Email Frustrations

[LucasK]

After this day I've grown a sudden attachment to postal mail.

I was noticing some of my emails didn't get replies (even though they were urgent), so I did a quick test.

I used my webhost account (with Outlook Express client) to send a dozen emails to my web-based accounts (Hotmail and my university mail). No spam filters were turned on.

Out of the 10ish emails I sent to Hotmail, only 2 actually reached it after an hour. Strangely, every single email I sent to my university account reached it quickly.


Does this suggest that my Hotmail account is the one losing my emails? Or could there also be problems with my webhost account (or even Outlook Express)?

[chrispy]

LucasK

We have been down this road before

What I found was that my web account had all previous deleted emails restored. Check your deleted folder. In my situation it was causing a mailbox full error, once I deleted the deleted all was well.

Chris

[GreatPig]

Lucas,

I recently had a problem where my main Hotmail account wasn't sending email anywhere, except to my other Hotmail accounts. After discovering people hadn't been receiving my emails, I did some tests and found that despite everything looking fine, no emails were getting delivered unless they were to other Hotmail accounts.

For God-only-knows-what reason, it now seems to be starting to work again. However, I'm still in the habit of blind copying all emails I send from the account to another non-Hotmail account, just to make sure they are getting out.

GP

[Sim]

Free email systems like Hotmail and Yahoo can be rather overzealous in their quest to stamp out spam.

We have had to ban any new users registering to the Somersoft forums from using Hotmail or Yahoo accounts for this very reason - the registration activation email would never be received, and so I would get complaint after complaint about people not being able to post after registering (they hadn't actually completed registration yet).

Basically, if you want to reliably receive email - do NOT use a free email provider !!!!!!

[Aceyducey]

Free email systems like Hotmail and Yahoo can be rather overzealous in their quest to stamp out spam.

We have had to ban any new users registering to the Somersoft forums from using Hotmail or Yahoo accounts for this very reason - the registration activation email would never be received, and so I would get complaint after complaint about people not being able to post after registering (they hadn't actually completed registration yet).

Basically, if you want to reliably receive email - do NOT use a free email provider !!!!!!
But some older users are still using Hotmail accounts (maybe Yahoo as well) :)

Perhaps the solution is to register using your home account & then change your email address after registration (for privacy).

If you mark any emails from Somersoft as permitted in Hotmail they should get through - I've never had an issue....to my knowledge ;)

Cheers,

Aceyducey

[GreatPig]

Web email accounts are convenient though, as they save having to tell a lot of people whenever you change ISPs. I'm on Optus cable now, and can't see me changing in the near future, but they are my third ISP since I've had home Internet.

And my first dial-up ISP didn't allow POP3 access to the email account, so I could only get that email by dialling into their node.

GP

[duncan_m]

Web email accounts are convenient though, as they save having to tell a lot of people whenever you change ISPs.
GP

Even more useful is registering your own domain and having it hosted. A few costs involved.. but you get complete control of your own email destiny, as many email addresses as you want for you and your family.

I have my personal domain hosted at Quadra Hosting (http://www.quadrahosting.com.au). There email service is great, unlimited email addresses, web access, POP access, and I can create email-lists which is really useful as I have things like:

friends@duncanmargetts.com, family@duncanmargetts.com for managing all of the email address I have to remember and I can broadcast messages out to friends, family etc..

Plus Quadra have Spam-Assassin and a Virus Scanner installed, I dont get any viruses and my spam level is now very low.

Well worth considering.. its a very long term, good solution to managing you and your families email.

[keithj]

Even more useful is registering your own domain and having it hosted. A few costs involved.. but you get complete control of your own email destiny, as many email addresses as you want for you and your family.
I've done similar - it cost me ~A$40 for 2 yrs domain registration & email only hosting with nettro.com.au (http://nettro.com.au). It's worth it, just to eliminate spam & also gives me complete control.

KJ

[LucasK]

Yep, I'm using a personal domain-registered email at the moment. The emails seem to be chaotic at best - sometimes they'd get through, other times just disappear. I've put a mark on my emails to request read reciepts, although this doesn't seem to work all the time.

I don't suppose there's such thing as "registered email" trackers? For example, postal registered mail, but for email.

[Aceyducey]

Lucas,

There you are looking for good business ideas & you've come up with another one :)

Actually there is a system over in the US whereby you pay for the emails you send & receive surety that they are delivered - but it's failed to do well.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

[LucasK]

Lucas,

There you are looking for good business ideas & you've come up with another one :)

I'll keep that in mind, when I learn something about computers :)

What exactly determines the reliability of an email server? I've never managed to figure this out - Hotmail seems to be a huge thing, but their reliability sucks for some reason.

[Sim]

Lesson #1: don't expect any sort of quality of service from a free site (eg hotmail)

Lesson #2: you get what you pay for

Lesson #3: more expensive doesn't necessarily equal better. I know this contradicts #2 a bit, but the message is - don't be afraid to pay if you need reliability, but shop around since there are heaps of overpriced offerings out there - (the key is to ask someone who knows).

Lesson #4: most ISPs actually offer a decent email service included with their accounts for free (this excludes Telstra who have one of the worst and most unreliable I've ever seen).