Hey guys,
I've noticed on one of the mailing lists that I'm running that AOL has just
started bouncing email (like literally a few minutes ago) sent to subscribers
of the list. Email does get delivered properly when sent directly to the
subscribers. If the mail gets delivered thru the list, it's rejected with a
550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND which is bogus.
Anyone encountered this before? How do I get them to stop this nonsense?
Help?
Cheers,
Chris
One could assume that to cut down on spam, they are requiring the
RCPT to match either To or Cc in the body. It might be a valid
strategy except that it breaks mailing lists and Bccs. They might
be willing to pay that price, so you might be out of luck.
Either that or they broke something. 
Aaron
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2001-03/threads.html#00762
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/2001-04/threads.html#00598
http://www.the-infinite.org/lists/romlist/2001/02/msg00210.html
Hey guys,
I've noticed on one of the mailing lists that I'm running that
AOL has just started bouncing email (like literally a few
minutes ago) sent to subscribers of the list. Email does get
delivered properly when sent directly to the subscribers. If
the mail gets delivered thru the list, it's rejected with a
550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND which is bogus.
[long time lurker, first time poster -- I don't run a real
network :-)]
I'm getting something a little different (addresses changed to
protect the innocent):
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<abcxyz@aol.com>
<qwerty@aol.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to air-yh04.mail.aol.com.:
RCPT To:<qwerty@aol.com>
<<< 550 MISSING OR INCORRECT DOMAIN IN RCPT COMMAND
550 <qwerty@aol.com>... User unknown
RCPT To:<abcxyz@aol.com>
<<< 550 MISSING OR INCORRECT DOMAIN IN RCPT COMMAND
550 <abcxyz@aol.com>... User unknown
Both of these addresses are on an internal use list of about 30
addresses that last successfully delivered mail to these guys a
couple of hours ago.
When I first read it, I laughed out loud because I *do* tend to
think of AOL as an incorrect domain. But this, coupled with
Christian's report, looks more like they've broken something than
done something deliberate. Telneting to port 25 of
air-yh04.mail.aol.com times out at the moment...
AOL is seriously cracking down on mailing lists, mainly because it's
difficult to tell a mailing list from a spam run. This has been discussed
on SPAM-L; AOL must "whitelist" your mailing list, and there's a long
agreement that the admin has to sign before they'll do so. However, I have
no clue who to contact at AOL that handles this; let me work some inside
contacts and see if I can't find anything out.
-Chris
All -
must be a .com thang - I manage over 700 lists as lists.uoregon.edu with a
fairly high number of aol.com subscriber addresses (mostly students) and
I'm not seeing any bounces - maybe they give .edu a free pass?
Lucy E. Lynch Academic User Services
Computing Center University of Oregon
llynch@darkwing.uoregon.edu (541) 346-1774
I doubt that it's a .edu vs. .com thing, since domains don't necessarily
mean much. However, it could be an AS, netblock or server thing. AOL may
have "whitelisted" you on their own initiative.
Alternatively, you may not be triggering their filter. We have a fairly
modest mailing list, but our system sorts mail by domain before sending.
That means that we open up one connection to AOL and send all of the
messages at once.
From what I read on the archives, that's the best way to trip their
filters. Maybe you're not doing that.
-steve