CDOSYS and Hotmail

I see.
I had the admin login and send a message to me through our smtp console to my hotmail account and it went through A OK.

Its definately either a configuration or composition issue. I am using the default CDOSYS code which ships with WWF, so Im trying to troubleshoot it from there. From what it sounds like, this is a known issue with the forums and sending email through CDOSYS, so it sure would be nice to find a resolution to this as it would probably help out quite a few!

As a side note ive emailed hotmail.com tech support and the microsoft bug reporting service. I doubt ill hear back from either but it was worth a shot.

Yahoo, MSN, and AOHell all publish webmaster info regarding what constitiutes spam to them. MSN also has one mail server that is totally hosed - e.g. handles mail in very non-standard ways. You'd have to check each site for details, and for other reasons they reject an email, but the quick list for spam flagging is:

1. From a blacklisted ip. or an ip within a range of blacklisted ip's.
2. Some number of sequential emails sent to their users with the same subject.
3. A reverse dns look-up does not resolve the senders domain with the ip.

DP, Thank you for that list.

#3 could very possibly be the cause. The IP of my server 69.56.242.54 on which my domain sits is also shared amongst several other domains, and in fact, upon a reverse DNS lookup, resolves to a completely different domain (and subdomain). Which is actually the domain of the owning hosting company.

So I would guess this was causing the issue at hand. Is anyone aware of any server configuration which could resolve this, or any 'hack' solution for sending to hotmail.com addresses? (ie, something like using the actual reverse dns result for the @ portion of the sender's email address)

EXCITED EDIT! We have a solution!

Line 117 of functions_send_mail.asp is where the edit takes place.

    If (InStr(strRecipientEmailAddress, "hotmail") Or InStr(strRecipientEmailAddress, "msn")) And strFromEmailAddress = "<email config address>" Then
     .From = strFromEmailName & " <noreply@69-56-242-54.theplanet.com>"
    Else
     .From = strFromEmailName & " <" & strFromEmailAddress & ">"
    End If

This very ugly and not very configurable change to the code let the email slip right on into hotmail.com and was tested on an msn.com account i created as well. Hey Borg-e-baby, might this be something worth working into the config in a future version?

Great discussion guys! Thanks!

andrew_ wrote: DP, Thank you for that list. #3 could very possibly be the cause. The IP of my server 69.56.242.54 on which my domain sits is also shared amongst several other domains, and in fact, upon a reverse DNS lookup, resolves to a completely different domain (and subdomain). Which is actually the domain of the owning hosting company. So I would guess this was causing the issue at hand. Is anyone aware of any server configuration which could resolve this, or any 'hack' solution for sending to hotmail.com addresses? (ie, something like using the actual reverse dns result for the @ portion of the sender's email address)

Sorry ... but that "shouldn't be the issue".

The SMTP negotiation process involving SPAM chekcing and DNSBL lookups will check for

* Does the IP Address of your SMTP relay exist in a BANNED list.  THis will be the IP Address of the server and is not an issue for you. A reverse lookup on your IP Address wil give the domain of the host ... and this is normal.  You dont need to worry about this.

* Does the domain of the sender (in the FROM field) resolve.  For example if Im sending from user@123.domainabc.com and the domain 123.domainabc.com doesn't exist then it will be denied access.  The from field is what you set in the WWF admin area.  This will occur regardless of what the IP Address of your relaying machine