None of my websites have EVER sent spam or been used as bulk emailers. Yet, all of my clients at all of my websites are having their email rejected by all users at AOL. Two days ago, I sent a petition to postmaster@aol.com to have my websites whitelisted, but I have gotten no reply and no solution.

What can Hostony do to solve this? This has happened before with IP address 64.74.112.74. I had to petition an ISP (fast.net) to whitelist my sites. They were very cooperative and had it done in less than one day.

Please, send us a bounce email you get from aol.com so that we could find a reason they a blocking your emails.
Big providers are using spam estimation software that automatically rates messages as spam basing on the letter content.
Sometimes they filter out valid emails. Just as every weapont used for good it creates some damage. Changing email content in this case should help.
The other reason could be not refreshing RBL lists in timely manner. As far as I checked we ar not in any RBL now.
One more reason could be a spammer we had on server 10 on monday. It spammed for about 20-40 minutes and I saw yahoo and aol automatic blocking emails.

Last 2 reasons are hard to deal with since AOL is huge and has own reason for the petitions sent to them.

I sent an example to support@hostony.com.

I have had the same situation before, both with Hostony and other hosts. It's a problem with AOL. Gee, what a surprise, AOL has major problems. In any event, it always seems to smooth out after a day or two.

I believe this started happening the middle of last week, right BEFORE the massive meltdown.

Maybe Hostony needs to create a "reverse DNS" lookup entry.

Check out the following:

http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/ip4r.ch?ip=64.74.112.74

Hostony sent email to AOL. And AOL will stop email in a few days.
Send email to AOL using local ISP that time.

"...will stop email in a few days..." I asume you mean "...will stop BLOCKING email in a few days..."

I also have sent two emails to AOL (postmaster@aol.com) in the past ten days, but nothing has changed, unless you at Hostony have an "inside track" to the email masters at AOL.

Lastly, I don't find acceptable using a local ISP for smtp services. It is FAR more convenient to use smtp.mydomain.com. Why? Some of my clients' ISP's do not permit outside email through their servers. Second, some of my clients (myself included) travel frequentlt and are using multiple ways to access the internet (dialup to a few different ISPs, the free broadband intenet in some hotels, etc) Would I have to keep changing my Outlook Express settings? Third, I have been unable to get smtp.verizon.net to work at all. Verizon is my primary (though not my majority) dialup ISP when I travel.

I'll keep testing, but I still believe the correct solution lies with Hostony, not AOL and not me.

I said that We can't control AOL actions.
They answered that mail was blocked automatically. And We should wait a few days when this IP will be unsuspended.

Yes, I understand you don't control AOL. But this server (64.74.112.74) seems to keep getting into trouble with email blocking, whether it's from AOL or one or more of the RBLs . Aren't there ANY measures you can take to keep it clean? Maybe you should just consider getting a totally new IP address for it. I don't know what the answer is! I just know I keep getting blasted by my clients.

If it's any consolation--and I don't see how it would be--I'm on a different server and I'm now also being blocked by AOL. This makes about the 10th time in the last 2 1/2 years (keeping in mind that I've only been at Hostony for about 13 months). There's something about their servers that rejects outsiders.

Not only we experience this problem
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.p...ight=block+mail

Alec,
The following was in the link Vanya supplied:

Is reverse DNS setup, this solved our AOL problem,

Dan


__________________
MSN - admin@dhrx.co.uk AIM - dhrx1 YAHOO - dhrx1
http://www.dhrx.co.uk
admin@dhrx.co.uk

Maybe you can set up a "reverse DNS" entry on 64.74.112.74?

jchrastina
We already did. My be this will solve the problem... If it will problem must disappear in a few hours.

Did you set this up on all servers? Mine is still being blocked.

It's now five hours and an email to postmaster@aol.com was bounced. I'll try again later tonight and tomorrow and the next day .... I never have liked AOL, but some of my clients do.

64.74.112.74 is STILL being blocked by AOL, going on TWO WEEKS now.

Hostony - You absolutely MUST take some other action. Can you assign a new IP address for server10 and retire 64.74.112.74 for a few months??? Or will that break anything else.

This is absolutely ABSURD!!!!!

Danimal
We'll do it if it works.
Can somebody try to send an e-mail to AOL user from 64.74.112.74

Anyone... please.... send a test email to postmaster@aol.com or shbf@aol.com

ALL of my emails from six domains on 64.74.112.74 get blocked to ANY address at aol.com

From MAILER-DAEMON Thu Aug 07 18:14:42 2003
Received: from mailnull by server10.fastbighost.com with local (Exim 4.20)
id 19kt1u-0002T2-1h
for noone@artrocity.com; Thu, 07 Aug 2003 18:14:42 -0400
X-Failed-Recipients: postmaster@aol.com
From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@server10.fastbighost.com>
To: noone@artrocity.com
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
Message-Id: <E19kt1u-0002T2-1h@server10.fastbighost.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 18:14:42 -0400

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

postmaster@aol.com
SMTP error from remote mailer after initial connection:
host mailin-04.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.153]: 554-(RLY:B1) The information presently available to AOL indicates this
554-server is generating high volumes of member complaints from AOL's
554-member base. Based on AOL's Unsolicited Bulk E-mail policy at
554-http://www.aol.com/info/bulkemail.html AOL may not accept further
554-e-mail transactions from this server or domain. For more information,
554 please visit http://postmaster.info.aol.com.

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

Return-path: <noone@artrocity.com>
Received: from cpanel by server10.fastbighost.com with local (Exim 4.20)
id 19kt1t-0002Sz-UQ
for postmaster@aol.com; Thu, 07 Aug 2003 18:14:41 -0400
Received: from 68.100.52.109 ([68.100.52.109])
by artrocity.com (IMP) with HTTP
for <noone@localhost>; Thu, 7 Aug 2003 18:14:41 -0400
Message-ID: <1060294481.3f32cf51dbbb3@artrocity.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 18:14:41 -0400
From: noone@artrocity.com
To: postmaster@aol.com
Subject: TEST
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) 3.2.1
X-Originating-IP: 68.100.52.109

This post was done through my webmail and the headers
appear to originate from my local COX Cable IP address.

Blocked just the same.

I dont know if this helps your case
or if AOl is just blocking all mail !

Artrocity - thanks for testing.

In my travels I find myself conneected to various ISPs, including Verizon dial-up, Verizon DSl, Comcast cable, Cox cable, my corporate network, an ISP in our UK office when I am there. That's why I KEEP my smtp server settings in Outlook set for my own domains. Everywhere I have tested in the past three weeks has FAILED to reach AOL.

I am far less concerned about my own email than I am for all of my clients who look to me for reliable, competent technical guidance. How do I keep telling them they can't send email to ANYONE at AOL??

Hostony - Are any of your other servers / IP addresses plagued like this? What is involved in moving me to a different server? How long does it take? My domains are very small. Please give me some DETAILED information on the positives (AOL will work) and definitely the NEGATIVES (downtime during move, loss of emails, loss of email accounts, slower server, etc). You can either post it here for the benefit of all or email it to me (jim@chrastina.com)

Hey Jim, I'm on a different server (server 1 I believe) and it's the same for me, so I'd say it's probably a problem for all. The trouble is, we can't even write to them since the email to postmaster gets bounced too! Grrrrrr...

Danimal, Thanks for testing. I use my Hotmail account to send to postmaster@aol.com, SINCE I AM UNABLE TO USE ANY OF MY HOSTONY DOMAINS.

Sergey seems to think Hostony is not RBL at all. See another thread in the Mail forum.

Please Hostony, something needs to be done about the AOL problem. Do you have ANY proposals? And please don't suggest using my ISP for smtp. That's simply not acceptable. We depend on YOU to provide clean, stable , reliable service. I know you work very hard to do this (witness last week's meltdown and recovery on server10), but this AOL mess has dragged on way too long.

Please see "All my websites are down" in General Support
http://forum.hostony.com/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=510

We've investigated problem.
AOL enabled a new system of blocking mail.
The problem is in a reverse zone.
When reverse zone is created we'll try to send mail to aol and we'll give information about it.

Sergey - Thanks. Please keep at this with AOL and with creating your reverse DNS entires. I believe you need to assure that A records and MX records are internally consistent. AOL seems to have started using a reverse DNS check about two months ago.

We are going to add reverse DNS zones for all our servers. It will be done completely in a few days. Check now if you can send e-mail to AOL users.

Now, I am unable to send ANY mail to ANYone:

The connection to the server has failed. Account: 'Jim at Home', Server: 'mail.chrastina.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10051, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E

I still can't, but Jim's last post worries me that I might lose the ability to email anyone. So far AOL's the only bad one.

I am delighted to report that ALL of my email is now working, even email to AOL addresses.


BUT HOW LONG WILL IT LAST BEFORE A HOSTONY CLIENT AGAIN ABUSES THE SYSTEM, WITH THE RESULT THAT AN INNOCENT IP ADDRESS IS ASSASSINATED BY AOL????

We've sent e-mail to AOL support again asking them to solve this problem.

Jim, while I'm happy for you, I'm sad to report that I still can't email AOL addresses.

Aug 19 and still problems. Any one else still experiencing it?

The problem is back again on 64.74.112.74. It was working for maybe one week, then died again.

FYI seems that our server is being used for spamming. I have gotten rejection message back for emails I have not sent.

Sent support several ICQ and emails but no real response yet. usually the support is great here I hope they will resolve this soon.

Copy of most recent ICQ messages

bob@eatwellandbewell.com (10:41 AM) :
Hello,

Just send an email to support. Seems that someone is using one of my web sites to spam. I'm not sure if this is true but I am getting emails generated from the site www.loganrice.com.

Please let me know if this is OK.

Thanks,
Bob
Shurik (10:49 AM) :
ok will look
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (10:49 AM) :
Thanks
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (03:55 PM) :
find anything yet
Shurik (03:56 PM) :
not yet
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (05:43 PM) :
please open a ticket re this and let me know what you find out. I send a wekly eamil to several aol accounts and want to make sue I and not blocked.
Shurik (05:44 PM) :
We solved all problems with AOL
Shurik (05:44 PM) :
Now you can send and receive messages without any issues.
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (06:06 PM) :
I understand but can you tell me what the messages are that seemed to be sent from my site as I indicated in my email.

Thanks

Shurik (06:07 PM) :
I've found nothing yet
Shurik (06:08 PM) :
Now your site looks like a normal
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (08:08 PM) :
Can you explain how emails are generated like the one I copied to you in my email?

Shurik (08:08 PM) :
ok


bob@eatwellandbewell.com (12:40 PM) :
can not send to AOL from my account again. www.eatwellandbewell.com . As I mentioned in my eamil it seems that someone is relaying throught the server. Can you fix this please I need to be able to send to AOL today.

Thanks,
Bob

Shurik (12:44 PM) :
http://forum.hostony.com/index.php?act=ST&...f=10&t=479&st=0
bob@eatwellandbewell.com (12:57 PM) :

Thanks for the link. But I sent you an Email yesterday that looks like someone used one of my sites (www.loganrice.com) as a relay. If this is the case AOL will block the IP address. Please check and let me know if you need another copy of the email please let me know.

Test of my site indicates that it is an open relay and that's not a good thing.

I ran a test through www.net.abuse.com and it seems that the server I am on is open to relay of messages. If this is the case I can understand why AOL is blocking and if they ever do fix the problem I don't know if the it will remain solved for long. I opened a ticket with support but it seems that they are having a hard time understanding this issue. Usually the support folks are very good here but I am not seeing the same level of response that I have in the past.

------------------------------------------------
text of the ticket I opened

Ran a test of my site using www.abuse.net and was able to relay through the server. If this is the case it would seem that we will continue to have the porblem with AOL in the future. Please let me know if I am correct of is I am not undeerstanding the results of this test

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Relay test 6
>>> RSET
<<< 250 Reset OK
>>> MAIL FROM:<spamtest@eatwellandbewell.com>
<<< 250 OK
>>> RCPT TO:<user-34285%nf.abuse.net@eatwellandbewell.com>
<<< 250 Accepted
>>> DATA
<<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
>>> (message body)
<<< 250 OK id=19qJKO-0004md-2B

Relay test result
Hmmn, at first glance, host appeared to accept a message for relay.
THIS MAY OR MAY NOT MEAN THAT IT'S AN OPEN RELAY.

Some systems appear to accept relay mail, but then reject messages internally rather than delivering them, but you cannot tell at this point whether the message will be relayed or not.

If it is really an open relay, the test message will be delivered to you. If you do not receive the test message in your e-mail in the next few hours, it IS NOT an open relay.

Received email below


This is a test of third-party mail relay, generated via the Network Abuse Clearinghouse at <http://www.abuse.net>.

Target host = <www.eatwellandbewell.com> [207.44.232.113]
Test performed by <bob@eatwellandbewell.com> from 24.47.101.127

A well-configured mail server should NOT relay third-party email. Otherwise, the server is subject to abuse by vandals and spammers, and probable blacklisting by recipients of the unwanted third-party e-mail.

For information on how to secure a mail server against third-party relay, visit <URL: <http://www.mail-abuse.org/tsi/>>.

I'm still also unable to send email to AOL accounts. Some people are saying they can, what's different about their servers?!

I'm not sure if support has done something to some of the servers to fix the problem. Mine is still not able to send and support has been rather unresponsive. They said they received a letter from AOL that it woudl be fixed in a day.

Maybe we can all start collecting IP addresses of our servers. Just go to a DOS Prompt and type "ping yourdomain.com". you'll get a display that shows the IP address that holds your domain.

all of my domains are on 64.74.112.74

Bob, eatwellandbewell.com is on 207.44.232.113
Danimal, nothing-sacred.net is on 209.51.138.26

So far, THREE different servers.

Hey, quit pinging around my server!

Just kidding.

Let's hope this gets fixed soon. I've also noticed recently an inordinate amount of "returned message" mails from someone trying to use my address to send viruses. Anyone else in this boat? It's also happening on my Yahoo account, so this can't be exclusive to our servers.

I am disappointed that the support team has not been more active in the forum regarding this problem. Fortunatly I only host my own sites but I do sent emails to AOL and now I have to send them through my ISP. It's a pain and the from address shows my ISP instead of my domain.

Bob -
I changed Outlook Express and Outlook to use my ISP for outbound mail, instead of using mail.mydomain.com. Seems to work fine.

It works fine. However, I would still rather have all of "my" customers use the domain for outbound, instead of their individual ISPs. I just think it makes ME look more professional to THEM.

I sent you a test email. What do you think. Maybe this will help you in the short term. In the long term, Hostony has to get a reliable, permanent solution.

Please see pinned post at the top of the section. It should answer all your questions.

Here is a link:
http://forum.hostony.com/index.php?act=ST&f=10&t=547