Re: [tlug] Email issues

[tlug@example.com]

On Tuesday 07 August 2007 09:15:02 burlingk@example.com wrote:
> > I've also noticed that my own posts are often delayed by many hours before
> > they come through, though if i post something, once it goes through there
> > seems to be a time period where if i post again the messages go through
> > right away.
>
> Does anyone else experience this?

Yes, I experience similar issues occasionally.  For example, yesterday I sent 
three emails at the following times: 19:48, 19:56, and 20:08.  The last two 
went through immediately, and I received the first one a while later.  The 
worst I have experiences was a whole day delay.  I sort my TLUG folder by 
date, and sometimes when a message has been delayed significantly, I have to 
scroll my message list quite a bit to find it.

So, I checked out the email headers and see that the delay took place between 
my host's postfix server and the hikari exim server.  From what I can tell, 
the exim server gets overwhelmed at times and does not accept email 
temporarily.  The smtp server that is sending the message delays for a 
certain amount of time (30 minutes in the case of my host's configuration) 
before trying again.  My message went through just over 30 minutes after 
sending it.  In some cases, however, it can be temporarily rejected multiple 
times in a row and cause larger delays.

I just chalk all this up to the fact that email is an antiquated, dieing 
technology.  It has really taken a downturn since spam started to take over 
years ago, and I am surprised that it is not dead yet. ;)

Cheers,

Travis