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SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message
Hi all,
Our system in use: Exchange 2003 EE SP1 in a backend/frontend setup.
One of our marketing guys sent out a mass mail to about 1k recipients. Some recipients were internal and they got the mail immediately. However, the email seems to have delivered to only 4 external recipients out of those 1k (we asked some of the recipients and they confirmed that they didn't get it)! The Exchange message tracking shows me that the email got delivered to the internal accounts successfully. For the external recipients, the following event is shown (about a thousand times): "SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message". Consequently, I would expect it to also show "Message transferred to xyz.com through SMTP" but this event is not logged (apart from four times out of 1k).
I am a bit lost on this one. We don't have any other issues and can send emails to all those recipients. I assumed the email to be stuck somewhere (otherwise the successful transfer would be logged, right?) but I can't find it in the queue or in the bad mail folder of nor the backend nor the frontend server. There is just no indication why the email wasn't sent. I need some help in finding out what has happened to this message. And what does the event "SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message" actually, in technical terms, mean?
hint: the marketing guy wrote the email in Outlook and then copy-pasted all addresses from an Excel sheet into the Bcc field. Could that somehow screw up the addresses?
Experts, your help is highly appreciated!
Our system in use: Exchange 2003 EE SP1 in a backend/frontend setup.
One of our marketing guys sent out a mass mail to about 1k recipients. Some recipients were internal and they got the mail immediately. However, the email seems to have delivered to only 4 external recipients out of those 1k (we asked some of the recipients and they confirmed that they didn't get it)! The Exchange message tracking shows me that the email got delivered to the internal accounts successfully. For the external recipients, the following event is shown (about a thousand times): "SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message". Consequently, I would expect it to also show "Message transferred to xyz.com through SMTP" but this event is not logged (apart from four times out of 1k).
I am a bit lost on this one. We don't have any other issues and can send emails to all those recipients. I assumed the email to be stuck somewhere (otherwise the successful transfer would be logged, right?) but I can't find it in the queue or in the bad mail folder of nor the backend nor the frontend server. There is just no indication why the email wasn't sent. I need some help in finding out what has happened to this message. And what does the event "SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message" actually, in technical terms, mean?
hint: the marketing guy wrote the email in Outlook and then copy-pasted all addresses from an Excel sheet into the Bcc field. Could that somehow screw up the addresses?
Experts, your help is highly appreciated!
Also, what is the max recipients for your org, your virtual smtp servers, and specifically, your connectors if you are using them?
ASKER
nothing in the queues...
the max recpt limit is 5'000...
the max recpt limit is 5'000...
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ASKER
hi darkstar
we resent the email and this time it went through perfectly. Don't have time to investigate on the exact cause and thus close this question.
your help is much appreciated however!
we resent the email and this time it went through perfectly. Don't have time to investigate on the exact cause and thus close this question.
your help is much appreciated however!
Is the message still in the queues?