca8551@build.msft>
From: "Reservations@Juniper" <cxxxxxxx@btconnect.com>
To: "Andy XXXXXX" <XXXXXXX@ntlworld.com>
References: <008d01c503cb$9c437c40$020ba8c0@laptop>
Subject: Re: Insider Mag
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:27:25 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_002E_01C503D4.AF4C7220"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441
X-NAS-Classification: 0
X-NAS-MessageID: 8235
X-NAS-Validation: {F96A58C9-9C77-491E-A6E0-FE373539DCCE}

Bearing in mind I'm a bit thick.... a translation please!

Dashing again. I'll check in later. Thanks again.

nostra · 28-01-2005, 18:21

from the looks of it sent on...

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:27:25 -0000

Received: from dswu83.btconnect.com ([193.113.154.14])
for <xxxxxxx@ntlworld.com>; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:49:02 +0000

according to that the btconnect server received the message from the person who sent it on the 26th 18:27

and ntl's mail server did not receive it from the btconnect server till
14.49 today

danielf · 28-01-2005, 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by nostra

from the looks of it sent on...

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 18:27:25 -0000

Received: from dswu83.btconnect.com ([193.113.154.14])
for <xxxxxxx@ntlworld.com>; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:49:02 +0000

according to that the btconnect server received the message from the person who sent it on the 26th 18:27

and ntl's mail server did not receive it from the btconnect server till
14.49 today

Which unfortunately does not tell you if BT's server failed to send it, or if NTL's server failed to receive it.

soneill · 28-01-2005, 20:08

According to the NTL status page there was a problem with NTL's email this afternoon. I don't know if there is any way of checking whether your email was affected by this but I suspose it is possible.

28-01-2005, 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

Which unfortunately does not tell you if BT's server failed to send it, or if NTL's server failed to receive it.

Bugger, that was the way I read it but I presumed my technophobia ( well, techno-uselessness at least) had once again got the better of me.

Any NTL folk there who can advise?

nostra · 28-01-2005, 23:15

would be very hard to tell without access to the bt mail server to see if there were errors trying to send it or not

28-01-2005, 23:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by nostra

would be very hard to tell without access to the bt mail server to see if there were errors trying to send it or not

OK I'm not a betting man but it would seem the problem might lay with BT given other emails, most notably CF promtps, seem to be spot on. Or is that naive of me?

Toto · 29-01-2005, 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by andyl

OK I'm not a betting man but it would seem the problem might lay with BT given other emails, most notably CF promtps, seem to be spot on. Or is that naive of me?

I'll side with you Andy, to be honest after looking at the header, the delay maybe a BT server issue, but not 100% certain.

danielf · 29-01-2005, 00:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I'll side with you Andy, to be honest after looking at the header, the delay maybe a BT server issue, but not 100% certain.

Please tell us why the header gave you that idea...

Toto · 29-01-2005, 09:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

Please tell us why the header gave you that idea...

I'm woking on the assumption that andyl's friend did not get a postmaster message from the BT servers saying there was a delay in trying to send the message to ntl, I forget the banner number for that type of message.

I would imagine that BT were not block listed at the time, so it looks as if it "may" have been a BT server issue, as I said, I'm not 100% sure

nostra · 29-01-2005, 10:01

it is hard to know who indeed is at fault unfortunately