Virgin Media Community

[Atilla_the_Tim]

I have friends in Germany.

I've been trying to e mail them a few times over the last week, but keep getting System Administrator messages that the e mail is undeliverable, apparently due to Server error: 550 5.1.1 Recipient Domain Invalid (VM520).

It's the same e mail address I've been using for them for the last couple of years, and I know there's no typo, as I used the "Reply" button.

I also e mailed them using my work e mail account (don't tell my bosses - it's not supposed to be used for personal use!) - and there was no "e mail undeliverable" messages.

Any ideas as to what's going on and how to fix it?

Many thanks in advance!

[ravenstar68]

Recipient Domain Invalid would imply one of two things to me.

1. The domain no longer exists.
2. VM are rejecting sends to that domain.

Based on the fact that you can email from a different email service, I'm leaning towards the latter.

VM's Forum Team will get to the thread - they will need to raise a ticket with the email team to get this looked at.

Are you sending using Webmail - or an email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird?
If the latter, can you try sending using webmail and see if it will send that way?

Tim

[Atilla_the_Tim]

Hi Ravenstar,

Their domain definitely exists - they've sent an e mail from it last night!

My e mails are sent via Outlook. I've no idea how to send via webmail, and I'd prefer to keep all e mails sending and receiving through the one system!

So I guess I'll have to sit tight and hope somebody from VM sees this and sorts it out. 😞

[ravenstar68]

If you're using IMAP, rather than POP3 then it doesn't matter what system you send mails on, it's visible from all of them, including webmail.

You can log in to webmail by going to mail2.virginmedia.com and logging in with your full email address and password. 

It would certainly help as a diagnostic measure as it would help to narrow down where the problem lies.

Tim

[Atilla_the_Tim]

Ah...

Excuse my ignorance - webmail is used on mobile phones?

I send 99% of e mails on my laptop, but my phone is also set up for e mails, and is synced via IMAP, as you said.

When I tried sending e mail to Germany on my mobile, it doesn't go, but I can send to other mail addresses. 😞

Does this answer your question?

[ravenstar68]

Webmail is used on any device you want to use it on.  I've used it on Chrome on my desktop with no difficulties.

It's simply an email interface delivered using a web browser.  The web application itself is an IMAP/SMTP client.  The advantages all round is that you can access it from anywhere e.g. Internet cafes when you don't have access to your own email clients.  To add to that, there is no special setup required either.

It's also noted that web mail gives you access to other functions such as setting up server side email filters and forwarding, instead of having a client do it after downloading the mail from the server.

Tim

[coenoby]

---

@Atilla_the_Tim wrote:

I know there's no typo, as I used the "Reply" button.

---

So have you tested it by creating a new message (rather than using the Reply button), then entering your contact's address manually and sending it from your  VM email account?

The reason I ask is there is more to the "Reply" button than you might realise. Your contact in Germany may have set a "Reply To" address in their email to you. That is a standard email option and means that when someone uses the "Reply" button to respond to that message the reply will go to the specified "Reply To" email address rather than back to the original "From:" address.

If your contact mis-spelt the Reply To address it would mean you could have been sending to an invalid address without realising it.

To be fair, that is a facility more common in business than personal communications. However, it is there for anyone to use, you could set a "Reply To" address any time you send an email from Outlook for example.  

Did you type out the address when you sent a test email from your work's email? If you did, I would suggest creating a new test email (without using "Reply") and sending it from your VM address.

If you get the same error message back at least we have ruled out one possible cause. 😉

Coenoby

[Atilla_the_Tim]

Thanks, Coenoby.

I also tried manually typing the addresses in Outlook - no luck. Still the same error message. ☹️

I've also tried sending an e mail direct from the VM website. That seemed to go better - no error message that time. But I haven't received a reply yet, so can't be certain that it got through.

So perhaps an issue with Outlook?

[ravenstar68 · Accepted solution]

Nope- not an issue with Outlook.

Webmail uses different SMTP servers when sending compared to an email client such as Outlook.  The reason I asked for you to check is so that when the Forum Team pick up on this, the information will help narrow down the cause of the problem to the specific SMTP servers that Outlook and similar clients connect to.

VM will address the issue, but in the meantime, at least you should be able to send emails using the webmail system.  Outlook will still have visibility of all Sent and Received emails as you are using IMAP.

Tim

[Atilla_the_Tim]

I see - thanks for the explanation. It's becoming a little clearer.

I spent an hour this morning discussing the issue via web chat with somebody in the support team. They couldn't solve the problem, and suggested I speak to the Gadget Rescue Team. The person I spoke to there thought it was an Outlook problem and I should delete my e mail account and reinstall it. That prospect didn't appeal at all - I had real problems trying to set up Outlook last year, and I don't want to repeat the experience unless absolutely necessary!

So I guess I just have to wait until the VM Knights in shining armour turn up and sort it out...! Do you have any idea how long that would take?