Forums & Blog

We're running the latest version of SM4, and have a client who reports that some of his messages never reach his recipients, particularly ones with attachments.  He's using Outlook 2003 w/ SMTP AUTH.  I took a look at our SMTP logs and noticed several occurrences of the following, where it appears to me that his Outlook client successfully authenticates but then disconnects before attempting to send the message:

08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] rsp: 220 MySmartermailServer
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] connected at 3/7/2008 8:12:47 AM
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] cmd: EHLO D3N0HLC1
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] rsp: 250-MySmartermailServer Hello [67.100.159.34] 250-SIZE 20971520 250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5 250 OK
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] cmd: AUTH LOGIN
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] rsp: 334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] rsp: 334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] rsp: 235 Authentication successful
08:12:47 [67.100.159.34][4354256] Authenticated as OurFrustratedCustomer@HisDomain.com
08:12:51 [67.100.159.34][4354256] disconnected at 3/7/2008 8:12:51 AM

I do see successful messages being sent out under his account as well, but these brief disconnected SMTP sessions are littered throughout.  We support about 800 other POP/SMTP AUTH customers and 30K valid messages a day - I'm not seeing these disconnected SMTP sessions with anyone else.

Is this communication normal with Outlook clients?  If not, does anyone have a best guess for why this user's Outlook is behaving as such?  I'm thinking perhaps a gateway firewall at his end, although I don't  understand why the message wouldn't still be sitting in the Outbox if indeed an upstream firewall disconnected the SMTP session before it could get started.

Thanks,
Steve 

When these sessions are occuring, is he actually sending email here? Or is he clicking Send/Receive to download more messages, but doesn't have anything in his Outbox?

 If he is sending a message and this occurs, it definitely wouldn't be normal. We would expect to see at least a MAIL FROM: command.

You may need to open a support incident for this issue. If it ends up being a bug in SmarterMail, we will refund this incident back to you.

I initially thought the same with the Send/Recieve command, but I would expect to see the same log entries from other Outlook users if that was the case.  I would also think Outlook wouldn't waste time opening up an SMTP session if the Outbox was empty.

I'm going to get some more feedback from the customer and then open a support case as suggested.

Thanks