Server does not recognize my recipients when sent as group email

Question

Server does not recognize my recipients when sent as group email

I've just been trying to let everyone in a couple of groups in my address book know about a change of email address. There are 81 contacts in one group, and 200 in another.

Now, when I try to send the email to those groups, I get the following error:

The server "smtp.talktalk.net" did not recognize the following recipients:

And then it lists some of the addresses, about 25 for the first group and well over 100 for the second.

When I send to the 'unrecognized' address individually, it is sent through without a problem, but as part of a bulk email to a big group it doesn't work. I phoned my ISP, TalkTalk, and they assured me there was no limit imposed by them on the number of recipients, that they hadn't blocked any ports or set any spam / junk filters.

So I broke the lists down to fewer than 50 people each in multiple lists. This now works and the email is sent.

If the ISP isn't creating a problem, then why can I not send to large mailing lists? This is going to be such a waste of time if it can't be sorted out...

I saw a similar thread on the Tiger forum that didn't seem resolved. I never had this problem in Panther, even with bigger lists.

Any ideas?

Cheers.

MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Oct 9, 2008 6:51 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 9, 2008 7:09 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

I am not aware of any limit in Mail, and I regularly send to a list of 130 names and addresses.

Is the Group address in the To Header, or the Cc? I have no problem putting it in the To, btw, and justing asking for possible use in further diagnosis.

Ernie

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 9, 2008 7:36 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

I just put the name of the group in the 'To' field as normal.

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 9, 2008 7:43 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

In Mail Preferences/Composing select to show all member addresses in a group, and then compose a new message with the Group name in the To -- this message will not be sent, but only used to carefully review the addresses as presented in the message header. Are there any commas showing, except to delimit each address and names in front of the address?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 9, 2008 8:04 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

I saved a draft message and looked at the 'To' field with the list of names - some of the names are separated by commas, but not all, by a long way. I can't change that though, of course. Not sure what effect that would have? There are no random commas in the addresses - as I said, when sent individually there is no problem sending to the recipient.

By the way, thanks, I appreciate the help...

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 9, 2008 8:45 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

In Mail Preferences/Viewing is Use Smart Addresses selected? I am trying to think why every address would not either be separated by commas or encased in a blue bubble, and if all the addresses have been sent to before, probably all the latter?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 6

Oct 9, 2008 9:22 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Yes, Smart Addresses is selected. The names are in blue bubbles when composing, when I saved the draft and looked at the names in the header, only some were separated by commas.

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 9, 2008 9:30 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

Please deselect Smart Addresses, and then observe the draft message again. I am struggling with some and not all, and it seems something is not the same with all addresses. Any differences based upon whether names in front of the actual address are First Last name or Last name first?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 8

Oct 9, 2008 10:17 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

With Smart Addresses deselected, the blue bubbles contain "first name last name <email@blabla>". The header on the saved draft has the same, all separated by commas. Selecting Smart Addresses again - just the names in the header, some not separated by commas.

Can you tell me what you're thinking here? Are the commas likely to make a difference?

Thanks again.

Reply

Answer 9

Oct 9, 2008 10:34 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

I tend to think the difference in using Smart Addresses vs not, shouldn't make a difference, but not sure. In the messages citing the addresses that were not recognized, was the entire address listed, or just in apparent Smart Form?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 10

Oct 9, 2008 11:44 AM in response to Ernie Stamper

The name and address

Reply

Answer 11

Oct 9, 2008 11:48 AM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

I have not yet identified anything to explain this other than some issue with the SMTP you are using, despite their protests of nothing to do with them. Do you have another account, such as .mac or Gmail with another SMTP to try?

Is there any commonality between the domains of the rejected addresses, btw?

Ernie

Reply

Answer 12

Oct 9, 2008 1:00 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

There's no commonality that I can see in the recipients' addresses...

The same thing happened with my previous ISP's SMTP (with my current setup), and since it didn't happen with my previous iBook / Panther setup (using the same previous ISP's SMTP and Mail groups), I figured it was a Leopard thing, but as I mentioned at the top, I found a thread in the Tiger-related forum with the same problem (but no resolution apart from making the groups smaller)...

Reply

Answer 13

Oct 9, 2008 1:18 PM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

How quickly did the server respond with the error message -- was it almost instantly, or after a good bit of time? If truly rejecting certain addresses, it should be quick.

Ernie

Reply

Answer 14

Oct 9, 2008 2:07 PM in response to Ernie Stamper

Probably 20-30 seconds...

Reply

Answer 15

Oct 9, 2008 5:23 PM in response to Eddie Stromboli

Eddie,

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the provider of this SMTP has some sort of SPAM reduction software, and that part of its evaluation is the number of recipients and possibly diversity of recipients. The criteria may include the relationship between your ISP and other email providers to never let your ISP's domain to get blacklisted as an origin of SPAM -- this does happen.

But only a guess. No email provider would ever disclose their methods for limiting potential SPAM.

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

Reply