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I am responsible for IT for a small charity and we have a problem with a few individuals who e-mail us on our hosted e-mail addresses. The individual is on btconnect and our server is also on BT broadband and using MSExchange. I understand that the message from postmaster@he.local are generated by Exchange but can't tell whether this is a problem with our server (seems unlikely as most people send and receive e-mails perfectly well) or with the sender's server.

I have copied a sample test message below and would be very grateful if somebody can explain what is causing this problem.

I have * the personal details - hope that's acceptable but I don't want to compromise the individual's identity/security.

----- Original Message ----- From: "System Administrator" 
To: "***********" 
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 3:26 PM
Subject: Undeliverable: Test Message

Your message

Subject: Test Message
Sent:    Tue, 6 Apr 2010 15:25:59 +0100

did not reach the following recipient(s):

***********@quiltersguild.org.uk on Tue, 6 Apr 2010 15:26:07 +0100
directly to find out the correct address.
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That is not enough information. Can you add the full headers? –  Dan Andreatta Apr 7 '10 at 12:05
You have the whole of the message here exactly as it was sent. I have only blanked out the individual name from the sender and recipient for security reasons. Nothing else is missing. –  QGfisher Apr 7 '10 at 14:49
The header is like the "source" of email. In the header you can find all servers involved by message delivery. Usually form email client application you can view the message header. By header you can trace the email. –  lg. Apr 7 '10 at 15:12
the way of a header - This is absolutely all the e-mail says I have looked at Mailer-daemon failure messages and I see what it is you think we should have on this e-mail - details of the server, etc. I have done some more research and on another site I have come across several people who are having specific problems of undeliverables with Btconnect. So now I am wondering if this is a Btconnect problem and the message is being produced within the user's own e-mail setup. Sorry this does not help with identifying a mail path except in a kind of negative way. –  QGfisher Apr 8 '10 at 14:17

3 Answers 3

Are you sure that recipient's address is not misspelled? Double check it please.

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I have already done this. The address is fine. –  QGfisher Apr 7 '10 at 13:07

If you have access to mail server log files, you can check if you find some lines regarding missing email. I think you don't find anything, because it seems a DNS mistake of sender server or an error in a mx server of your domain (there are two mx server for quiltersguild.org.uk domain).

Regards Lorenzo

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You really can't argue with the server responsible for receiving mail for that domain. If it says the email address isn't valid, it really isn't valid. Check the address, double check it, triple check it and quadruple check it again.

If you really have entered a valid address, it's possible there's a mail server or other hardware device (I'm thinking spam filter type things) in between your mail server and the sending mail server. It's either incorrectly configured to think it is responsible for a domain it isn't (and as such doesn't have a mailbox for the user), or addresses have to be specifically whitelisted to pass through the device.

We have a similar whitelisting service with our ISP which means all our valid email addresses must be entered in their portal, or they will be bounced with a "no mailbox exists" type NDR message.

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