[TelstraClear] Diagnostic code: smtp;550 Too many invalid recipients

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StarBlazer

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#79877 23-Mar-2011 20:42

Increasingly, I've been receiving this error message when sending an email to a specific person. It's to my sister in law so no big issue to me, although the wife is making it my problem.

More of the message below - some changes for privacy;

Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients:

Recipient address: <removed>@<removed>.karoo.co.uk
Reason: Rejection greeting returned by server.
Diagnostic code: smtp;550 Too many invalid recipients
Remote system: dns;mx.vip.karoo.kcom.com

Firstly, is this response coming from TelstraClear or from Karoo (the recipients ISP)? Obviously I would like to know whether I have to sort this out or she does.

Secondly, what does it actually mean? I've Googled the error and the reasons vary from too much spam (which I don't send and no I don't have trojans or viruses) to incorectly configured accounts. I don't get this specific message for anyone else (recently got rejected because a friend's mailbox was full) and as far as I can tell nobody is having any problems sending email to me.

What are your thoughts.

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Snowflake

#451237 23-Mar-2011 21:18

i'm going to lay a guess and say that the sending mail server (telstraclear) has been blocked for attempting to send too many emails to the receiving mail server (karoo). perhaps a few other telstraclear users have had their pc's compromised and their email clients are being used to spam out email to random addresses.

how to fix? if this is the case, then there may not be a lot you can do except perhaps try and get the receiving server to whitelist your senders address. if the connection is being dropped before your mail server even sends the , then it may not be possible to fix if the receiving server wont whitelist your whole isp..

i'd be inclined to flick an mail to the receiving servers admin/helpdesk and see if they can try help you sort it. or switch to sending from a @gmail or @hotmail address - they're less likely to block all of hotmail or gmail.

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Ragnor

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#451292 24-Mar-2011 02:18

Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

StarBlazer

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#451304 24-Mar-2011 08:13

Regs: i'm going to lay a guess and say that the sending mail server (telstraclear) has been blocked for attempting to send too many emails to the receiving mail server (karoo). perhaps a few other telstraclear users have had their pc's compromised and their email clients are being used to spam out email to random addresses.

how to fix? if this is the case, then there may not be a lot you can do except perhaps try and get the receiving server to whitelist your senders address. if the connection is being dropped before your mail server even sends the , then it may not be possible to fix if the receiving server wont whitelist your whole isp..

i'd be inclined to flick an mail to the receiving servers admin/helpdesk and see if they can try help you sort it. or switch to sending from a @gmail or @hotmail address - they're less likely to block all of hotmail or gmail.

I'll try emailing the ISP and get my sister in law to do the same. The thing is it's not every email. It used to be once in a while but now it's around 1 in 10 that gets blocked.

Ragnor: Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

Switiching her email account may be more trouble than it's worth! This lady can't plug in a USB anything without her neighbours help - at first she tried to shove it in the network slot :) But I guess if it becomes more common I may have to consider that as an option.

thanks

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#451309 24-Mar-2011 08:28

Telstra get blacklisted a lot by other email servers, as others have mentioned, try Gmail etc.

You'll find the ISP wont remove it because theyll be using a 3rd party RBL and will wait until that list has it removed and updated them.

Its frustrating, we used to use Telstra at work and one of the main reasons we moved was due to their being blacklisted all the time.

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freitasm

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#451316 24-Mar-2011 08:34

If it is so important and part of the business requirements why don't people pay for a third party SMTP service with proper SLA and all? There are plenty of services around.

These links are referral codes

freitasm

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#451317 24-Mar-2011 08:36

StarBlazer:
Regs: i'm going to lay a guess and say that the sending mail server (telstraclear) has been blocked for attempting to send too many emails to the receiving mail server (karoo). perhaps a few other telstraclear users have had their pc's compromised and their email clients are being used to spam out email to random addresses.

how to fix? if this is the case, then there may not be a lot you can do except perhaps try and get the receiving server to whitelist your senders address. if the connection is being dropped before your mail server even sends the , then it may not be possible to fix if the receiving server wont whitelist your whole isp..

i'd be inclined to flick an mail to the receiving servers admin/helpdesk and see if they can try help you sort it. or switch to sending from a @gmail or @hotmail address - they're less likely to block all of hotmail or gmail.

I'll try emailing the ISP and get my sister in law to do the same.? The thing is it's not every email.? It used to be once in a while but now it's around 1 in 10 that gets blocked.

Ragnor: Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

Switiching her email account may be more trouble than it's worth!? This lady can't plug in a USB anything without her neighbours help - at first she tried to shove it in the network slot :)? But I guess if it becomes more common I may have to consider that as an option.

thanks

He suggested YOU change email providers, not her.

These links are referral codes

xpd

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#451339 24-Mar-2011 09:46

freitasm: If it is so important and part of the business requirements why don't people pay for a third party SMTP service with proper SLA and all? There are plenty of services around.

Fair call. It wasnt the only reason we switched tho. Havent had any probs since going to Orcon though :)

XPD^ / DemiseNZ

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Snowflake

#451354 24-Mar-2011 10:22

Ragnor: Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

and never look back at any email history if you were one of the hundreds of thousands of customers who lost their inboxes in googles recent storage disaster....

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Ragnor

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#451505 24-Mar-2011 16:06

Regs:
Ragnor: Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

and never look back at any email history if you were one of the hundreds of thousands of customers who lost their inboxes in googles recent storage disaster....

0.02 of gmail users were affected and email was restored from tape backups within 5 days.

I can't see NZ ISP's matching that kind of response to an issue, in fact many incidents show much worse response time and non recovery of data (see Orcon last year).

You can also use disconnected or offline imap to retain a local copy of your email, or various backup tools to backup your email if needed.

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Snowflake

#451553 24-Mar-2011 18:40

Ragnor:
Regs:
Ragnor: Most ISP's treat email as a poorly run after thought these days. Sign up for a gmail account and never look back.

and never look back at any email history if you were one of the hundreds of thousands of customers who lost their inboxes in googles recent storage disaster....

0.02 of gmail users were affected and email was restored from tape backups within 5 days.

they were lucky they caught the storage bug before it replicated to all their data centres. imagine if they had to recover 50% of their users mailboxes.... also gmail has no SLA - they dont even *have* to backup and restore your email. they could have just told those 200K users, "hard luck"!

bit off topic anyway

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tigercorp

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#451561 24-Mar-2011 19:19

StarBlazer: It's to my sister in law so no big issue to me, although the wife is making it my problem.

Genuine LOL! Hahahahaha...

Ragnor

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#451652 25-Mar-2011 01:56

Regs:

they were lucky they caught the storage bug before it replicated to all their data centres. imagine if they had to recover 50% of their users mailboxes.... also gmail has no SLA - they dont even *have* to backup and restore your email. they could have just told those 200K users, "hard luck"!

bit off topic anyway

Q: Do you believe residential NZ ISP email services that come free with broadband plans (which don't have a SLA either) are better run. maintained, staffed and have higher reliability and resources than gmail?

timmmay

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#451687 25-Mar-2011 09:18

I've had fewer email problems since I switched to using AUTHSmtp.com to deliver my email (SMTP, not POP/IMAP).

Regs

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Snowflake

#451809 25-Mar-2011 15:16

Ragnor:
Regs:

they were lucky they caught the storage bug before it replicated to all their data centres. imagine if they had to recover 50% of their users mailboxes.... also gmail has no SLA - they dont even *have* to backup and restore your email. they could have just told those 200K users, "hard luck"!

bit off topic anyway

Q: Do you believe residential NZ ISP email services that come free with broadband plans (which don't have a SLA either) are better run. maintained, staffed and have higher reliability and resources than gmail?

No. In fact, no-one should ever use a me@isp email address. There is little need any more and it limits your flexibility. me@gmail or me@hotmail are OK, but me@mydomain is better.

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