Communications failure?

[julianf]

Hi,

We run an Exchange 5.5 SP4 server. The Exchange server is also a DNS server and we have Raptor Firewall in place.

I have been picking up some problems now and then with messages bouncing back with Undeliverable reports....saying that the message could not been sent due to a communications failure. Clicking "Send Again" seems to fix the problem, but why is this happening? I assume that DNS may have something to do with this. The exchange server can ping external addresses, and therefore should be building a DNS name cache. The Firewall is also set as a DNS server for the Exchange server.

Below is an example of the error I get when the message bounces back: (I have edited the org name.)

Any advise would be appreciated.

Regards,

Julian

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: RE: 2004 GTI
Sent: 7/29/2002 10:45 AM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

'User' on 7/29/2002 10:45 AM
Unable to deliver the message due to a communications failure
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a= ;p=Domain;l=Domain-020729084443Z-1254
MSEXCH:IMS:Spieromainomain 3554 (000B09AA) 554 5.5.2 Invalid data in message

 

[Guest_imported]

I have the same issue, but it only applies to one particular domain. I can check nslookup from the mail server and can ping, but messages get popped back from there everytime. I called their email host and they say everything is fine. Our ISP says everything is fine. We don't have any problems sending to other domains and the domain we cant send to can recieve fine from anywhere else-even hotmail. Any ideas?

 

[julianf]

This is just a thought, but perhaps they have subscribed to an Anti-spam organization. Perhaps your server is or used to be an open relay.

If this is the case, your domain would be added to a blacklisting, resulting in e-mails from your domain being rejected by their domain.

This happened to me a while back - learned a valuable lesson in preventing spam.

But you say that all your other mail reaches their destinations...so I think that a blacklisting is unlickly.

It could also be a DNS-related problem. When you do an NSlookup from the mail server, can you get to the correct IP of the domain that is giving you problems. Try that and trace mail.domain.com (Or whatever it is).

Then go to

http://www.network-tools.com

and do the same test there and make sure that you are getting to the right IP...

Cheers,

Julian

 

[soaphead]

I ran across this problem with a html/text email message I was generating in a Borland C++Builder 5 program.
(554 5.5.2 Invalid data in message)
I found out it was because my html lines of code were too long with no CR/LF to break up lines. After I shorten up the lines in the message it went through. I was only having trouble with one server rejecting mail.
hope this helps

 

[yourwishismine]

Help... I am having a same issue... I have tried to resolve it with the methods listed... I could not seem to get it resolved..
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: ghostreg.dat
Sent: 10/29/2002 4:02 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

'ghostreg@symantec.com' on 10/29/2002 4:02 PM
Unable to deliver the message due to a communications failure
The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a= ;p=BOHLCO;l=TSERVER-021029210136Z-237
that is the message that I get.

 

[POSAPAY]

I get the same error... its been a year since people wrote on this forum.

Does anyone have a solution?
For me, plain text e-mail.. bounces back.
Something must be catching it and throwing it back after 2 seconds. Any ideas?

thanks,
-peter

 

[WANguy2k]

I recently started getting this error "554 5.5.2 Invalid data in message" sending emails into my domain from AOL. Someone was trying to send a file with an attachment and got this message. However, short text messages got through. This started happening when I turned off EHELO and set up a default connector in Exchange 2000. I also changed disabled the ESMTP verb as described in

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257569&Product=exch2k

You may need to enable or disable ESMTP inbound or outbound verbs to get past this.

I'm trying to figure out what verb combination is going to fix my inbound problem now. I'll try to post the answer if I find it. I didn't notice if you're using Exchange 5.5 or 2000, but I think it's more simple in 5.5. I think you can just turn off ESMTP support on your internet connector.