Googlemail - Anyone aware of problems? eg: Sending to AOL?

NeilF · 25 Mar 2008 at 12:17

My friends parents are certain they are having problems emailing to (& receiving mail from) AOL using Google Mail?

Anyone aware of issues?

Cob · 25 Mar 2008 at 12:49

I've just tested it and had no problems sending from AOL to Gmail or vice-versa.

NeilF · 25 Mar 2008 at 12:50

Cob said:
I've just tested it and had no problems sending from AOL to Gmail or vice-versa.

This is my thoughts as well... But my friends parents have a number of their friends on AOL and they're saying over and over emails are not making it to them, or getting bounced...

I think I'll have to pop around and take a look for them :rolleyes:

tolien · 25 Mar 2008 at 16:46

It wouldn't be the first time AOL have set some crazy rules about what you have to do to get them to accept mail.

Uhtred · 25 Mar 2008 at 18:38

As above, AOL don't filter spam very well and quite often block legit email.

bledd · 25 Mar 2008 at 21:09

get them to tell their friend to move to gmail too

NeilF · 25 Mar 2008 at 23:05

bledd. said:
get them to tell their friend to move to gmail too

OK! That made me laugh

nst68 · 26 Mar 2008 at 11:49

My mum had a similar problem with her Gmail account, but it was my sisters ISP in Australia (Bigpond) that were blocking them.

I did some digging and found that they'd had a problem with spam coming from the Gmail, so instead of working out how to filter the spam mails they just blocked the whole domain :rolleyes:

After a couple of weeks of complaints they removed the block.

Ethics · 26 Mar 2008 at 12:06

Haven't AOL introduced a new 'feature' whereby any email sent to you, where the senders address is not in your address book, is rejected/blocked?

I'm sure i had someone telling me about it the other day.

NeilF · 26 Mar 2008 at 12:14

Ethics said:
Haven't AOL introduced a new 'feature' whereby any email sent to you, where the senders address is not in your address book, is rejected/blocked?

I'm sure i had someone telling me about it the other day.

That sounds a bit mad!

NeilF · 28 Mar 2008 at 20:44

I had a look at the PC involved...

They are using Outlook to front end their google account. So they read their mail in from Google (POP3) and then obviously send new mail out (under their googlemail address).

NOW! What I noticed was, is they are using their ISP's SMTP server (newnet). I'm wondering if some places (eg: AOL) are funny about this in someway? ie: They see an email with a from address of googlemail, but having come from somewhere else?

Is that possible?

I tried to change the SMTP server to google but just could not get it to work so I'll contact NewNet about that...

tolien · 28 Mar 2008 at 21:55

Anything's possible with AOL - it might be worth trying the NewNet email address through the NN servers.

NeilF · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:00

tolien said:
Anything's possible with AOL - it might be worth trying the NewNet email address through the NN servers.

Good idea... The problems is here, is everything is chineese whispers... ie: It's not me doing these test... It's someone else firing emails off and me seeing the results (responses)... I'll give that a go though

Here's one of example of a bounce:-
<[email protected]>:
205.188.159.57 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 421-: (RLY:CS4) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421rlycs4.html
421 SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.

tolien · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:23

This error message indicates that your email has been identified as coming from a server or web site that may have a compromised script or program available.

Sounds like it's been blacklisted somewhere.

NeilF · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:41

tolien said:
Sounds like it's been blacklisted somewhere.

NewNet? Surely not my friends specific googlemail account?

I still recon it might be to do with the fact the email says its from a googlemail account, but it's sent thru a NewNet SMTP server? So AOLs server says it doesn't add up and kicks it!?

tolien · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:43

The server I was guessing. It wouldn't be the first time an ISP's mail server's got blocked, and AOL aren't exactly receptive to requests to get it removed...

NeilF · 28 Mar 2008 at 22:51

tolien said:
The server I was guessing. It wouldn't be the first time an ISP's mail server's got blocked, and AOL aren't exactly receptive to requests to get it removed...

It's happened a few times for my web hosting company...

I'll give NewNet a buzz tomorrow and see what they suggest. I'd love to change the SMTP server in Outlook (on my friends machine) to use Googles... But it just wouldn't work. I'm wondering if NewNet block port 465 for example?!