Another Thread with problems with AOL

[timbo343]

As a Systems Manager when people say AOL, I cringe, and im sure a lot of other systems managers and network managers would agree.

We house our own exchange 2007 server and jsut recently, we have been having problems sending emails to the aol.com domain.

Has anyone else had the same problem?

We've had this problem before, but i quickly found out that AOL use rDNS and if you havent got rDNS from your ISP then they will not accept any mail from you. So this time, i checked our rDNS and that is fine. I also read that if you have a disclaimer set up on your exchange server then that too can stop the emails been sent. Tried turning that off, no luck.

Then i googled the error we get from our exchange server:

Last Error: 421-: (DNS:NR) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dnsnr.html
421 SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE
and got this...
http://postmaster.aol.com/

which to be honest is no use at all.

I have also emailled them from my googlemail account which does send to AOL and stated:

Hi AOL

I'm using this email address to let you know of a problem we have got at work sending emails to an aol.com domain.

The error is as follows:

SCL: 0
Date Received: 13/04/2008 21:46:16
Expiration Time: 15/04/2008 21:46:16
Last Error: 421-: (DNS:NR) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dnsnr.html
421 SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE

We have just recently had trouble sending from *replaced with our domain* domain to an aol.com domain. We have got rDNS in place as we have been able to send mail to aol.com before.

Can we have the *replaced with our domain* domain added to the whitelist of AOL. I have also read, that to keep on the whitelist, organisations need to be sending at least 100 emails a month to users. Well, for us, that isn't possible, we would be sending maybe about 20 a month.

Thanks

Tim Hobson

This message was sent to AOL over a week ago, and had no response.

Do you think this is an AOL problem or do i need to talk to my ISP which i think is the last resort.

Thanks

Tim Hobson

[Geoff]

As the error suggests it being an rDNS error, I would check your rDNS is actually working out on the internet. There are plenty of web based tools you can use to check this for free. For example:

Web Based DNS Lookup (NSLookup) (ZoneEdit.com)

[mcloum]

yup we have the same problem here, but we use netmedia for hosted email but smtp is going through our isp. it started working for a while then stopped again. The problem is AOL being to strict with who they accept email from to cut down on spam.

Im just telling people who need to send to AOl to use a free web based service until this is sorted.

Mike

[timbo343]

Ive checked the rDNSs out before and all of those are fine. No problems and i have told people that they should use internet based email but they look at me blankly or because they cannot use outlook, through a strop.

[srochford]

I'm sure you have checked the reverse DNS but AOL is obviously checking it in a different way and not getting the answers you think they should get.

If you want to send me an email (steve.rochford@cnwl.ac.uk) I'll look at the header and see if the IP address there does match your DNS.

The other possibility is that AOL want you to have an SPF record; I don't think they block mail without one but it does no harm to add one to DNS and it does help to clarify that email is genuinely from you.

AOL is trying to reduce spam. I think this is a good thing and while it does cause grief to some genuine postmasters, if it removes the rubbish then ultimately that's a good thing.

[PEO]

As a Systems Manager when people say AOL, I cringe, and im sure a lot of other systems managers and network managers would agree.

Oi!! what about technicians

[timbo343]

Oi!! what about technicians

sorry.. and technicians. lol.

How about, anyone that works in IT apart from the high street stores that sell AOL to people.

[Netman]

We had this whole sorry saga for weeks when we changed over to an exchange server. You not only need rDNS to be correct but also an spf record too.
We did everything necessary to fulfil AOL's critieria and gues what? After 2 months, we still could not send to them. You almost certainly won't get a reply by email - we never did. We phoned the US and spoke to them but still couldn't resove it so ended up working around it by creating a second connector in exchange and sending mail for aol via our ISP's smarthost server.

[timbo343]

Ive heard that sometimes you have to set up a connection to your ISP, but i didnt bother with it, and then it started working, but on this occasion i may need to.

[srochford]

Tim - I'm trying to email you but you're not letting me:-)


220 hermes.shs.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at
Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:52:25 +0100
helo t15.cnwl.ac.uk
250 hermes.shs.com Hello [195.194.12.15]
mail from:steve.rochford@cnwl.ac.uk
250 2.1.0 steve.rochford@cnwl.ac.uk....Sender OK
rcpt to:tim.hobson@sherburgnhigh.co.uk
550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for tim.hobson@sherburgnhigh.co.uk

Your reverse DNS is broken - AOL are right!

[timbo343]

Just spoke to our ISP, they gave me the smtp address of their server and sending to AOL is ok now.

[timbo343]

Tim - I'm trying to email you but you're not letting me:-)


220 hermes.shs.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at
Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:52:25 +0100
helo t15.cnwl.ac.uk
250 hermes.shs.com Hello [195.194.12.15]
mail from:steve.rochford@cnwl.ac.uk
250 2.1.0 steve.rochford@cnwl.ac.uk....Sender OK
rcpt to:tim.hobson@sherburgnhigh.co.uk
550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for tim.hobson@sherburgnhigh.co.uk

Your reverse DNS is broken - AOL are right!

O....k..... how the hell do i got that out then, another phone call to my ISP?

[srochford]

What is "hermes.shs.com" - is that your Exchange server? if so, have you configured it to only allow email to *@shs.com (have you just changed domain from shs.com to sherburnhigh.co.uk)?

If so, change the Exchange settings to allow relaying to @sherburnhigh.co.uk. If not, and your ISP looks after the machine then get them to make the change. I suspect you might be losing quite a lot of mail ...