mail mystery

[David Bandel]

On 2/20/07, dep <dep at drippingwithirony.com> wrote:
> said Net Llama!:
>
> | Youv'e provided basically no information other than to state that
> | *something* is failing.  Are you getting an error message?  If so,
> | what it is?
>
> that's the problem -- all i know is that something is failing. it just
> times out, kmail throws its usual and misleading "no connection" error
> (which it throws no matter what the problem is, unless it's a rejected
> password).
>
> hence my question as to diagnostics i might perform that might help
> isolate the issue.


Problem is, the diagnostics need to be run on the server end.
However, you might be able to run them from the client.  Turn on
logging and watch (I believe kmail has a log window).

Problem is, smtp is incredibly sensitive to disconnects.  If the
connection is at all flakey, it will just stop.  Had a client here in
Panama call me telling me they had worked on their sendmail server for
three days but couldn't find the problem.  Small e-mails went fine,
but large ones (more then a few kb) failed.  In about 5 minutes I told
them their problem was their internet connection.  Two days later they
said they changed out the antenna and all was well.

Try this:  start pinging your mail server, then connect and send your
mail.  The initial connection setup may just be slow enough to cause
problems, as you say subsequent sends work.  If starting pings fixes
the problem, it's what you may have to do.  Sometimes a
slow-to-respond DNS will cause the initial connection to hesitate long
enough not to send.  This problem actually shows up more on fast links
than slow ones.  Check your DNS settings and make sure your DNS
servers are responding properly as well (use dig @nameserver to check
each one to a non-local target, like google --  a srvfail is bad,
means your selected DNS server doesn't want to talk to you).

HTH,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto