Constant Problems With Mail Server

[homegal]

Hi,

I currently host several websites in the US with 3ix.com. They offer good rates and excellent service but I constantly have problems accessing my ftp and mail server. I work from 2 different places using 2 different ISPs - namely Pacific internet and True. Often, I can access my mail using Pac. net but NOT when using True. Does anyone encounter such problems here? Is it because True is blocking my ports for whatever reason? I also encounter problems logging onto my to my ftp server occasionally and I know for a fact it's got nothing to do with my host. I'd not be able to access it for hours, sometimes even days and then suddenly it's fine again. I have no idea why and neither does my host's support! I am hoping maybe some of you have experienced the same problems and share with me how you went about solving it. I actually switched host for a month but their support really sucked so I went back to 3ix because it's really not their fault but it seems the local ISPs have a problem with their ISP or something. What could possibly be the problem. Would appreciate any kind of advice.

Thanks

[monty]

I have several websites hosted on 3ix as well, and up till now never had any problems accessing either ftp, pop or the smtp servers.

I'm using TT&T Maxnet premier package, or when on the go either Dtac or AIS gprs......

However I had another member contact me, who had problems accessing his website, also hosted on 3ix, and he was connected through a True adsl line...

I seems that True was experimenting with blocking certain ip-adresses, and that his website was on an ip address being blocked. The hosting is shared so each ip-address they have might host tens or even hundreds of websites!

[Misty]

Hi,

Sounds like a similar problem to mine. I've got a website hosted in the US, and use a local ISP--email is sent via Outlook using POP3 & my ISP's outgoing file server. Late last night I suddenly had problems sending emails to several US-based email addresses. The problem persisted this morning, so I called my local ISP who said it wasn't their problem. I then called AOL in the US (two of the bounced back emails had AOL addresses). AOL told me the IP address I was sending from is being blocked "at a high level." Not clear to me how high this level would be. I asked AOL why this would be, and they said maybe there was a lot of spam originating from that IP, or maybe the ISP had a virus. AOL said they would research it from their end, but receiving an answer would take 3-5 days.

I called back the ISP and asked them to research it as well. So far have heard nothing. It's not clear to me if the ISP is taking this seriously or not, but it is having a negative impact on my business.

Misty

I have several websites hosted on 3ix as well, and up till now never had any problems accessing either ftp, pop or the smtp servers.

I'm using TT&T Maxnet premier package, or when on the go either Dtac or AIS gprs......

However I had another member contact me, who had problems accessing his website, also hosted on 3ix, and he was connected through a True adsl line...

I seems that True was experimenting with blocking certain ip-adresses, and that his website was on and ip address being blocked. The hosting is shared so each ip-address they have might host tens or even hundreds of websites!

[homegal]

Hey guys,

3ix replied today and confirmed that it is indeed True and that they are blocking many IP addresses on their end. I tried calling True technical but there is never anyone around to pick up the calls. This is really frustrating!!! Bad for business indeed! I bet even if I did get to speak to someone at True, they wouldn't have any idea what the problem was or explain why they are blocking all these IP addresses. So what can we do about really? 3ix has asked me to send them a tracert and let's see what they come back with.

Local ISPs should get their act together!!!!

[A_Traveller]

As far as I've been able to ascertain, what is happening here is that the ISP's are getting edicts from on high to block sites.

However, some ISP's are preempting and/or identifying sites themselves and in the present climate blocking them. Such a block does not appear as a 'green screen of death', the routing usually takes you to an address block which is named 'black hole'. As an aside there does seem to be a mis-configuration of some of the filter software {the yahoo refresh screen for example} which has now been going on for three weeks or more which adds to the problems. {see addition}

True is blocking using IP addresses not just URLs.

This means that legitimate sites which share the IP address of a blocked site will fail as well. Many providers use the virtual hosting technique which means that one IP address serves many URLs, hence the problems being experienced. Since no one will discuss this, to be fair, for obvious reasons, the issue is virtually impossible to resolve at this end.

One option is to discuss with your hoster what is going on, my experience is that this problem is now clearly manifesting itself and many are aware and will listen.

One other issue here is that I've been told of sites being blocked, especially at ISP level, since the URL could be mis-construed.

However {and I'm not suggesting this is true of the OP or any TV member} if the site is miss-spanky-pattaya or has content which is questionable the owner really should, as a courtesy to fellow web users pay for the site to be discrete IP hosted {1 IP address to the URL}, which means if it is blocked then at least it does not bring down others.

Regards

{Added from Bangkok Post Database section 19/04/07}

Section Computer Currents}

==========================================

If you use the Internet in Thailand and you are connected through True, you may have noticed an increasing number of problems. I single out True because that is how I connect so the issues may be more widespread.

I am regularly seeing messages telling me that the site has been blocked because it violates some rule or is obscene in some way. I was told this happened because of some changes made at True, but why then after a few weeks has this issue not been fixed?

==========================================

Link

Article Link

/edit added data//

[Misty]

This is interesting. Sounds to me like TRUE and CAT like to play with the internet the way the Bank of Thailand likes to play with the economy--with blunt instruments!

Please forgive me for asking stupid questions--this is not really my area of knowlegge. My ISP is KSC--would anything TRUE do affect KSC, or would KSC be in on the act of blocking IPs as well? For every IP that is blocked, any idea how many users are affected?

Misty

As far as I've been able to ascertain, what is happening here is that the ISP's are getting edicts from on high to block sites.

However, some ISP's are preempting and/or identifying sites themselves and in the present climate blocking them. Such a block does not appear as a 'green screen of death', the routing usually takes you to an address block which is named 'black hole'. As an aside there does seem to be a mis-configuration of some of the filter software {the yahoo refresh screen for example} which has now been going on for three weeks or more which adds to the problems. {see addition}

True is blocking using IP addresses not just URLs.

This means that legitimate sites which share the IP address of a blocked site will fail as well. Many providers use the virtual hosting technique which means that one IP address serves many URLs, hence the problems being experienced. Since no one will discuss this, to be fair, for obvious reasons, the issue is virtually impossible to resolve at this end.

One option is to discuss with your hoster what is going on, my experience is that this problem is now clearly manifesting itself and many are aware and will listen.

One other issue here is that I've been told of sites being blocked, especially at ISP level, since the URL could be mis-construed.

However {and I'm not suggesting this is true of the OP or any TV member} if the site is miss-spanky-pattaya or has content which is questionable the owner really should, as a courtesy to fellow web users pay for the site to be discrete IP hosted {1 IP address to the URL}, which means if it is blocked then at least it does not bring down others.

Regards

{Added from Bangkok Post Database section 19/04/07}

Section Computer Currents}

==========================================

If you use the Internet in Thailand and you are connected through True, you may have noticed an increasing number of problems. I single out True because that is how I connect so the issues may be more widespread.

I am regularly seeing messages telling me that the site has been blocked because it violates some rule or is obscene in some way. I was told this happened because of some changes made at True, but why then after a few weeks has this issue not been fixed?

==========================================

Link

Article Link

/edit added data//

[Temp]

Hello

Sure the problem is with True. I never had problems like I am having with True when using KSC. However when KSC in an attempt to increase capacity during the problem with the underwater cable swithed to using True's network and caches I experienced exactly the same problems as I read about a lot and I also suffer now.

The sad thing though is that there appear to not be any interest in trying to attack this problem with a united effort from suffering True users. I have not had a single reply to my post asking for information about what kind of filtering and blocking they experience on their different accounts. Another thing is that many users simply will not know how to explain these kinds of problems to their ISP or if lucky an "engineer" because many simply do not know enough about computers and Internet to troubleshoot these kinds of problems. This leaves abusive ISPs like True free to carry on their business about not delivering what they sell. They really do know how to configure properly but they are not interested I think because this would mean a lot more applications would work and a steep increase in bandwidth demand. I believe True do not care because with their misconfigured network for home users they are able to conserve a loooot of bandwidth because many simply give up using a lot of programs that can not work.

If any have info please respond to http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=116205 or PM. If everyone who had problems stalked their customer service maybe they would realize they have to provide normal Internet. If noone complains and they are making money why should they change?

[A_Traveller]

This is interesting. Sounds to me like TRUE and CAT like to play with the internet the way the Bank of Thailand likes to play with the economy--with blunt instruments!

Please forgive me for asking stupid questions--this is not really my area of knowlegge. My ISP is KSC--would anything TRUE do affect KSC, or would KSC be in on the act of blocking IPs as well? For every IP that is blocked, any idea how many users are affected?

Misty

To answer as best as I can, presently True should not affect KSC or visa versa, however, there was strong anecdotal evidence that once one ISP has declared a site persona non grata then the information is shared.

Since the virtual hosting technique is in control of the hoster it's not easy discernible how many URLs {sites} share a single IP, sorry.

If you wish, you can PM me your site URL and I'll cross check on what has gone before.

Regards

/edit typo //

[A_Traveller]

Temp:- One thing to realise here is that if the ISP decides to block, or ITC does, the result is the same. the site disappears from normal Thai usage. Unless you are very fortunate no one will discuss these censorship issues. It is also unwise to conflate this with the poor service issue. If you have a site which is affected by this then try to get the ISP here to understand, if not go to the hoster.

Ultimately the going in position for the ISPs here is that a block is there for a reason and they are not at liberty to discuss this with you. If you are here as a registered business then maybe you will get an answer but it's not easy. As an example I believe a site about puppies {as in small cute dogs} was blocked because of a misunderstanding about the URL.

Regards

/edit typo//

Where's Martha when I need her?

[Temp]

A_Traveller:

I agree with you when the issue is about censorship and if it is a block by the government I would not say what I say. However many people are experiencing problems that I believe might be related to the problems I am writing about with True. The previous round I had with them was about blocking ICMP as in ping and tracert. After I had written them about the issue and talked with them countless times the block is gone. So I believe they can be swayed if people complain. The problem appears to be that they can not be bothered to configure the network properly for the domain truehisp. Why? Well I do not work for them but as I said maybe they save a lot of bandwidth. This does however make a lot of other things unreliable. Such things would include difficulties in connecting to certain hosts at certain ports and the problems might appear at random.

My specific problem seems random in the same manner that if I use programs that connect to various hosts the connections are frequently dropped. In addition to this portscans show almost all my ports are invisible to the outside world even though I am not using a firewall. The funny thing is that what ports appear as invisible and what ports appear only closed changes for every scan I do. Such issues might just happen to be related to True not being interested in using best-practices when configuring their network except for the business accounts. I have been on their tail about the block of ICMP and it was changed. I have also been on their tail about the redirection/block issue of altavista.com and yahoo.com. Today that was fixed, at least for me as I was moved to a different IP range that does not use the same cache as my former IP range.

My point: It is not easy for everyone to deal with ISPs because it does have some technical aspects that not everyone might be able to pinpoint or explain. If people only give up and do not complain or write in public you can rest assured nothing will change. It sure is funny that while large groups of people complain in the west over plans about giving priority to ISP content on networks it seems possible to sell Internet access here in Thailand and restrict people to mostly use webbrowsing and e-mail without people complaining. People here sure are relaxed.:-)

Cheers

[Misty]

Not sure if my problem is the same as others. My website is hosted in the US, and as far as I can tell, the website isn't being blocked. What is being blocked are emails being sent from Outlook from my machine here in Bangkok to certain or all emails in the US. Emails I send from Outlook are being relayed by an outgoing email server called "smtp.th.com". The bounce back messages I get have different error statements in it, but one of them is as follows:

"Relaying denied. IP name possibly forged."

Does any of that make sense in the context of what you or A Traveller suspect?

AOL is looking in to this from their end (they are big and easy to contact--the other US recipients I don't know how to contact.) KSC is looking in to it from this end, although I haven't gotten a good feeling that they are being particularly proactive.

Any thoughts?

A_Traveller:

I agree with you when the issue is about censorship and if it is a block by the government I would not say what I say. However many people are experiencing problems that I believe might be related to the problems I am writing about with True. The previous round I had with them was about blocking ICMP as in ping and tracert. After I had written them about the issue and talked with them countless times the block is gone. So I believe they can be swayed if people complain. The problem appears to be that they can not be bothered to configure the network properly for the domain truehisp. Why? Well I do not work for them but as I said maybe they save a lot of bandwidth. This does however make a lot of other things unreliable. Such things would include difficulties in connecting to certain hosts at certain ports and the problems might appear at random.

My specific problem seems random in the same manner that if I use programs that connect to various hosts the connections are frequently dropped. In addition to this portscans show almost all my ports are invisible to the outside world even though I am not using a firewall. The funny thing is that what ports appear as invisible and what ports appear only closed changes for every scan I do. Such issues might just happen to be related to True not being interested in using best-practices when configuring their network except for the business accounts. I have been on their tail about the block of ICMP and it was changed. I have also been on their tail about the redirection/block issue of altavista.com and yahoo.com. Today that was fixed, at least for me as I was moved to a different IP range that does not use the same cache as my former IP range.

My point: It is not easy for everyone to deal with ISPs because it does have some technical aspects that not everyone might be able to pinpoint or explain. If people only give up and do not complain or write in public you can rest assured nothing will change. It sure is funny that while large groups of people complain in the west over plans about giving priority to ISP content on networks it seems possible to sell Internet access here in Thailand and restrict people to mostly use webbrowsing and e-mail without people complaining. People here sure are relaxed.:-)

Cheers

[homegal]

Currently I am having the same prob. as you Misty. I can see the website fine, but I cannot log on to receive my emails. When I did a tracert, it showed that the connection timed out somewhere in Atlanta. Sent it to 3ix support and here's their reply:

"We have checked your issue and your website is up and loading fine at all. also trace route report from your end is okay. Your IP address was blocked on the server due to many pop3 login failures from XXX.120.XXX.10 IP that causing you such problem, We have unblocked the IP address on the server and the site and cpanel/ftp should be resolving fine."

I can receive my emails now so I guess they have resolved it, however, this time was only my emails. I occasionally cannot login to my ftp too but I will send another support ticket when that happens.

Reading all the replies in this thread, I have a question. If an ISP such as TRUE blocks an IP address and you happen to be one of the unlucky buggers using that same IP address as www.miss-spanky-pants.com then wouldn't your business suffer since many THai subsribers will not be able to access your site? That would really suck.

The host I actually switched to was Dreamhost (they have a 97 days guarantee) as I heard many good things about it but their support really sucks. I hate their custom inhouse panel. They don't have any adequate stats so I had to install awstats myself. Ran into some problems and they wouldn't help. Everything you ask, they refer you to their Wiki help. That's why I've given up and asking for my money back. Only good things is, I didn't have all this IP blocking problems!!!! Arrrrgh. Can't I have it all?

[Misty]

Hi Homegal,

Talked to KSC twice so far this morning. Finally got to talk to a tech person. At first he said that my email is being blocked because of something in the email's contents, or because my email address itself is blocked. So I asked him who IP address "xxx-107.xxx.xxx.12" is. He said, oh, that's KSC. I asked why would the recipient think that this IP address is forged? And if all my email is being relayed by "smtp.th.com" isn't it KSC that's being blocked, and not me? I also asked if there's any reason TRUE would be blocking KSC. He said he'd check on it and get back to me later. Perhaps this is a bit of progress in getting someone at KSC to understand the problem. Or maybe he's just putting me off. But still no sign when it'll be fixed!

Cheers, Misty

Currently I am having the same prob. as you Misty. I can see the website fine, but I cannot log on to receive my emails. When I did a tracert, it showed that the connection timed out somewhere in Atlanta. Sent it to 3ix support and here's their reply:

"We have checked your issue and your website is up and loading fine at all. also trace route report from your end is okay. Your IP address was blocked on the server due to many pop3 login failures from XXX.120.XXX.10 IP that causing you such problem, We have unblocked the IP address on the server and the site and cpanel/ftp should be resolving fine."

I can receive my emails now so I guess they have resolved it, however, this time was only my emails. I occasionally cannot login to my ftp too but I will send another support ticket when that happens.

Reading all the replies in this thread, I have a question. If an ISP such as TRUE blocks an IP address and you happen to be one of the unlucky buggers using that same IP address as www.miss-spanky-pants.com then wouldn't your business suffer since many THai subsribers will not be able to access your site? That would really suck.

The host I actually switched to was Dreamhost (they have a 97 days guarantee) as I heard many good things about it but their support really sucks. I hate their custom inhouse panel. They don't have any adequate stats so I had to install awstats myself. Ran into some problems and they wouldn't help. Everything you ask, they refer you to their Wiki help. That's why I've given up and asking for my money back. Only good things is, I didn't have all this IP blocking problems!!!! Arrrrgh. Can't I have it all?

[Crushdepth]

My website was with 3ix until recently. I never actually used the email facility but I can tell you that I frequently saw that service fail in the control panel, probably due to server overload.

I also had problems with the ICT Ministry blocking one of 3ix's servers (and thereby, my website) once. Some Thaivisa members with a similar problem contacted me last week, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

Also a DDOS attack took one of their servers out (and thereby my website) late last year. Lots of things can go wrong!

[Misty]

My ongoing saga, and a solution:

To date, I've talked to 7 different people at KSC over the past 3 days. They don't seem to talk among each other, so everytime I get someone new we start from the beginning. They have scripted templates to work from--going through the same script each time has gotten a bit tedious. The second to last one said that I have a virus encoded in my emails and that's why they are bouncing back! Of course that's NOT true (we have Windows Defender all the latest Norton updates, already done the screens numerous times). I asked him what virus it was, of course that went no where. He went out to dinner, and the next guy I talked to said he'd call back. No one has explained why AOL would think the IP address I'm sending from (KSC's) is forged.

BUT, I have gotten a useful response from AOL: "The IP I have for you is xxx.xxx.xxx.13, which just started mailing on Tuesday. As such, when you have a new IP and it sends large volumes of mail, it flags our system and our system throws out a RLY:NW bounce for the first 24 hours. After that, as your mailing history is defined it should go away. I recommend you fill out a whitelist request form for the above mentioned IP.

http://postmaster.aol.com/whitelist/whitelist_guides.html "

Well, that explains a lot! My problems started Tuesday. We send about 10 emails a day, so we weren't the ones sending a high volume after the new IP address was created. Someone else on the shared IP address is creating the problems. I've forwarded these comments to KSC, but am a bit doubtful if they'll do anything about them (based on my experience to date).

The solution is simple, and was offered by my friend: Bypass KSC. Purchase an email account from GoDaddy.com, and use their Outgoing mail server instead of the smtp.th.com from KSC. For low volume senders such as myself, this will apparently cost about $20 a year. That's a solution I can live with!

Cheers, Misty