Re: Strange thunderbird sending problem... [solved]

[oldman <talbotscott@xxxxxxx>]

Duncan Lithgow wrote:

> Tony Nelson wrote:
>
> > At 7:31 PM +0200 8/11/05, Duncan Lithgow wrote:
> >  
> >
> > > I've started getting this error in thunderbird, I thought I'd ask if
> > > anyone has seen this before...
> > >
> > > "An error occured while sending mail. The mail server responded: 
> > > unknown
> > > user. Please verify that your email address is correct in your Mail
> > > preferences and try again."
> > >
> > > It only happend sometimes and I'm not sure what the pattern is. Anyone
> > > have an idea, and no it's not my Mail preference - it works fine 
> > > most of
> > > the time.
> > >
> > > SElinux is disabled, and setting smtp as a trusted service didn't help
> > > (i've set it back again)
> > >   
> >
> >
> > I expect that you aren't sending through your own SMTP server, but 
> > through
> > a server provided by your ISP or MSP.  This might be an authentication
> > issue with them.  In my case, I'm using (the default) POP before SMTP 
> > hack,
> > where if I've checked mail "recently", I'm allowed to send mail.  If I
> > haven't checked mail "recently" I get a scary error message that I'm
> > unknown.
> >
> > If you are using some more sophisticated authentication, such as SMTP 
> > AUTH,
> > this probably isn't your problem.
> > ____________________________________________________________________
> > TonyN.:'                       <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >      '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
> >
> >  
> I've found the problem. Oddly enough it's one of the addresses in the 
> email I tried to send. Why it didn't just send them all out and let me 
> collect the bounced failures I don't know... I've spoken to the guy 
> with the address and got a valid address from him.
>
> Still, odd problem.
   I wonder if the "problem" isn't your mail provider (ISP?).  Perhaps 
the address you had was so mal-formed that the ISP cold make no sense of 
it, and bounced the entire transaction.  I think that would happen if, 
for instance you had no "@" in the address, which is different than 
having an address that looks complete, but does not exist ( in this case 
the ISP would not find out about the address 'til the mail was bounced).

Scott