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Rejected e-mails...

I have a client who in the past five days has seen approximately 50% of their e-mail being rejected from receiving servers for various reasons: 1) SMTP; 554 Denied (Mode: normal), 2) 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content, etc.

I have run various tests on the sending domain via DNSstuff.com and MXToolbox.com, and they are not listed on any spam databases.

This is very urgent as my client is growing increasingly frustrated that e-mail is no longer fully functional.

Any help is greatly appreicated.

Vince Glisson

Can you post the text of the errors?

dj_relentless

Also if they are using custom signatures or headers etc

Shallwin

I would contact the IT dept of a company rejecting the emails and work together with them to get to the bottom of this. It may be due to colours and fonts the certain SPAM engines mark as spam.

Vince Glisson

Are all the rejections coming from one domain?

Troy Hector

ASKER

Everyone,

Sorry it has taken so long to respond; a death in the family has preoccupied our time.

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Here is a sampling of some of the errors:

xxxx@xxxx.com on 4/20/2009 8:52 AM
There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator.
<mail.premierindustrial.net #5.5.0 smtp;554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content>

'xxxx@xxxx.com' on 4/17/2009 5:01 PM
Could not deliver the message in the time limit specified. Please retry or contact your administrator.
<mail.premierindustrial.net #4.4.7>
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It is multiple domains that are rejecting the e-mails.

Yes, some of the senders have custom signatures that contain .jpg or .gif files and hyperlinks.

Vince Glisson

Sorry to hear of the death in your family...
Have you tested just sending a plain email without signatures attached.
Contacting the receipts IT department would be a good idea, it helps in troubleshoot the problem as they can tell more about why it is being rejected, could be a spam firewall or similar appliance that is blocking them...

Troy Hector

ASKER

MesaVince,

Thank you for the kind words...greatly appreciated.

I have made that suggestion to my client, but he is adimant that we should be able to resolve the problem as he has never had this problem before. At this point, I am basically covering all of my bases by seeking input from my peers that substantiates what I have already advised him. On the bright side, someone on this thread may propose something else that could work.

Thanks!

dj_relentless

Why don't you telnet(or use smtpdiag) into one of the remote smtp boxes that is bouncing the mail and try send one. If it accepts the message then you've really only got the message content which is causing a problem.

Shallwin

Exchange Server also downloads periodic updates to its antispam engine. A recent update may now classify your clients emails as spam when previously it didn't.
It may not even be Exchange Server but an update to a 3rd party anti-spam product may have released an update and it just so happens that some of your client's contacts are running this product and his emails are now being classified as spam.

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Vince Glisson

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Troy Hector

ASKER

Everyone...thank you for your guidance.

MesaVince..you are right...time to put it back in the lap of the client.