Problems now seem to be sorted

Thanks to all who contributed

Chris D

Hi. I have been having increasing problems sending attachments.  At first I thought this was something to do with a distribution list (I've had that problem before!) but I have realised today that it applies to any message with an attachment - even to single individuals.

For some time this has been an intermittent problem, but now (possibly since I upgraded to XP SP3?) it applies all the time. Ordinary messages go out fine (and I use plain text by default) - its just the ones with attachments (generally pdfs, but also jpgs btw) that don't 'go'. They get to 97 or 98% and then fail. Attachment size seems irrelevant - 50k to 10Mb!

After appearing to check all the recipients ok and set up the SMPT protocol, the error I get ends thus:

>> 0014 250 Accepted
<< 0006 DATA
>> 0056 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
8: Socket read timeout.

I have adjusted 'timeout' settings and searched the fora here and tried the 'SpeedGuide' and DrTCP programmes suggested therein, but nothing seems to solve this.

All ideas gratefully received - but please use as little tech jargon as poss and spell things out step by step as necessary

Thanks

Chris D

Hi. I have been having increasing problems sending attachments.  At

first I thought this was something to do with a distribution list (I've

had that problem before!) but I have realised today that it applies to

any message with an attachment - even to single individuals.

For

some time this has been an intermittent problem, but now (possibly

since I upgraded to XP SP3?) it applies all the time. Ordinary messages

go out fine (and I use plain text by default) - its just the ones with

attachments (generally pdfs, but also jpgs btw) that don't 'go'. They

get to 97 or 98% and then fail. Attachment size seems irrelevant - 50k

to 10Mb!

After appearing to check all the recipients ok and set up the SMPT protocol, the error I get ends thus:

>> 0014 250 Accepted
<< 0006 DATA
>> 0056 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
8: Socket read timeout.

I

have adjusted 'timeout' settings and searched the fora here and tried

the 'SpeedGuide' and DrTCP programmes suggested therein, but nothing

seems to solve this.

This really does look like a TCP/IP packet fragmentation problem but it also may be a problem with this particular server. 

1.  Have you tried using another  SMTP host like GMail? 

2.  Have you tried turning off the MTU discovery using Speedguide?

All ideas gratefully received - but please use as little tech jargon as poss and spell things out step by step as necessary

Thanks for the reply. I have been doing some playing with settings and have noted the following.

Firstly, behaviour is not consistent. The problem is definitely worse with larger attachments (eg 500k+) and only is a problem at all when there is an attchment.

I have had no problems using smtp.googlemail, as suggested, today - but neither have there been problems with my usual smtp server either!

Anyway, I have now turned off MTU discovery (whatever it is!), rebooted and everything seems ok so far. We will see how things are when the web gets busy later...

Cheers, Chris D

Anyway, I have now turned off MTU discovery (whatever it is!)

Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the size of the packet in bytes.  A client using MTU discovery will continue increasing the packet size until the receiving side sends a "packet too large" message indicating packet fragmentation. 

The problem is there are a lot of broken routers/firewalls that block this outbound message so the sending system continues to try and send larger and larger packets until the system times out.  When you turn off the MTU discovery you are sending a fixed packet size, generally something like 1472 or smaller, so you do not get the packet fragmentation problem. 

There is still problem when things are busy. Full stop. I even had the same error last night without an attachment. Today it sent fine.

I have been using Pegasus since the early days of DOS and I have thousands of emails stored in innumerable folders. Changing client is not a sane option - not that I have any reason to other than this. The problem only occurs with Pegasus and does not seem to be SMTP server dependent in that the same problem occurs with two different ones. I can use googlemail to send the same message to the same SMTP servers without a problem

As I said originally, this has only been happening for the last year or so. Maybe I should try and older version and see what happens?

Regards

Chris D

Can you use another mail program on your computer and send an attachment with the same smtp server?

So we can be sure that the problem comes from Pegasus... But maybe you tried that already.

I did, I didn't have a problem with GoogleMail.

HTH

Chris D

Hi, was that GoogleMail online or another mail software on your computer, sending like Pegasus does?

At first sight I would say you have a disfunctioning network card or router or something else on the line, but since you don't mention any other problem in your Internet activities, I have a doubt. However it can suit your general strategy and budget to upgrade the network card. I'm not saying it will work.

Changing settings is a strategy, ok, but normally sending attachments always works without changing settings. I could also have said you have a rule somewhere on the network preventing you from sending attachments, but you say the behaviour is not constant.

When you say "when things are busy", are they really very busy, like gaming or video?

I have been using Pegasus 4.41 and the 4.5 beta with WindowsXP SP3 both at home and at work for months with no apparent problems sending attachments.   So I doubt if that is your problem..