Slow email?

[eUKhost.com]

Those who have problem on viking can request our support team to get their accounts moved on another server which has no such problems. We will migrate only limited customers to different different servers to sort this problem.

In any case you wont have any sort of downtime so you dont need to worry about anything besides IP address change for control panel and FTP. If you use your domain name to access cpanel and FTP then you wont need to change anything from your end.

[RSVEcosse]

Thanks m8.

I'm prepared to wait for now to see if Yahoo manage to resolve this in the near future.

For you guys, it must be like banging your heads off a brick wall regards to dealing with them!!!.

I will inform a few customers of the situation and we can play it by ear for the next wee while.

[eUKhost.com]

Originally Posted by RSVEcosse

Thanks m8.

I'm prepared to wait for now to see if Yahoo manage to resolve this in the near future.

For you guys, it must be like banging your heads off a brick wall regards to dealing with them!!!.

I will inform a few customers of the situation and we can play it by ear for the next wee while.

things wont change automatically

You may ask your customers to wait but I would like to make it clear that yahoo wont fix this problem automatically as they are not aware of what exactly is happening. they are busy in increasing space for mailboxes and purchasing new companies but they are hiring idiots to keep sals low.

I think yahoo's free email service wont last long against gmail but people have old email addresses on yahoo so it wont be easy for them to close their old mailboxes.

[Nige]

Originally Posted by RSVEcosse

Again, as always, appreciate the efforts EUK are going to on this issue.

I agree completely. Totally this issue is due to Yahoo's arrogant, inept, drone-like stupidity - It thinks it can do whatever it wants because it's a big company - and also, due to greed, it has very little technical expertise to sort these problems. I should imagine that Eukhosst requests are landing on a poor minion chained to a desk at a pound an hour with nothing but a standard script to go by - Seen it myself - if the script doesn't cover the issue, then they either ignore it completely, or just repeat from the top ad nauseum.

Our best bet is to complain to the source of the problem - Yahoo

I don't want to switch servers due to this either - If Yahoo can't run a a proper email service, then it shouldn't be in the business of doing so. As Mark says, it's typical blind corporate greed that expands one part of the service, while letting customer support (and hence customer satisfaction and referral) run on a shoestring.

http://help.btinternet.com/yahoo/hel...aints-nb,.html

[swexpert]

hi,
as a precaution, Please add spf records all of you. Eukhost, please update their dns templates to reflect the same. can someone tell me a working domain? i mean for (windows)server which is working...or where the accounts will be migrated.

regds
IJ

[Nige]

Originally Posted by swexpert

as a precaution, Please add spf records all of you.

How's that done then? - And given that Yahoo is the ONLY mail server that's causing these problems, and this is a recent issue, forgive me for saying this, but what exactly are Yahoo doing about this?
Having looked at many, many Yahoo so-called Help pages, the tone is always the same - patronising and defensive. In other words, "Yahoo is always right. The customer is always wrong".
As I see it, Yahoo changed something on its mail servers, and this started happening. eukhost have contacted Yahoo on a number of occasions, and Yahoo have not responded.

Many years ago, I used to have a number of hotmail accounts. Everyone I knew - clients, family, friends also has hotmail accounts. After a while, hotmail accounts became so spammy and buggy that I dumped them all, and so did everyone I knew. The easiest route for me at the moment is to do exactly the same with Yahoo accounts. Way too much trouble for something that is freely and readily available elsewhere!

[DPS Computing]

Someone should tell Yahoo! that the customer is ALWAYS right!

[Nige]

Exactly!
Especially given that, in my experience, the customer usually has more technical know-how than BT Yahoo. In my case, that's not much, but I do know how to research - I've had BT BB reps on the phone bleating in exasperation when I've told them what the problem is, and they're still stuck at the "try turning it off and on again" stage of their script. "How do you know?" they cry - I answer; "Because I've analysed the problem, done research on the issues and consulted peers with experience of these issues".

To be fair though, it's the "help desk" process that's ultimately at fault - not sophisticated enough to analyse anything but the most simple of problems. Even eukhost's support suffers from this! It's the "compu'er says no" mentality that drives them. I was once turned down for a BT mobile phone because, when the person on the phone pressed a button, the credit rating computer said "no". Apparently, my previous address "did not exist" - even though there was a BT landline installed there, and up until 5 months previously I'd had a BT account at that property, which I'd transferred directly to my current property. From which I called BT.
Anyway, a week after all this, I got a call to say that the credit rating computer had in fact been faulty, and had being saying "no" to legit customers and "yes" to debt-ridden bankrupts. The operatives just blindly followed whatever the computer said. Irony is, BT then eventually sent my phone to my old address (the one that didn't exist), so I cancelled the order and went to a proper shop!

It's the absolute reliance on a machine to give the right answer in every case that causes these problems - Yahoo thinks its machines are infallible, because let's face it, computers don't make mistakes. Unfortunately, people make mistakes, and people program, and use, computers!

[DPS Computing]

I agree with you Nige. The computer should be used as a tool to help the brain, not replace it!!

However certain big companies decide to ignore this as they want to pay their staff £3 an hour and for that you tend to get people who can't think for themselves and if the computer tells them to do something, they do it, even if when you look back at it it is completely rediculous and stupid.

By this stage I think I would have given up with BT/Yahoo! and I'm sure if this continues on it won't be an issue for us anymore as I am sure this will drive all their customers away from their e-mail service at least thereby rendering this problem moot.

In the meantime though I think we are going to have to unfortunately suffer .

[Nige]

I'm already on the case - migrating everyone I know to my domain or gmail soonest!

It's such a short-sighted approach though, isn't it? I mean, in technical terms BT and Yahoo are seen as a complete joke - BT.com is one of the worst sites I've ever seen, and they can't even manage cookies properly - absolutely shambolic! Add to this the total lack of technical support, and who on earth would touch them unless you absolutely had too. I'm sure these type of companies think, "oh, so what, a few individual punters leave, we can always get more", but what about major corporate clients?
Who in their right mind is going to recommend BT to his/her board or management, knowing that it couldn't organise a p**s up in a brewery!?

[DPS Computing]

I have got to agree whole heartedly with you Nige. Being one of the richest and biggest companies in the world you would think they could at least organise a decent website hosting. I mean most of us arn't rich and arn't even companies yet we come up with fairly decent website hostings and customer support!!

I have got to say my opinion of BT / Yahoo! has gone down dramatically since the start of this topic.

[247h]

I've been watching this topic with interest, particularly as it mirrors some of what was discussed in an earlier topic entitled PHP mail to external domains, with respect to problems with emails being deferred for hours/days by Yahoo's mail servers.

It seems little progress has been made and clearly, eUKhost have continued to try resolving this without much/any success. Corresponding with Yahoo has been a joke — personally, I'm not surprised it's still hopeless and I gave up weeks ago. I continue to have several accounts on my Dedicated Server that have been suffering from Yahoo deferrals for weeks/months but the problem doesn't seem to be consistent or entirely predictable.

Anyway, the point of my interruption here is to open discussion about whether we can improve the Yahoo deferral problems by configuring the syntax of our SPF records in a certain way? I've been using SPF for a long time now and it doesn't appear to have helped much with regard to Yahoo, until recently ...

Additionally, I'd like to add that I haven't implemented Yahoo's recommendation of DomainKeys because I have been told by eUKhost that their experiments in implementing it were totally ineffective/unsuccessful (just in case anyone has an opposite opinion or experience)?

A couple of days ago I realised that the syntax of SPF records on my Dedicated Server wasn't consistent, with some accounts managed by other resellers having no records, so I made changes on their behalf and after some thought, amended all the others ...

The majority of SPF records were in this format:
"v=spf1 a mx ~all"
...it would appear that Yahoo gives no preference to this. However, I changed my DNS Zone Templates to use this syntax:
"v=spf1 a mx ip4:%ip% ~all"
NOTE: that's a change to the template — if you modify each domain's SPF record manually, you substitute YOUR server's IP address for the ip4 placeholder, e.g.
"v=spf1 a mx ip4:111.112.011.012 ~all"
...here's a useful link for SPF Record Syntax.

After changing all the existing accounts manually, over a 48 hour period I've had no deferrals whatsoever!

OK, so it's too early to conclude that this is the solution but it's looking promising and I thought it would be better discussed now than in a week's time — it may transpire that all likely suspects for deferrals have sent nothing in last couple of days! I'm just interested to hear from anyone else who is experimenting with this or has alternative ideas? I'm particularly interested to know how eUKhost configure their default templates on shared servers etc? Do they differ or are they all using a common syntax?

And if this would be better discussed in a separate topic, I'll leave it to the moderators to sort out ...

[Nige]

David,
I think it's due to corporate greed - or rather the ceaseless, irrational and destructive forces of international capitalism!
For example, a company that makes x billion profit one year can never be satisfied with maintaining that - there's always the push for "growth" (ie: make more money). So, what can they do? Mostly they've achieved saturation in terms of customer base - everyone uses them - so the only way to squeeze more out it to cut costs. It does this by reducing quality - service, quality of the goods sold etc... So, we see production facilities and customer services moved repeatedly to cheaper and cheaper countries. Standards fall - technical problems can't be solved, or products fall apart much more quickly. Customers lose faith and trust in the company and migrate to other companies, or just buy less from them. And most companies (too stupid to do anything else) just continue the downward spiral to shore up ever diminishing returns to shareholders, until there's nothing left.
We've seen this happen with quite a few companies in this country -
Marks and Spencer nearly went to the wall because it cut costs and quality too much - the very thing its customers trusted it for - and has spent the last number of years having to regain that customer confidence.
Ratners used to be (one of the) biggest jewelery chains - in that case the CEO helped its demise along with some truthful comments about quality!
Dear old BT - how much has it spent on those p**y TV adverts trying to tempt customers "back to BT", without ever, ever, ever, asking why those customers left in the first place? As you say, David, how on earth can anyone have any faith left in a company that's supposed to be at the cutting edge of technology, but can't even code a website hosting efficiently? Especially since that website hosting is the "shop front" and "customer service area" for the whole thing? What confidence can anyone have in a company that purports to be on the cutting edge, but which can't even run its web servers properly, or manage its online billing service properly?
It's a bit like going to see your GP and finding an obese, chain-smoking, alcoholic depressive with acne and BO dispensing advice about healthy life styles.

[Nige]

Gadge,
I'd be willing to try these steps, but like a previous poster who mentioned SPF records, you assume that we all know how to add/edit our SPF records!
A step by step guide would be great, or at the very least a clue.....

[247h]

Nige, I haven't attempted to cover the topic of adding SPF records to domains because one needs access to modify one's DNS records — you would need at least a reseller account to do this AFAIK. The procedure would probably be different between being hosted on a Linux or Windows server, as well.

This is why I asked what policy eUKhost operates on its shared servers, because they have the ability to automatically add an SPF record to any new account that is created; similarly any reseller has this within their control. Adding them after the accounts are created is far more tedious!

[Nige]

Cheers Gadge!
Will have to see what eukhost say about your suggestions then!

[eUKhost.com]

SPF records are automatically injected in DNS zone of all new accounts which are created on our servers. We've done good number of tests with SPF records but SPF records don't make much difference to Yahoo.

I've made few changes in SPF records of Nigel's domains on Viking as well as Liverpool so lets wait for 24 hours and check.

[247h]

Thanks for confirming that Mark but further to that, I wished you to confirm the actual syntax of the SPF records you use by default and whether you actually have a default?

[eUKhost.com]

Originally Posted by 247h

Thanks for confirming that Mark but further to that, I wished you to confirm the actual syntax of the SPF records you use by default and whether you actually have a default?

We have added following code in zone templates which you can find in "Edit Zone Templates" in your WHM :-

%domain%. IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx ip4:%ip% ~all"

This code will setup proper SPF records when you create new accounts from your WHM. Nigel has his DNS on liverpool so SPF records of Viking were of no use. SPF records need to be setup on DNS server so I've made necessary changes in DNS zone on liverpool. lets hope this changes will solve his yahoo problem.

for those who have their cPanel Dedicated Servers or VPS Hosting's can add this code in Zone templates from their WHM.

[swexpert]

Originally Posted by eUKhost.com

SPF records are automatically injected in DNS zone of all new accounts which are created on our servers. We've done good number of tests with SPF records but SPF records don't make much difference to Yahoo.

I've made few changes in SPF records of Nigel's domains on Viking as well as Liverpool so lets wait for 24 hours and check.

Hello,
I don't think there is a default SPF record in EUKhost's windows server DNS templates. None of the domains I checked for Nigel had them. Maybe the same has been added now.

SPF record was experimental in 2002-2003 to see tghe effect on spoofed spam, and was supposed to be implemented by oct 2004. But even today not all service providers have been able to implement because of opposite response from peers. Primarily because of sheer volume of domains. For example, imagine Yahoo had implemented it long time ago, other service providers like EukHost would have opposed it because they had not implemented the records in the DNS settings due to which the mails bounced. So Yahoo and the like deferred SPF implementation. More so because they coult not do it in parts (because accounts were scattered all over the world).

A) Now enough time has passed and everyone is aware of SPF. On the other hand spammers have found new ways. The latest is MP3 voice ads! Last month, 74% mail was spam. The results of SPF experiments have been really impressive. So it has become all the more important and necessary to use the same. if Yahoo wishes to implement SPF (or any other thing for that matter), they won't tell you, due to the sheer volume of work. Not to the free users at least, I guess.

in Future, SPF will be a separate Type not a TXT record.

B) There is also a possibility that Yahoo and the likes implement things in phases. Obviously they have clusters. Implementing something on some part first to see its effectiveness but without informing the user is likely to cause a scenario "this account is working perfect but the other one is not". The newer hardware may already have restrictions applied but which need to be removed for everyone's mail to work (or something).

The summary in my opinion is that big(volumnous) companies will not tell you that they're making changes to standardise things. They will just do it. My observation is that we should make things correct from our end, rather than waiting for the other person to correct them first.

Meanwhile, the domain I tested for Nigel does not still have any SPF record. Moreover, when I connected to viking i got:

220-viking.eukhost.com ESMTP Exim 4.68 #1 Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:05:59 +0000
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited,
220 and/or bulk e-mail.
HELO
250 viking.eukhost.com Hello  [220.224.118.232]
EHLO
250-viking.eukhost.com Hello  [220.224.118.232]
250-SIZE 52428800
250-PIPELINING
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-STARTTLS
250 HELP
MAIL FROM: TEST@INDERJEETSODG.COM
501 TEST@INDERJEETSOD.COM: malformed address.COM may not follow TEST@INDERJEETSO
DGU
MAIL FROM: TEST@INDERJEETSIDHI.COM
250 OK
RCPT TO: TEST@!!snipped!!.CO.UK
451 Temporary local problem - please try later

Error 451?? Something new coming up?


Nigel, I assume you're on Plesk. The setting is under domain->DNS then add a new record, select TXT as type then click on SPF and enter what was mentioned in the earlier post by 24by7. The only exception is, In windows BIND it is +all and not ~all. But I suggest let Support do it for you for the time being since we need to ensure things are correct at the moment.


Regds
IJ