Email not going anywhere

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natural_perfumer
Posts: 48
Joined: July 7th, 2007, 1:34 pm

Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by natural_perfumer »

I'm reporting it right now. The CS person said she was escalating it (as I requested) but she didn't want to put me thru to a supervisor. I insisted after she again told me they don't support other email programs or addys other than comcast. I'm suggesting we all threaten to leave comcast if they don't fix this quickly.
MichaelY01
Posts: 3
Joined: December 8th, 2008, 12:19 pm

Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by MichaelY01 »

Same problem. It started last night between 11:30PM and 1:30AM. Hours on phone with Comcast and tried whatever I could think of myself. I finally traced it down to sending email with an HTML signature. If I remove the HTML signature and use a text signature, the email reaches comcast and I get it back. Using TB 2.0.0.18 on 2 different computers; one is XP Home and the other Vista Home Premium. They each use different firewalls and virus protection. They both have the problem.

I have been using the same HTML signature for years now without any problem until last night. Believe me I have tried every combination and permutation I and the 3 Comcast support people I spoke with could think of or imagine and the only variable is having an HTML signature. HTML in the body (like change of color of background or text, change of font, insertion of links, etc.) work fine. A simple change of color in the signature causes the message to disappear into the bit ether never to be found again except for the copy left in my sent folder.

This may be some bug introduced by an update to TB or perhaps a virus or perhaps due to an update to Comcast's SMTP server. I will cross post this to Thunderbird Bugs.

MichaelY
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DanRaisch
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Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by DanRaisch »

Note that sending messages from the webmail site does NOT use an SMTP server so it does not provide a valid test of the server's accessibility or functionality. It would be possible for that server to be off-line but for the web-site messages to still go out.

PeterGD, if you have Tiscali as your email provider you are NOT having the same problem as Orrymain who is using Comcast. Please start a new topic to ensure that your problem is properly understood and addressed.

natural_perfumer, please stay in just one thread, preferably -- viewtopic.php?f=39&t=984805 It can very confusing try to follow a problem when it is scattered over multiple threads.

MichaelY01, as no one else has mentioned an HTML signature you may NOT have the same problem as others. Please start a new topic rather than risk confusion in this one.
MichaelY01
Posts: 3
Joined: December 8th, 2008, 12:19 pm

Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by MichaelY01 »

Danraisch: you replied to me:

"MichaelY01, as no one else has mentioned an HTML signature you may NOT have the same problem as others. Please start a new topic rather than risk confusion in this one."


Dan, believe me I appreciate the time and effort you put into moderating this discussion. I have taken advantage of the willingness and smarts of the many people who do what you do. You provide a most valuable service. However, in this case I respectfully disagree with your response to me.

My problem is exactly as posted by the initiator of this thread and others who have posted replies that they too are having the same problem. I posted here because I wanted to inform these people that I have the same problem and through a comprehensive trial and error process, on which I spent approximately 10 hours, in my case I narrowed it down to the use of an HTML signature. True, this cause of the stated problem may not work for all, but if it works for one then by reading it here they can at least know the cause of the problem and can work around it.

Note that HTML signatures is not the problem. The problem is having email disappear into the ether and I discovered that HTML signatures is at least one cause of the problem. In addition, since it is at least one cause of the problem, knowing that fact should be of enormous help to the technicians, providing them with a starting point to fix it. Knowing what causes the problem is the first and perhaps the most difficult part of debugging. I know because professionally I spent much of my time for 35 years doing exactly that.

I would appreciate it if you would notify the powers that be about what I have discovered so that they can investigate it and if it is a TB problem, fix it. I can live with it for a while, but do not like it.

Sincerely,
MichaelY
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DanRaisch
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Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
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Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by DanRaisch »

MichalY, While I appreciate you effort to help others, the signature issue still seems unrelated to the problems being discussed in this thread.

You should also note that MozillaZine is not run by the Mozilla Foundation and is not an official part of the Mozilla project. MozillaZine is an independent Mozilla news, community and advocacy site. We have no control over the development of Thunderbird and there are usually no developers on this forum.
Orrymain
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Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by Orrymain »

Here's the latest. The emails I sent to myself over the weekend and today all came in together, at the same time. However, emails sent anywhere else are working on a 50/50 basis, which is better than the weekend. It looks like the fog may be clearing. As an aside, I do have a signature, and it's completely text -- nothing HTML about it, so that definitely wasn't part of my problem. I do believe Comcast had a problem and that our calls got them to realize it. Hopefully, it's handled now.
MichaelY01
Posts: 3
Joined: December 8th, 2008, 12:19 pm

Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by MichaelY01 »

Very strange. Some of the emails I sent with HTML signature started arriving at destinations other than to my email address after being in the ether for 10 plus hours. As far as I know, via contact with some of my intended recipients, all those without HTML signatures arrived at their destinations normally. I have also received a pile of "Delivery Status Notifications" notifying me "Delivery to the following recipients is still underway after nn.n hour(s)"; all for Verizon.net customers. (There was no way I could determine whether or not these emails had HTML or text only signatures.)

And then when I tried again at 9:00PM (EST) last night the problem just disappeared and all emails worked normally regardless of signature type. Checking again this AM (4:35 EST), all is still OK. As a result and taken together with Orrymain's last post, the best I can figure is that there was a problem at Comcast. Since I too, like Orrymain, had pushed to get an incident report (ID: CR14702069) to be issued at Comcast maybe they got enough of them and fixed the problem.

MichaelY
kvanra
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Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by kvanra »

i recieved my last "notice" a couple hours ago. and the "recipiant" is no one i have ever heard of. and i have no "sent item to see what isn't being delivered after 49+ hours... any ideas?
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DanRaisch
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Re: Email not going anywhere

Post by DanRaisch »

kvanra, you've posted to a thread that died out more than 18 months ago. It involved a previous release of the application and was becoming rather convoluted because too many people were reporting variations of a similar but not necessarily identical problem. If you need support please create a new topic, providing details of your Thunderbird installation and the problem you are now having.

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