Long Delay receiving emails forwarded from 123.reg

[agpvm]

(See also thread here: Long-Delay-receiving-emails - 4090443 )

I too am getting long delays, and even the occasional total failure with emails being forwarded from 123-reg to Virgin Media.

It appears that the reason is that Virgin Media have set a Limit of just 20 for the number of simultaneous connections that 123 can have to Virgin Media servers when sending/forwarding emails to them.  123 are very frequently exceeding this limit, causing their connections to be rejected.  Our messages then get delayed and  tried again later, and each time it fails the delay gets even longer.  So often messages aren't getting through for many hours.

Unfortunately Virgin Media are blaming 123 and 123 are blaming Virgin Media, with neither company passing the information on to the people who could actually resolve this.

Virgin Media's Limit of 20 is the default value - but they could increase it.  123 are exceeding the default value but could set their limit to 20 when sending to Virgin Media, or could just not back off for so long.

Here's part of an example of a rejection message:

A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
recipients after more than 6 hours on the queue on smtp12.mailcore.me.
...
The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
...
host mx.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net [212.54.56.11]
Delay reason: SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
421 mx1.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net mx1.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net
logid=SMTPRC 421 MXIN106 Parallel SessionLimit of 20 for your 94.136.40.149 exceeded. Retry later.
;id=PdHgiN4hD3aVY;sid=PdHgiN4hD3aVY;mta=mx1.tb;d=20191030;t=030028[CET];ipsrc=94.136.40.149;

Alan

[agpvm]

I too am getting long delays, and even the occasional total failure with emails being forwarded from 123-reg to Virgin Media.

It appears that the reason is that Virgin Media have set a Limit of just 20 for the number of simultaneous connections that 123 can have to Virgin Media servers when sending/forwarding emails to them.  123 are very frequently exceeding this limit, causing their connections to be rejected.  Our messages then get delayed and  tried again later, and each time it fails the delay gets even longer.  So often messages aren't getting through for many hours.

Unfortunately Virgin Media are blaming 123 and 123 are blaming Virgin Media, with neither company passing the information on to the people who could actually resolve this.

Virgin Media's Limit of 20 is the default value - but they could increase it.  123 are exceeding the default value but could set their limit to 20 when sending to Virgin Media, or could just not back off for so long.

Here's part of an example of a rejection message:

A message that you sent has not yet been delivered to one or more of its
recipients after more than 6 hours on the queue on smtp12.mailcore.me.
...
The address to which the message has not yet been delivered is:
...
host mx.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net [212.54.56.11]
Delay reason: SMTP error from remote mail server after initial connection:
421 mx1.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net mx1.tb.ukmail.iss.as9143.net
logid=SMTPRC 421 MXIN106 Parallel SessionLimit of 20 for your 94.136.40.149 exceeded. Retry later.
;id=PdHgiN4hD3aVY;sid=PdHgiN4hD3aVY;mta=mx1.tb;d=20191030;t=030028[CET];ipsrc=94.136.40.149;

Alan

[agpvm]

Hi Kev,

For the last 3 days (at least) emails appear to have been arriving promptly which is extremely good news.

Thank you and others for understanding that this issue was a serious problem for us and actually resolving it.

Over 3 months and 120+ messages in this thread alone shows that it has been painful, but it is great that it looks like we finally got there

Thank you,

Alan

[Kev_B]

@9fingers @agpvm 

Glad to hear you've seen improvements 😊

Thanks for your patience with this, credit goes to the email team for understanding what changes needed to be made to allow things to pass through quicker. I'll let them know the good news.

[3_g]

@Kev_B I'm also seeing mail performance much improved compared to before, so thanks to you for persisting and the mail team for acting on this customer feedback.

I did notice a couple of emails on Wednesday with delays, one of >1 hour and one with 5 minutes.  Having inspected the headers it looks as though the >1 hour one was delayed before it hit the first mail server, so nothing to do with 123Reg or VM, but the one of 5 minutes appears to have a delay wholly within VM.

Happy to share via PM headers from one or both if you want to validate?

[SteveBoyd]

I don't think the issue is confined to 123.reg.  I have experienced long delays - seeing replies to messages from people on gmail 40 minutes before I receive the original message - where the message originates from misp.co.uk.

I also have a colleague in the USA who has been unable to email me at all.  His mail provider is at trkhosting.com and his last failed attempt was on 16 January 2020.

Have the fixes referred to above addressed these issues?

[9fingers]

This thread has been marked as Solved and therefore VM mods/techs are not likely to pick up your point.

I would suggest that you start a new thread with mail headers illustrating your problem if you can and cross reference this thread.

hth

Bob

[agpvm]

@SteveBoyd in #119 VM said they have only made changes for specific IPs so very possible not yours. So suggest you raise separately. 

@3_g the 5 minute delays that are internal to VM look like a different issue to me. So possible also a new thread.

Sorry people if you think I markrd this thead solved too early

Alan

[emailwoes]

Had seemed better lately, however just had an email sent to me 17:49 on 04/02.

[9fingers]

Maybe you could send the header info to those who understand these things?

Strikes me that such a long delay might have a different cause?

Bob

[emailwoes]

I think this may be back, I had some big delays yesterday and things are not coming in at all this morning - as before if I email my NTLworld address they come through immediately.  Hopefully it's a glitch with 123.

[9fingers]

Lets hope it is just a glitch but remeber if you need the mods and techs to see details of your problem, you will need to start an new thread and link it back here as this thread will be marked as resolved aand therefore off their radar.

Good luck

Bob