Hi,
I'm trying to send a message to a known e-mail address but am coming across a 550 5.1.1 ... User unknown error message.
The message is received almost immediately and comes from "System Administrator" and I'm not able to look any message header information.
I have raised this error with the hosting company that has the e-mail address but they are requesting more information.
Can anyone help?
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Thanks for the tip.
Here's an extract of the results:
smtp.x.net. - IP Address [Successful connect: Got a good response [250 ok]] (took 0.875 seconds)
mailstore1.x.net. - IP Address [Successful connect: Got a good response [250 ok]] (took 0.922 seconds)
So the good news is that it looks as if the e-mail address is set up OK so if you have any other suggestions, they would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Unless the receiving-end server is costomized in some weird fashion, the error message should mean that the user actually is not on that system... You should try (or have someone else try) to send to that user from a webmail service of some kind (gmail, hotmail...). If they're successful, theproblem lies in your client or in your outgoing server.
So, what client? Is the address you use something that is in your personal address book (you type in a name or a part of the address and it autocompletes), or do you type the entire address by hand?
/RID
First of all, thanks for the responses
I will answer questions one at a time:
The error message is as follows:
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: Test 030806
Sent: 03/08/2006 12:41
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
'info@emailaddress.com' on 03/08/2006 12:41
550 5.1.1 <info@emailaddress.com>...
I type the email address by hand and have conducted a test using www.dnsstuff.com and also double checked the server configuration and everything seems to be in order.
Where "emailaddress.com" is a substitute text for the real domain.
Incidentally, I was able to send a message using a Hotmail account and Outlook 2002 but not from my other main e-mail addresses that are hosted elsewhere.
Thanks again everyone!
Your hosting service is with an ISP.
Hence you will have setup your outlook with the settings provided by the ISP. Please recheck whether all the settings are correct. Recheck on the authentication for outgoing server. If possible remove all account settings, close outlook and re-add the settings for your account.
just in case do an IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS at the command prompt and try resending an email.
In outlook > right click an inbox message stating the error and select options > copy the content in the Internet Headers and send along with a copy of the NDR to your ISP.
The reason why I asked you to recheck all your account settings is since the ISP will cross check with you whether the settings are ok. They should not, but they may.
The error message is 5.1.1 and stands for:
5.1.1 Another problem with the recipient address. Possibly the user was moved to another server in Active Directory. Maybe an Outlook client replied to a message while offline.
So it is highly likely that the issue is an external one at that.
Looking at the Internet headers will help the ISP identify the originating point of the NDR to help you.
The e-mail accounts are not with our ISP but I have been in touch with the support area of the hosting company and they have been less than helpful.
We were able to send messages to these e-mail addresses without any problems a few months ago and we had not changed the settings since so we don't understand why there are issues now.
I will contact the support area again and maybe I will get lucky and talk to someone that will be able to offer more assistance.
I will let you know how I make out.
If I highlight a message, right click it and select Options, the Internet Header information is blank.
If I open the message and select the View option, the Options selection is not available on the Menu.
With any other messages that I receive from anyone else apart from the "System Administrator", I am able to extract this information.
If you can see the Internet Headers on other messages (check on System messages which get generated to other domains as well, example if you can email JACK@JILL.COM send an email with a typo to JACKDOE@JILL.COM to get an NDR generated) - check standard emails as well as NDR's and DSN's. There has to be something wrong on the ISP side.
If I understand clearly of your setup, you have your email accounts through the ISP and use Internet email accounts (POP accounts). These query the ISP servers for email and download the messages. You also use the SMTP server designated by the ISP to send out emails.
Now when you send out an email, does it pass through any other applications ( anti virus / anti Spam) at you end? The reason that I ask this is you had stated the the NDR gets generated right away and the Internet Header is blank. If you do have any such applications, please check the Blacklists to see if that particular domain is listed. If so, remove it. Also check the Outlook listings at Outlook > Actions menu > Junk email > Junk email options > Blocked Senders listing though this is highly unlikely.
There is another way that you could check if the actual cut off happens at your ISP side. You need to use an SMTP gateway of another ISP. When sending have your email account SMTP altered to that.
If it is a block list maintained by your ISP this could happen.
If the recepients side had blocked your domain and is set to reject messages from your domain/ISP, this can happen and the ISP's servers may be responsible for NDR generation.
Ask your client/friend to also check on your email domain from their end as well. Let us know how it goes.
Hi, thanks for the message, it was certainly food for thought.
The set up of the e-mail accounts is that the SMTP & POP servers are not through the ISP.
The messages do go through anti virus & anti spam software but the e-mail domain in question is not on any blacklists.
I followed your advice and changed the SMTP server of one of the sending e-mail address to another one, in this case, I changed it to the SMTP of the ISP and the message was sent and received at the e-mail address without any problem at all.
We have a number of e-mail accounts that use the same SMTP server and its only when we send messages to e-mail addresses at this particular domain that we have problems.
Does this imply that the ISP has blocked this domain? Presumbly not as I'm able to send messages using the ISP's SMTP server but frankly this isn't making much sense at all.
Any further help or suggestions would be great........
>> The set up of the e-mail accounts is that the SMTP & POP servers are not through the ISP
Since you connect to another SMTP service through a different ISP, That SMTP server may not be accepting the email from the IP range belonging to that ISP. This can take place due to security configurations.
But if you use the ISP's own SMTP server and since the email gets through properly, it means that the issue lies in the overall configuration at your end for those accounts.
Most probably this one client may be set up to query reverse DNS / SPF records and since your ISP's originating IP does not match with the SMTP servers records/ your domain records, your messages are not getting through and get rejected.
Other than asking you to stick with one ISP (even telling you to use two accounts is'nt worthwhile for the two SMTP servers) and it's SMTP servers, there is nothing more that I can do.
Thank you both for your comments.
I've probably not explained myself properly but basically what I was trying to say was that if I use company a as an ISP that the POP and SMTP settings are not pop.companya.com or mail.companya.com.
I was able to send messages before to these particular e-mail accounts without any problems and I haven't changed the configuration so I don't understand why there seems to be an issue now.
I am able to send messages to other e-mail addresses (with a different domain) that are hosted with the some company without any problems either.
I have raised this issue with our ISP some time ago but they haven't come back with an answer yet.
If I ever get to the bottom of this, I will be sure to let you both know.
Thanks for your time.
Ok.
it's most probably a new feature like SPF (www.openspf.org) implemented on the recieving side.
The issue was to do with the Sendmail program on our server.
There is a list of local host names in the sendmail.cf file and some of these domains are not hosted on the server.
As a result, there are 2 things that happen to e-mails sent to e-mail addresses to these particular domains, a/ The messages are rejected because the e-mail addresses don't exist and b/ The e-mails never leave the server because the domains are considered to be local.
The solution was to delete these particular domains from the sendmail.cf file and then message were able to be sent as normal.
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: upul007Posted on 2006-08-03 at 10:17:53ID: 17243573
Use the email test found at www.dnsstuff.com to check the validity of the address. Posting the entire NDR would help.