Where do missing e.mails go?

[condor]

Hi

I've had 2 e.mails (as far as I know) not delivered to my main ISP e.mail address (ntlworld). I don't have a spam filter on it..and the 2 missing e.mails were text only.

What's of interest is how do e.mails get sent down telephone lines? How can e.mails just dissapear?

I asked one of the missing e.mail senders to forward it from their 'sent item' box and that arrived immediately...with the original date it was sent.

Is it like a telephone line fault?

[slinky]

mail servers can be arsey things at times!!!

have a look here for the full rundown on the whole email thing!!!

Howstuffworks is a marvellous site.. it can explain most things to most people!

slinky

[condor]

Thanks slinky I read that....but it doesn't explain how e.mails can not get to their destination.

[slinky]

There are many many reasons as to why email doesn't get where it's supposed to go...

Could be a badly configured mail server, could be a routing loop (so the mail is bouncing around not knowing where to go)...

It's really tricky to narrow down exactly where the missing item has gone, or why it went missing, without access to mail server logs...

I'm in a better situation because I deal with the majority of my own mail, so I can watch it go out of my server and onto someone elses... at that point it becomes their problem and if it goes missing, they'll need to find it!!! Although that doesn't help your missing items I know..

slinky

[condor]

Thanks slinky

My missing mail wasn't that big a deal because I queried why I hadn't got a response from the sender - as obviously I expected one. The 'business' sender replied they'd sent it a week ago - and asked for a different e.mail address to re-send it to (in case of spam filter). The other case was a friend and also easily sorted.

I don't think many people realise that e.mails don't always get to there destination...I'll be even more persistant now if I don't get a response

[JamieBeeston]

Could simply be their servers are overloaded / crashed / hacked during reciept of your mail, and just lost it.


I would never rely on a Free Mail account for anything important. You get the quality of service that you pay for.

Still doesnt help tho ;(

[malman]

If you find the socks that go missing in the wash, lift them up as your email is underneath

[condor]

Have investigated this morning...and it does seem that ntlworld has intermittent problems.

www.ntlworld.com/help/aup/email_update.php

well they could have sent me an e.mail to tell me

[anonymous-user]

condor said:

well they could have sent me an e.mail to tell me

They probably did.

[Big_M]

Where do missing emails go? Same place where the sent faxes that never get there go. They are all intercepted by aliens. I often picture martians chucking over some of the more dodgey emails that are sent that didn't arrive.