Friday, 27 May 2005 - 7:37 PM EDT

I had a similar experience with bounced email sent to an AOL email address a few months ago. It drove me crazy but it had nothing to do with an AF URL. I must have tried to send that message a dozen times and it was returned a dozen times as well. I finally discovered the reason my messages were being bounced and after correcting it, my next message went right through.

It took me a while to find the AOL help link that led me to discover why my messages were being returned..... same thing of sorts- due to a blacklisted domain. The really funny thing was that I was replying to a message sent to me from an AOL address and the quoted reply contained the sendee's aol address in the body of the email. You guessed it, the domain AOL blacklisted was AOL! Once I removed the AOL addy from the reply, it went right through. i did contact AOL asking why they were blacklisting their own domain, but not surprisingly never got a reply.

It may be that AOL has really strict spam filters and blacklists just about anyone and anything. Do you have an AOL friend you can send some test mails to? Try replacing your AF URL with a different domain in your email body for your tests. You might even try something ending in aol.com.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 8:15 PM EDT

it started long time ago, nothing new.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 8:19 PM EDT

what did?

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 8:29 PM EDT

OK, I tried what you suggested. First, I sent a reply to an aol user, deleting the aol URL but retaining my AF URL. It was sent back, mailer daemon. I then replied again, but this time leaving in the aol URL but deleting my AF URL, and it went through.

Conclusion: aol is blacklisting angelfire URLs. The next question is why? And is Angelfire aware of this and doing anything about it?

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 8:51 PM EDT

Well, at least you gave it a shot and with that I'd have to agree with your conclusion. I can't answer the whats and whys for AOL or AF. You should contact support at AF. I'd say contact AOL, too, but don't hold out much hope of AOL giving you an answer considering my own experience with them re: a similar subject. I'm not sure, but AF support may be in for a long weekend with the upcoming holiday. You may need to be patient for an answer. Wish *I* had a better answer for you.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 9:08 PM EDT

Thanks again. I contacted Juno and AF. How do I contact aol. Do you have an address?

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 9:21 PM EDT

I still had one of those bounced emails. Here's the URL AOL gave me when they banned their own domain. It contains a link to further contact info. There's something about managing and setting up a complaint loop if you own the domain. I didn't try that because it didn't apply to my situation but seems like something you might want to do.

Hope you get this resolved. Keep us updated.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 9:53 PM EDT

aohell blocking e-mail by the domains.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 9:59 PM EDT

ok, but that's not much of a help. what do you mean? what should i do? thanks.

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 10:08 PM EDT

CW, I think you'll appreciate this. I contacted aol at the site you suggested and included my AF URL. Yep, rejected. Sent it without the AF URL, and it went through. I'll let you know what they have to say, if anything. Thanks for all the help!

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 10:35 PM EDT

I know that you already contacted Angelfire support, but can you please send *me* an email explaining the steps that you took to verify the problem, including your signature? I see from these replies enough to reconstruct it, but it's easier if I get it all in one message.

I'll work it through our contacts at AOL to see if we can figure out why they are blacklisting us. We've gone through this several times and they've always fixed the problem only to have it break again. It's very frustrating. Their "spam" system is out of control.

Just send your info to jtripod.com and I'll get it to the right people.

JP

Friday, 27 May 2005 - 10:38 PM EDT

Sorry. Over-agressive content filtering. :)

j-at-tripod.com.

Also, I doubt anyone will be able to do anything until Tuesday since the important people at AOL will all be out of the office.

JP

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 12:09 AM EDT

try to send an e-mail without mentioning angelfire.com anywhere in that e-mail and see if aol will take it or not.

it is a result of abuse form angelfire sites owners or people sending e-mail using ( from : name at angelfire.com ) for cover, once an aol user reports it to aol spam blocker, it blocks the whole domain not just the sender address.

You have to wait for jp to solve it.

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 7:18 AM EDT

We have had similar problems with aol and a student forum registration process. I would say that aol is not singling out AF. I think they try to block out anything that does not appear to come from an individual from aol or other nonweb based email program.aol has never played well with others.

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 8:37 AM EDT

I sent you an email, but IT was rejected, too! Here's the message: Error delivering to XXX/Lycos; Cannot store document; database has too many unique field names. Please ask your administrator to compact the database. Any idea what that means?

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 9:33 AM EDT

That means that it just isn't my day.

Try j-at-kniggit.net. It's my personal address, so don't anyone else use it please. :)

JP

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 10:22 AM EDT

jp, this is getting crazy. this email was returned, too. here's the message:
192.168.8.70 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 552 recipient storage full, try again later
Giving up on 192.168.8.70.

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 2:55 PM EDT

It just isn't my day, is it? Try again at the kniggit.net address, please. It seems that I *would* actually run out of space today. :/

(That's a real Lycos Domains account. I guess I need to upgrade. ;) )

JP

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 7:02 PM EDT

Just tried at knigget and got it kicked back again, said your box is still full. I also tried the other lycos addy, and it came back "database has too many unique field names." It's just a plain text message, as CW probably told you, so I don't know what that means.

Saturday, 28 May 2005 - 7:11 PM EDT

JP, just sent the bg to you again at the first addy from my school email, which is outlook. Hope you get it.

Monday, 30 May 2005 - 5:37 AM EDT

It seems AOL is blacklisted by the safelist group I belong to as well. Maybe it has something to do with their anti-spam policy - or quite the opposite. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Angelfire at all. What can be done about it has to do with AOL policies I guess.

Friday, 3 June 2005 - 12:26 PM EDT

any progress???

Saturday, 4 June 2005 - 10:05 AM EDT

Seems AOL is one big problem on a regular basis, I am constantly having problems sending and receiving emails from AOL customers, doesn't matter if they include pictures or not. It is very frustrating to me and I don't even have AOL ! I don't know how AOL keeps customers. Personaly I use our small town local phone company for our internet access, always could get online with dialup (have DSL now), they offer about everything the big guys offer (spam blockers, tools to block adult pages, etc) but with personal service, a local phone call and they can almost always fix it, even come to my house to fix problems, at no charge too, and the problems have always been MY problems - nothing to do with their service ! Perhaps you should check out the local telephone companies and see what they offer, I pay $14 a month for unlimited access, I honestly have no idea how that compares to others but since I NEVER have problems with them I don't care. GOOD LUCK ON FIXING YOU PROBLEM. Sorry I could offer no help.

Sunday, 5 June 2005 - 2:33 PM EDT

Chris,

Same ol' stuff. Just tried it again - same result.

Thanks for asking!

Tuesday, 7 June 2005 - 5:02 PM EDT

Thanks to JP, the Angelfire staff, and to CW! The problem has been fixed, at least for me.

Kymini, I am not an aol user and never will be. I use Juno, which provides excellent service for $15 a month.

My only problem there is that JP's account can't read my Juno emails, for some reason. JP, FYI, it read again: Cannot store document; database has too many unique field names. Please ask your administrator to compact the database. I have no idea what that means.