funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Skype
| reply to jbob
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traf
said by jbob  :Norman I just tried to send through my Comcast account. I tried to send a message to my Hotmail acct, and Yahoo, Bigfoot and MyRealBox all at the same time. Upon send I immediately got this message: "The message could not be sent because one of the recipients was rejected by the server. The rejected e-mail address was 'my email@hotmail.com'. Subject 'Testing email delivery', Account: 'Comcast Mail (my acct name)', Server: 'smtp.comcast.net', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: '550 permit denied', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 550, Error Number: 0x800CCC79" This error in OE is: 0x800CCC79 SMTP REJECTED RECIPIENTS - Server rejected recipients The message remained in my outbox. If I delete the hotmail recipient addy the message is delivered. Good test.
Shows that it's Comcast's problem accepting the mail.
Not "MSN and Hotmail are experiencing problems receiving email from some domains" ( »www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.j···il118361 ) ...
If it were a problem in receiving the mail, you would have received a Delivery Status Notification after the mail was accepted and removed from your outbox.
I hope someone gets this info to Comcast so that they stop using their fingers for pointing and start using them for fixing this problem.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon USA
~ Keeper of the D-Link FAQ ~ Did you Search? ~ More features, Free! Join BBR! ~ |
|
Micky D
| reply to jbob
I get a an "undeliverable" message kicked back such as:
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: x
RE: x
Sent:x
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
x@aol.com on 12/1/2005 12:07 PM
550 permit denied |
|
jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR | reply to funchords
Yeah and I am getting grief from "Early Out" on my Comcast Forum thread. Trying to explain again. I don't know why those guys will not simply read this thread. |
|
fantomposter
Phantom Poster
Premium
join:2002-09-21
Independence, OH
2 edits | reply to funchords
said by funchords :Good test. Shows that it's Comcast's problem accepting the mail. Not "MSN and Hotmail are experiencing problems receiving email from some domains" One possibility you all should keep in mind:
If Hotmail is refusing/having trouble with receiving Comcast email and I were Comcast I would most certainly set up my servers to refuse the email going to Hotmail.
Simple self defense. If Comcast knows it can not deliver it to Hotmail, Comcast should refuse it up front. To keep their servers from having thousands (millions?) of messages stuck in their outbound queue. And having to keep retrying and sending NDR's back to their users.
Setting up a refusal is simple to do, and provides instant feedback to Comcast customers that the email is not going through.
And keeps their servers from choking on the queue'd messages.
One more thing it does, if Hotmail really is having trouble the last thing they need is to have Comcast continue to hammer at their servers with millions of retries. |
|
jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR
 ·Comcast
·AT&T Southwest
| reply to mbnva
Indeed they are now finally beginning to explain.
"What we are saying is that Comcast has put in a temporary block on all emails that are destined for MSN/Hotmail. This means that if you use the Comcast email servers to send an email to either MSN or Hotmail, the Comcast SMTP server will reject it and send you back the 550 Permit Denied message. This is intentional and is being done by Comcast because if we were to continue collecting all of the emails destined for MSN/Hotmail, we would have run out of disk space by queueing these messages for MSN/Hotmail, which would have negatively affected email delivery to other domains.
This block was put in place by Comcast because the MSN/Hotmail servers were no longer accepting emails or were taking excessively long time to respond to our mail servers.
This block by Comcast is temporary and will be removed once we receive confirmation from MSN/Hotmail that the issue is resolved and once we verify that our email queues to MSN/Hotmail are decreasing in size." |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
1 edit | reply to fantomposter
said by fantomposter :One possibility you all should keep in mind: If Hotmail is refusing/having trouble with receiving Comcast email and I were Comcast I would most certainly set up my servers to refuse the email going to Hotmail. That's the latest explanation. I responded to it in their thread.
said by Re: 550 permit denied error when sending email to MSN/Hotmail by jason1 :> BlueChip & others, > > As it has been stated by others above, Comcast is > rejecting emails destined for the MSN/Hotmail domain > at this time. So yes, the 550 Permit Denied message > is coming from the Comcast server, not MSN/Hotmail. > > > The reason these emails are currently being rejected > is to keep this issue from affecting email delivery > to other non-MSN/Hotmail domains. Once the issue is > resolved and our engineers notice the current > MSN/Hotmail email queue start to decrease, they will > remove this block and start allowing email to be > delivered to MSN/Hotmail. Jason, With respect, I'll believe it when I see MSN Hotmail post it on ~their~ status board. ( » support.msn.com/networkstatusres···ocId=460 ) ... at the time of this posting, even after their furiously working on the problem for more than 24 hours, it still says "The service is available; there are no known network issues at this time."I'm betting that's because there is no MSN Hotmail problem. Someone in the Comcast chain of command has explained this issue away without really checking, and Tech Support (in good faith) is just doing their job and telling the customers what they think is going on. But it's time for Tech Support to pick up the phone and say, "WTF!?" If I'm wrong, and the 550 response really is to shield Hotmail from a flood of mail, one of three things should happen: - Comcast should accept the message and then send a Delivery Status Notification that delivery would be delayed. When service is restored, you can send to Hotmail in small bursts. - Comcast should get a backup method from hotmail and use that until hotmail fixes the primary problem. or - Comcast should reject the message, but with a 450 or 452 temporarily rejected code, not a 550 permanently rejected code. Please, no more explanations. This needs followup --
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon USA
~ Keeper of the D-Link FAQ ~ Did you Search? ~ More features, Free! Join BBR! ~ |
|
jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR
·Comcast
·AT&T Southwest
| Yep just read your post on the pinned thread. I just this morning started reading that one. I think "Early Out' gets a little testy.
While I can agree with the reasons for blocking I wonder why Comcast is blocking messages to Hotmail but others are not? I wonder if there wasn't some secret handshake going on. |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to fantomposter
said by fantomposter :If Hotmail is refusing/having trouble with receiving Comcast email and I were Comcast I would most certainly set up my servers to refuse the email going to Hotmail. Simple self defense. If Comcast knows it can not deliver it to Hotmail, Comcast should refuse it up front. To keep their servers from having thousands (millions?) of messages stuck in their outbound queue. And having to keep retrying and sending NDR's back to their users. It is a "pissing match" between Comcast and Hotmail, is my guess. The earliest evidence I saw suggests that Comcast had no rDNS configured on some of their output servers; appaently MSN was blocking messages from those servers. Two ways to fix that:
•MSN stops filtering email for lack of rDNS on the Comcast MTAs.
•Comcast configures rDNS on their MTAs.
That kind of filtering is a viable foil against spam; and Comcast can't tell MSN how to run their servers.
True, Comcast can do their own filtering to avoid the NDR traffic, but that issue still falls back on Comcast. Configure their servers to have rDNS names; preferably relating to the host name being used in the HELO/EHLO command.
The last I checked, the Comcast server which formerly had no rDNS name now has rDNS matching the host name used in the HELO/EHLO command. Maybe there is still some testing/tweaking going on before Comcast feels ready to unblock things. But, from where I stand, this whole thing was a Comcast problem from the get-go.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
2 edits | reply to funchords
I just submitted this for the DSLR front page ( »/news ) -- hopefully it'll get picked up. I'm tired of this crap. Time for some press -- and we know that the press reads DSLR (yes, it really does)!
Headline: Comcast blocks mail to MSN/Hotmail Addresses » [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast TrafficSummary: For the second time in just over a month, Comcast's smtp servers are not accepting e-mail destined for the popular MSN Hotmail service. The official explanation is that Comcast is blocking the mail as a courtesy to MSN/Hotmail engineers working on the problem. However, MSN Hotmail is not acknowledging that the problem exists. ( see » Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traf and the link therein to the MSN Hotmail status board. ) Meanwhile, DSL Reports users argue over the actual issue, who to blame, and how to work around it. 
Edit: Within 15 minutes, the news item was posted! Thanks!
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon USA
~ Keeper of the D-Link FAQ ~ Did you Search? ~ More features, Free! Join BBR! ~ |
|
jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR
·Comcast
·AT&T Southwest
4 edits | reply to mbnva
Hmmm after the test message I sent earlier I finally got a reject from a delivery to MyRealBox too:
"The original message was received at Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:59:48 -0500 EST from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.89]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> Connecting
553 Your site is blocked due to previous spamming incidents"
More:
Reporting-MTA: dns; bflitemail-kr4.bigfoot.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:59:48 -0500 EST
Final-Recipient: RFC822; "myrealbox addy"
Action: failed
Status: 5.7.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; 151.155.5.204
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 553 Your site is blocked due to previous spamming incidents
Last-Attempt-Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:59:48 -0500 EST
So does this mean that MyRealBox rejected my Comcast message to myself? |
|
howardthebrit
| reply to funchords
Good idea to get this to the media... I contacted cringe@infoworld.com.
I contact MS for their response to the Comcast line, but have not heard back yet.
BTW, I tried to get Comcast to look at this thread, and this was their response:
Thank you for contacting Comcast. My name is Richard and I will be pleased to assist you today.
Comcast customers may get bounce-back messages or long delays when attempting to send email to msn.com or hotmail.com. Microsoft is aware of the problem and is working to resolve the issue. It's important to note that this is a problem with the MSN/Hotmail mail servers and that the Comcast incoming and outgoing mail servers are functioning as normal.
Typically, I would have a customer service ticket number for your inquiry, however, my ticketing resource appears to be down at the present time for maintenance.
Reassuring to know that everything is fine at Comcast, then.:) |
|
funchords
Hello
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
·Verizon Online DSL
·Skype
| reply to mbnva
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traffic
All, here's another test you can run.
Beats me why Comcast and Hotmail's best can't figure this one out.
It also means that, in a pinch, you can send mail to your hotmail friends. However, I'm 100% sure that hotmail will only accept hotmail-destined messages this way. Don't even try to relay through it -- you'll surely be banned.
Hotmail uses mx1.hotmail.com through mx4.hotmail.com
C:\>telnet mx2.hotmail.com smtp
220 mc10-f25.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail to Micros
oft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at pri
vacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in C
alifornia and other states. Thu, 1 Dec 2005 12:40:39 -0800
HELO c-xx-xxx-xx-xx.hsd1.xx.comcast.net
250 mc10-f25.hotmail.com (3.0.1.19) Hello [xx.xxx.xxx.xx]
MAIL FROM:<xxxxxxxxxx@comcast.net>
250 xxxxxxxxxx@comcast.net....Sender OK
RCPT TO:<xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com>
250 xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com
DATA
354 Start mail input; end with CRLF.CRLF
From: xxxxxxxxxx@comcast.net
To: xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:30:00 -0800
Subject: Test Message
Do not mess with the format. It is formatted correctly. But you have
to do some things before using it:
1. change the machine name in the HELO line. You can find your machine
name by going to www.ipchicken.com and looking for it on the lower left
side of the screen.
2. Then change the TWO sender lines to your comcast address, and the TWO
receiver lines to your hotmail address.
3. Then change the date and time to the current date and time.
4. Make sure there is a blank line under the Subject header
5. Make sure that the last line of the message is a period on a line by
itself, followed immediately by a CRLF (enter).
Have fun!
PS: Your message doesn't have to be this long.
.
250 <MC10-asdjfhakdhf323j@mc10-f25.hotmail.com> Queued mail for delivery
quit
221 mc10-f25.hotmail.com Service closing transmission channel
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon USA
~ Keeper of the D-Link FAQ ~ Did you Search? ~ More features, Free! Join BBR! ~ |
|
BullroarerT
join:2003-10-08
Fountain Hills, AZ
| reply to mbnva
I know this is the Comcast forum. And I found this thread via the front page news on DSLReports.
I just wanted to comment that this morning I was using my speakeasy account to send a test email to my hotmail account. This email has yet to show up on my hotmail account five hours later, and I have not received a reject notice in my speakeasy account.
I'm not expecting anyone to troubleshoot this problem, I'm just wondering if hotmail/msn is blocking other ISPs other than comcast.
FYI, speakeasy sent an customer wide email message this morning that we will have to start using smtp-auth to send email messages. They refer to being good neighbors on the internet and reducing the potential for spam. |
|
burris
Premium
join:2000-08-22
Miami, FL
·VOIPo
·AT&T Southeast
·ViaTalk
| reply to mbnva
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traf
As I suggested in another forum, this is my work around....
Go to mail2web.com (free) and log in with your ID and PW....
You will see all your mail there and you can read...delete...reply...forward...virtually anything you can do with your regular mail client....
burris |
|
MeMiMoMum
@208.17.x.x | reply to BullroarerT
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traffic
It is no use. People will still blame Comcast. Now they will say, Wel it WAS comcast blocking it. But yea, at MS's request. |
|
jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR
·Comcast
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traf
If you will read all the threads you will see it is indeed Comcast that is blocking the email to Hotmail/MSN. Even Comcast is saying it now. Comcasts own smtp servers are now blocking email sent to Hotmail/MSN addys. Now the reason is another story. One of the reasons they give is to avoid running out of disk space storing so many undeliverable messages. Perhaps Comcast is helping MSN out by doing this. |
|
fullman
join:2001-12-30
Fort Lauderdale, FL
1 edit | It's not just Hotmail that Comcast is blocking, they're (assumidly unintentionally) blocking my dedicated server as well, which does indeed have rDNS set up, SPF records, and it isn't in any spam blacklists at all.
Hotmail and other e-mail services/servers have no problem connecting and delivering mail to my server, yet Comcast seems to be blocking it all the same as we see with Hotmail, for example.
I think Comcast has some issues that go beyond Hotmail. It is possible that they're testing out some type of authentication (like Speakeasy is doing now), but if that's true, they didn't inform any of us about this.
Sober has been out for a while, patches and/or antivirus definitions are in place, so I can't imagine any huge server infection going on.
Besides, it's not like Comcast reps have the latest information available to them. Myself being in South Florida dealing with their incredibly ridiculous restoration process from the latest hurricane, I know full well that their reps information is often outdated. |
|
begonia
@comcast.net | reply to mbnva
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traffic
I am getting the 550 permit denied for MSN accounts also
as of last night 11/30/05 and now today also. |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to jbob
Re: [E-mail] Microsoft Hotmail Blocks Comcast Traf
said by jbob :Hmmm after the test message I sent earlier I finally got a reject from a delivery to MyRealBox too: "The original message was received at Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:59:48 -0500 EST from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.89] The Comcast message submission server picking up your email...
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> Connecting
553 Your site is blocked due to previous spamming incidents"
More:
Reporting-MTA: dns; bflitemail-kr4.bigfoot.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 13:59:48 -0500 EST
So does this mean that MyRealBox rejected my Comcast message to myself?
Um, MRB is using Bigfoot SMTP servers?(*) Well, yes, bflitemail-kr4.bigfoot.com rejected email from the Comcast MTA trying to deliver your message. Interesing; one of my Comcast correspondent's email messages got routed to my spam handling account. Partial headers:
Return-path: <%User_ID%@comcast.invalid>
Received: from sccrmhc12.comcast.net (204.127.202.56) by aosake.net (Mercury/32 v4.01b) with ESMTP ID MG000003;
30 Nov 2005 21:43:22 -0800
X-Blocked: Blocked by 'SPEWS (l1 SORBS) (Tag only)'
Received: from mycomputer (c-24-6-180-142.hsd1.ca.comcast.net[24.6.180.142])
by comcast.net (sccrmhc12) with SMTP
id <2005120105431301200ar7u0e>; Thu, 1 Dec 2005 05:43:17 +0000
Message-ID: <003401c5f63a$58c70060$0200a8c0@hsd1.ca.comcast.net>
{more stuff removed}
X-AC-Weight: [# ] -94
X-CC-Diagnostic:
Header Received matches "*[rsw][cs]crmhc1[1-4].comcast.net*" (-119),
Header X-Blocked matches "*SORBS*" (9),
Header X-Blocked matches "*SPEWS (l1 SORBS)*" (9), comcast.net (2),
Header "References" Exists (5)
Ah, I see. I still need to adjust my filters. The '-94' score should have bypassed the spam handling account; I have some other trigger that needs adjusting. I refer you to the regex line in the "Header Received" rule above; the Comcast server should have been white listed.
(*)Regarding that server which rejected the message; how are you routing email to your MRB account? My MRB test message looks thus:
{Removed stuff}
Return-Path: <tsudohnimu-*****@yahoo.com>
Received: from smtp21.mail.bbt.yahoo.co.jp not authenticated [202.93.85.136]
by smtp-send.myrealbox.com with NetMail SMTP Agent $Revision: 1.6 $ on Linux;
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:41:09 -0700
Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.102.100?) (*?********@71.131.177.136 with plain)
by smtp21.mail.bbt.yahoo.co.jp with SMTP; 2 Dec 2005 00:41:08 -0000
X-Apparently-From: <%User_ID%@yahoo.co.jp.invalid>
Message-ID: <438F97E6.5000407@yahoo.com>
{Removed stuff}
To: %User_ID%@myrealbox.invalid
{Removed stuff}
Unless; are you using a Bigfoot account to forward email:
Return-path: <tsudohnimu-*****@yahoo.com>
{Removed stuff}
Received: from smtp22.mail.bbt.yahoo.co.jp ([202.93.85.137])
by BFLITEMAIL-KR2.bigfoot.com (LiteMail v3.03(BFLITEMAIL-KR2)) with SMTP id 0512012002_BFLITEMAIL-KR2_498525_16219083;
Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:03:20 -0500 EST
Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.102.100?) (*?********@71.131.177.136 with plain)
by smtp22.mail.bbt.yahoo.co.jp with SMTP; 2 Dec 2005 01:03:19 -0000
X-Apparently-From: <%User_ID%@yahoo.co.jp.invalid>
Message-ID: <438F9D16.7000103@yahoo.com>
{Removed stuff}
To: %User_ID%@bigfoot.invalid
{Removed stuff}
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| reply to funchords
said by funchords :All, here's another test you can run. Beats me why Comcast and Hotmail's best can't figure this one out. It also means that, in a pinch, you can send mail to your hotmail friends. However, I'm 100% sure that hotmail will only accept hotmail-destined messages this way. Don't even try to relay through it -- you'll surely be banned. Hotmail uses mx1.hotmail.com through mx4.hotmail.com {Removed a bunch of example stuff} It works for MSN Hotmail because MSN apparently is not checking for dynamic host IP addresses; this will not work for AOL. It may not work if the Comcast dynamic IP address has gotten listed by whatever filters MSN uses. In theory, you could also add the MSN MX server to your mail client as the outgoing SMTP server; as long as your destination email address is in the @msn.com or @hotmail.com domains. The MSN MX servers will only accept email for those domains, so don't try to send email to any other domain from that account.
As an aside, the reason you get spam with a list of @comcast.com email addresses is because the spammer is using a proxy, not a mail server; the proxy can't do DNS lookups for MX servers, it can only connect directly to the destination MX server. MX servers are not relays, they only accept email for the domain that they serve. Works the same way as my description of setting up a mail client to send directly to the MSN MX servers.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
|
