AOL 421 errors

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

We've noticed a surge in 421 e-mail errors from AOL.

Message soft bounced for ‘###@aol.com’, ‘4.3.2 - Not accepting messages at this time (‘421’, [’: (DYN:T1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dynt1.html’, ‘SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE’]) []’

It seems as though they've tightened down their policies.
We're pretty good at preventing spam with our IronPort
anti-spam gateways and internal policies.

We've also subscribed to their FBL notification service.
I'm surprised at the types of messages AOL customers consider
as spam. Anything and everything: university admission acceptance
notices; instructor class assignments; photos from friends; etc.

matthew black
california state university, long beach

2

Matthew Black wrote:

We've noticed a surge in 421 e-mail errors from AOL.

Message soft bounced for '###@aol.com', '4.3.2 - Not accepting messages at this time ('421', [': (DYN:T1) http://postmaster.info.aol.com/errors/421dynt1.html’, 'SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE']) '

It seems as though they've tightened down their policies.
We're pretty good at preventing spam with our IronPort
anti-spam gateways and internal policies.

We've also subscribed to their FBL notification service.
I'm surprised at the types of messages AOL customers consider
as spam. Anything and everything: university admission acceptance
notices; instructor class assignments; photos from friends; etc.

<RANT>

I've been dealing with this too for 6 days now (2 of them while away on vacation). AOL Postmasters, while very friendly and nice, have provided me more "answers" than one could fit in a magic 8-ball. We've got 334 aol.com/cs.com/netscape.net/aim.com list members who are barely receiving email that they want to receive. We run Q&A lists for 2 non-profits, one technical, the other cancer related. Users post questions, experienced users provide answers. Nothing more.

I've have had FBLs setup and been on AOL's whitelist for 2+ years now, and I am about at my wits end with dealing with them. It is no wonder that their user base is shrinking, and it is sad that they treat their own customers with such broadly applied brushes. Sure there are spam problems, but to block requested email from reaching interested users (some of them being AOL employees themselves) is just plain wrong.

I will say this, numerous AOL postmasters have told me that they have issues with their FBL system (I've got 2 open tickets on that alone). I have also been told that our email should not be being blocked/delayed, and I have open tickets on that too. But that in no way explains to me why the have happily accepted an average of 162332 emails each month from us for the past 3+ years and that now they don't want it. :slight_smile:

It is worth pointing out that Yahoo!, Cox, GMail, HotMail/MSN, Mail.com, Earthlink, Verizon, and SBC Global happily receive almost similar amounts of email from us without the need for whitelists, FBLs, etc. What is funny is that the domains have SPF records which AOL likes, but they don't yet have DomainKeys which Yahoo! likes. AOL could learn a *lot* from their competition when it comes to handling email.
</RANT>

-Jim P.

3

Jim Popovitch wrote:

Matthew Black wrote:

I've been dealing with this too for 6 days now (2 of them while away on vacation).

My sympathies.

Sure there are spam problems, but to block requested email from reaching interested users (some of them being AOL employees themselves) is just plain wrong.

<COUNTER-RANT>
You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that

a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted
b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves

And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be having this discussion.

I will say this, numerous AOL postmasters have told me that they have issues with their FBL system (I've got 2 open tickets on that alone). I have also been told that our email should not be being blocked/delayed, and I have open tickets on that too. But that in no way explains to me why the have happily accepted an average of 162332 emails each month from us for the past 3+ years and that now they don't want it. :slight_smile:

Anti-Spam/Abuse systems must needs to be upgraded and expanded over time. Then they need to be adjusted. Sometimes it is done well with good results. Sometimes it is done poorly with unexpectedly good results. Sometimes the opposite. Lambasting them when we dont actually know what they have done sounds to me to be quite shrill.

Just point your intended receivers to AOL's help desk. Not your problem.
Still want to help them? Offer them an account on your system. They can pay you. They can also pay you for support.

You get what you pay for.

4

<counter-counter-rant>
If you can't tell, or at least can't tell with darned near 100% accuracy, don't get in the middle of the transaction.
</counter-counter-rant>

5

<COUNTER-RANT>
You know, people say things like this a lot. Its not relevant. What is
relevant is how AOL is supposed to know that

On the subject of which I'm in discussion with AOL to get email through that
contains something which is a known spammers trick, because it is also the
right thing to have in our emails <sigh>.

Content is not always a good clue.

a) the email considered for rejection is actually wanted
b) and wanted by AOL employees themselves

I thought these went to aol.NET which has different spam filtering in place.

And if they did know how to accurately determine that, we wouldnt be
having this discussion.

:slight_smile:

Just point your intended receivers to AOL's help desk.

That just creates Chinese whispers.

For technical issues it really helps if providers can take reports from
"non-customers", or people providing services to their existing clients. This
seems impossible for many big companies.

You get what you pay for.

I think choosing providers carefully can get you more for less.

> </RANT>

AOL have employees who regularly read SPAM-L, which is probably a better forum
for such questions. Although in an ideal world "postmaster@" would work, it
rarely seems to with AOL.

6

You can probably do that - but dont astroturf the postmasters, dont
setup boilerplate that you ask people to email in en masse to their
abuse desk or phone in to them.

Especially if you are in regular touch with their postmasters and you
find them responsive.

7

Don't barrage them with bogus joejob bounce notifications?
IIRC that is a feature of your mail configuration down there.

matto

8

The irony here of course, is that Matt Black's systems can't even tell if they want the mail until _after_ the accept it- but that's a feature, and AOL's in-transaction softfails are evil. Or something.

matto

--matt@snark.net------------------------------------------<darwin><
   Moral indignation is a technique to endow the idiot with dignity.
                                                 - Marshall McLuhan

9

Nothing beats an ad hominem attack, huh? The irony here is that
your message contains that tribute to the media critic.

Now, it seems you are sugggesting that my e-mail servers hold back
on final accept until a message gets delivered to a remote AOL server.
Did I misread the above message?

For what it's worth, I received a very nice e-mail and had an
extended telephone conversation with a third-tier support
manager from AOL. They do respond and that's why I placed my
original post on this thread. I've found that honey is usually
more effective than vinegar (that's a metaphor).

matthew black
network services
california state university, long beach

10

Matthew Black wrote:

For what it's worth, I received a very nice e-mail and had an
extended telephone conversation with a third-tier support
manager from AOL. They do respond and that's why I placed my
original post on this thread.

I too received contact from AOL, and they have been extremely helpful. Thank you AOL, and thank you NANOG.

-Jim P.

11

At the risk of posting a 'me too' email, we have also had issues getting a
similar problem resolved with AOL. We have been receiving numerous ISP:B2 and
ISP:B3 rejection codes from AOL email servers. We have contacted their
postmaster # as posted on their website and each time talked with a very nice
support tech.

However, in each and every case, we were not able to get the problem resolved. AOL even went so far as to say that they would escalate and have a member of
their tech support team contact me which never happened.

We have subscribed to their FBL service for over a year. Lately, the messages
that we receive in the FBL are nowhere near spam. We contacted the
complaintant @ AOL and each time they responded that they hit 'report as spam'
instead of delete which is right next to each other.

If someone from AOL is reading this, please forward to someone in your
postmaster team. All other means to contact AOL Postmaster have resulted in
dead-ends.

12

...

That just creates Chinese whispers.

...

This is a new term of which I had previously been unaware. What is it,
please, and how does it relate to the Chinese country or people?

Thanks.

13

Joseph S D Yao wrote:

14

I need no more references to Wikipaedia, thank you all. I had already
looked it up, but after I sent my note.

I need no more notes telling me that Chinese people talk funny, either.
I had really never noticed that.