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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    South Park, Colorado
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    3,522

    Thumbs down problems with emails in cPanel based hosting

    Hello all.

    I just signed 3 hosting deals with Cpanel based hosting companies (p4host, hostingplex and pcihosting if anybody interested). And was quite SHOCKED. About 60-70 percent of mails sent to these accounts were delayed for upto 5 hours (!!!); about 20-40 percent emails were NOT DELIVERED AT ALL (I know this because it was _I_ who was mailing myself - just testing). Delays were server-internal - simply it was considerable amount of time between "received" and "delivered" headers. Messages were delivered not in order they were sent... Emails were with simple jpg attachements 100-400kb in size, sent one after another.

    Now I am not sure this has something to do with cPanel, but I never had such problems with Ensim-based hosts (livin4 comes to mind (I had quite different problems there... )). Also I never have seen "delivered" header there as well...

    Hosting companies are of no help trying to tell me something about queues in deliveries... But total lost of 20-40% of communications is definitely not for me...

    Help PLEASE...

    Thanks for any recommendations where to start looking for cause of problems...

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Above The Clouds
    Posts
    7,223
    Maybe they have lots of email in the queue due to abuse/spamming. It's nothing to do with the control panel software.
    Laurence Flynn @ HostNEXUS.com
    Managed WordPress Hosting Solutions
    Focused on speed. Obsessed with security.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    South Park, Colorado
    Posts
    3,522
    No. Some mails were delivered instantly, some delayed for 1-2 hours, some longer, some lost totally... I understand 'queue' the way that ALL emails should 'wait' more or less same amount of time before delivery and I should receive ALL of them. And how do you explain the same problem with 3 out of 3 hosts?

    Thanxxx!!!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    6,616
    It sounds like the DNS MX records are a bit screwed, or it might be that you don't have RDNS so they are delayed

    Rus
    Russ Foster - Industry Curmudgeon
    Freelance Sysadmin for Hire - email vaserv@gmail.com

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Above The Clouds
    Posts
    7,223
    Rus, that would make no difference. MX records either work or they don't. They don't go screwy. Mail servers either accept email from servers with no rDNS or they don't.

    Nikki, I'm sure you didn't send all the emails at the same time. You might have sent one at 3pm and it went through immediately and then sent one at 5pm that was unfortunate enough to be sent just after someone sent a huge mailing list or someone spammed through. Therefore your email would have to wait until all that was sent.

    Email abuse is probably the one issue that eats more support time than any other for all hosts. If we haven't got enough to worry about with our own clients spamming, we also have to enforce strict rules on mailing lists and the amount of email that can be sent per day and then there is the issue of spammers finding exploitable formmail to have their way with.

    One thing though, email should never just get lost. The emails that you said disappeared could have encountered an error and the mail server is busy still trying to send it. I know qmail on Plesk will attempt to send some email for 5 days before giving up and then it will get bounced back to the sender.
    Laurence Flynn @ HostNEXUS.com
    Managed WordPress Hosting Solutions
    Focused on speed. Obsessed with security.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    South Park, Colorado
    Posts
    3,522
    Thank you both!!!

    Well, the funny thing - as I've wrote above - is that this is INTERNAL server problem. It RECEIVES mail (there's a 'received' header) and only DELIVERS (header 'delivered') considerably later. The funny header 'delivered' - I've never seen anything like this before... But now it actually helps...

    And no, nothing was bounced...

    And no, all mails were sent one after another (just queued in outbox and then 'process queue')...


  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario
    Posts
    651
    what are the specifics for hostingplex? I don't think you have broght this issue to our attention?

    Can you post some of the examples with header/ message ID's so we can at confirm the claims and look for the cause, we've not received any complaints before so its some what a surprise,

    Also what is your domain with hostingplex.com?
    Last edited by Kevin; 02-27-2004 at 09:39 AM.
    Kevin

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    South Park, Colorado
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    Kevin, I've brought to your (support@hostingplex.com) attention this matter about 9 hours ago with the headers and full statistics of my little experiment.

    When I was quoting "Hosting companies" in my first post it wasn't you, because I'm yet to see your answer.

    Thanks for any reaction though...

    Arunas Norvaisa
    artefacted.com

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario
    Posts
    651
    Just a followup, me and nikki6 are dealing with this outside WHT right now and will post the details once we come to a conclusion.
    Kevin

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    South Park, Colorado
    Posts
    3,522
    Yes, and our discussion is quite intens-e/ive

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario
    Posts
    651
    Okay so to conclude, hostingplex does not offer Maildir mailbox format, meaning we cannot avoid the mailbox locking, so when you transfer large files your mailbox will be locked, and delivery of new messages will be delayed until its free.

    This is our understanding at this time.
    Kevin

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