Sporadic Message Response Time

[lisa]

I want to start out by saying that I completely understand that this is a free service and that the Admins are completely unpaid. So if your answer is "that's just the way it is", then that is absolutely fine with me.....


I have just started using spamgourmet and have been trying out different scenarios to see if it will provide me with what I need. I have noticed that sometimes messages are received very slowly.

For instance, I sent 3 separate messages from a particular account to the same disposable address (using the xoxy.net domain). The 1st, addressing the disposable address in the TO section (at 9:04amCST). The 2nd, addressing the disposable address in the CC section (at 9:04am CST). The 3rd in the BCC section (at 9:05amCST).
I received the CC email first at 9:11amCST. The BCC email second at 9:33amCST. I have yet to receive the TO email (it's 9:51amCST).

So, basically, it seems that message delivery is sporadic. Sometimes it's quite good, other times quite slow. Are there any specific tips? Are some domains better than others (i.e. spamgourmet.com vs. xoxy.net)?

Otherwise the service is very cool and very flexible. Just would like to see a "never expires" message count. Or at least something quite a bit higher than 20, like 1000 or something. Then it would work just like Yahoo AddressGuard (which I love!), but BETTER because you could make them up on the fly!
Thanks!
Lisa

[SysKoll]

Lisa,

Nice problem determination test. As you noted, our response time can be very erratic if the message arrives at a time the server is busy. Sendmail uses a relatively complex algorithm to determine the message priority, and from there, to select the next message to process. Also, if your protected address is in yahoo.com or certain other servers, you might encounter a problem due to their end: namely, half the machines pointed by their MX servers are down as often as not! This would mean that our sendmail would wait a long time before retrying on the unresponsive server.

Again, the situation should improve once Josh splurges on new hardware.

[lisa]

I have a bit of experience with testing and what-not as I was a computer programmer for 9 years until I quit 2 years ago to be a stay-at-home mommy! Good to know "I still got it"!

Thanks for the info and getting back to me so quickly. I'll keep trying it out here and there. I particularly like the way the Replies work. So much better than POPing through Yahoo and having to set up a fake email account in Outlook just to hide my "real" address. Or even on my own ISP where I would have to do pretty much the same thing.

[SysKoll]

Raising the next generation of coders and geeks? Great! Do your toddler(s) a favor, get them a Linux box with TuxPaint on it. If you must have a Win32 box, get them the Adiboo educative game.

As for problem determination, when you discuss a test message, make sure you specify from where you sent it, to which account (in a private message if needed) and to what domain the protected address belongs. If you have any external (non-sg) forwarding on the way, make sure to include these as well.

Thanks!

[lisa]

Will do! Both for the toddlers... and the problem determination!
Thanks,
Lisa

[AncientPC]

Yeah I was just wondering about this too today. I sent myself a blank e-mail that took 7 hours to reach my inbox.

Headers:

from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Tue, 8 Aug 2006 10:17:37 -0700

from hotmail.com ([64.4.31.21]) by bay0-omc3-s16.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Tue, 8 Aug 2006 10:17:37 -0700

from bay0-omc3-s16.bay0.hotmail.com (bay0-omc3-s16.bay0.hotmail.com [65.54.246.216]) by gourmet.spamgourmet.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k78NLUub019732 for <test.apc@xoxy.net>; Tue, 8 Aug 2006 16:21:33 -0700

(from jqh1@localhost) by gourmet.spamgourmet.com (8.13.6/8.12.11/Submit) id k78NLY2N019756 for (name@domain.com); Tue, 8 Aug 2006 16:21:34 -0700

from gourmet.spamgourmet.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gourmet.spamgourmet.com (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k78NLZTE019790 for <(name@domain.com)>; Tue, 8 Aug 2006 16:21:35 -0700

from gourmet.spamgourmet.com (gourmet.spamgourmet.com [216.218.230.146]) by randymail-mx2.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2B3513B668 for <(name@domain.com)>; Tue, 8 Aug 2006 16:21:35 -0700 (PDT)

The delay was caused in the 3rd line, which assumed to be spamgourmet's internal algorithm for determining message priority.

I had also sent myself a few short test messages that took 4-6 hours to reach my inbox.

[SysKoll]

It is more likely that when the Hotmail mailer tried to contact our server, the server was burried and all connections were busy. This in turn triggered a "Try again" error, and your message was queued at Hotmail for redelivery.