[hawthorn]

Hi

Ive noticed quite a few of my emails bouncing back to me recently, and while a lot more DO get delivered Im wondering is it something wrong with my laptop or just a coincidence.

I am useless at reading or interpreting the error messages, so if you dont mind I;ll paste a few of them here and perhaps those of you in the know would have a glance at them and see if theres anything unusual. Here goes:

1 ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
Edited (reason: can't create (user) output file)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
procmail: Error while writing to "/var/log/procmaillog"
procmail: Quota exceeded while writing "/var/spool/mail/friendsinbusiness"
550 5.0.0 Edited Can't create output

2 The original message was received at Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:24:41 -0500
from lithium.onspeed.com [212.100.250.207]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
Edited
(reason: can't create (user) output file)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
procmail: Error while writing to "/var/log/procmaillog"
procmail: Quota exceeded while writing "/var/spool/mail/friendsinbusiness"
550 5.0.0 EditedCan't create output


3 The original message was received at Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:05:08 +0100
from localhost [127.0.0.1]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
Edited
----- Transcript of session follows -----
EditedDeferred
Message could not be delivered for 3 days
Message will be deleted from queue

4 The original message was received at Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:07:07 +0100
from localhost [127.0.0.1]

----- Transcript of session follows -----
451 4.4.1 timeout writing message to mail.cwps.ie.: Connection reset by mail.cwps.ie.
EditedDeferred
Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 3 days old

5 The original message was received at Wed, 9 Aug 2006 22:02:00 +0100
from localhost [127.0.0.1]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
Edited

----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 5.1.2 EditedHost unknown (Name server: ericsson.net: no data known)

Thanks folks

h

Please do not include an e-mail address in any post as it could lead to more contact than you intended

Edited by Keith, 22 August 2006 - 06:09 PM.

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Keith

THANKS for removing the addresses.....I never even thought of that!!! Definitely not intentional, sorry!

Do the error messages look normal..??

h

[hawthorn]

Keith

THANKS for removing the addresses.....I never even thought of that!!! Definitely not intentional, sorry!

Do the error messages look normal..??

h

[Neil Jones]

These errors are generated by the servers that handle email. Looks like in a nutshell there's too much email for them to handle.

Think of it as a bucket - you can put so many pebbles in it up to a degree before it gets full. But in order to add more pebbles to it, you have to take some out. In email terms, in order for the server to be able to hold more email before it can go onto the next server, it has to pass on some before it can take anymore.

So for argument's sake, let's say that this is the (simplified) setup:

Your computer -> Server 1 -> Server 2 -> Server 3 -> Email inbox of the person you're contacting.
Server 1 can hold up to 100 emails in a queue. Server 2 can hold up to 1500 emails in a queue. Server 3 can hold up to 2500 emails in a queue.

You send an email. It goes to server 1. Server 1 is completely empty so it goes straight through to Server 2. Server 2 has a bit of a queue of 150 emails so it waits. Server 3 has a queue of 2500 emails and is stuck waiting for another server to empty its queue. Therefore Server 2's queue fills up, as does Server 1 eventually.

Eventually you'll have a stalemate where nothing can go anywhere at all. To prevent this, a server somewhere (usually one of the smaller ones initially, though the bigger ones time out as well) has to dump its load and this causes the messages to be bounced back to the senders, hence freeing up room for more emails to go on their way.

The above example is far too simplistic in a real-world situation and there are many servers from worldwide ones to local ones to sub-local ones to handle all the traffic. Usually emails fail at the sub-local level on the receiving end, though big queues (and occasional failures) at the really-big major email servers aren't unheard of either.

So to cut a long story short - there's nothing wrong with your laptop