Mweb network and Mail Issues

[tjoppie]

Hi People,

For the last I'd say, 2 months, I've been having alot of problems with some of my clients that's on the Mweb network. I've had one client where mail stopped flowing to their smtp server. On calling the mail provider they said change the port for SMTP to 587, which then worked fine. I first thought it was a traffic volume, whereby they are sending too much mail, but now I have small customers who never reach any kind of mail threshold that also has the same problem, and it seems that it's now starting to happen on port 587 also. The latest is that you can reach the smtp servers, but then authentication is blocked, so your outlook keeps on asking for a username and password, then works for about an hour or two, then asks again... then like 3 days will pass where there's no problems, then it starts all over again.

When enquiring with mweb, you get absolutely no help, they just say that it's a problem with the SMTP servers, where I know it's not, and they read from their little manuals on how to change mail passwords... I'm pretty sure this is a network traffic related issue on the Mweb network, as I'm getting this on a couple of customers, who have no relation to each other, and are each on their own different hosted mail servers, but I just cannot figure out where the problem is.

Is there anyone else out there that's experiencing the same problems?

 

[MWEBHelp]

Hi People,

For the last I'd say, 2 months, I've been having alot of problems with some of my clients that's on the Mweb network. I've had one client where mail stopped flowing to their smtp server. On calling the mail provider they said change the port for SMTP to 587, which then worked fine. I first thought it was a traffic volume, whereby they are sending too much mail, but now I have small customers who never reach any kind of mail threshold that also has the same problem, and it seems that it's now starting to happen on port 587 also. The latest is that you can reach the smtp servers, but then authentication is blocked, so your outlook keeps on asking for a username and password, then works for about an hour or two, then asks again... then like 3 days will pass where there's no problems, then it starts all over again.

When enquiring with mweb, you get absolutely no help, they just say that it's a problem with the SMTP servers, where I know it's not, and they read from their little manuals on how to change mail passwords... I'm pretty sure this is a network traffic related issue on the Mweb network, as I'm getting this on a couple of customers, who have no relation to each other, and are each on their own different hosted mail servers, but I just cannot figure out where the problem is.

Is there anyone else out there that's experiencing the same problems?

Good afternoon, please advise if the following option has not been selected : "my server requires authentication"

 

[tjoppie]

Nope that's not the problem... SMTP auth is on..

And its not like we're setting up new account and it's failling... this is happening on accounts on random which is working fine for months / years...

tried resettings passwords on a couple of them also, then works fine for a while, then breaks again.. then works fine again, then breaks again...

 

[MWEBHelp]

Nope that's not the problem... SMTP auth is on..

And its not like we're setting up new account and it's failling... this is happening on accounts on random which is working fine for months / years...

tried resettings passwords on a couple of them also, then works fine for a while, then breaks again.. then works fine again, then breaks again...

Please do not select authentication on your SMTP server and test please.

 

[tjoppie]

ok... but isnt that silly to do... the smtp isnt on the mweb network, so it's going to need authentication...otherwise you will have relay problems surely.... but allright.. will try...

 

[solo7]

We have the same problem with clients on Mweb adsl. If the clients go on 3G or use some other ISP no problem. We also ended up having to make customers move to 587, and you have to use authentication (as it's not mweb smtp server) I think their shaping is causing problems, as business adsl does not have the problem with getting blocked. If port 587 gets blocked, we will be forced to have clients use mweb smtp server (which will suck when they have to switch between ISP connections) and have to setup a SPF record for every clients domain.

Mweb needs to figure it out and fix their ****!!!

 

[tjoppie]

That's not entirely true in my case, I have a couple of customers on Business ADSL uncapped with static ips, and this is happening to them also..so I think its across the board...

 

[Ivork]

Same thing here.
Company use a non mweb smtp relay but Mweb hijack P25 and direct it to themselves (which obviously does not authenticate on their system).
Changing to P587 works when on a Mweb DSL line so they must redirect it and relay / speak on port 25 to the original smtp server you trying to reach.

The problem is of course - the non mweb server does not use Port 587.
This leaves all the (very non computer literate) people needing to change the port back to P25 on all their various devices when they leave the office and use 3G, hotspots, at home etc and back again when in the office.

I would like to hear from a technical person at Mweb what their case is!
This is an unacceptable level of annoyance.
Phoning is useless.

 

[MWEBHelp]

Same thing here.
Company use a non mweb smtp relay but Mweb hijack P25 and direct it to themselves (which obviously does not authenticate on their system).
Changing to P587 works when on a Mweb DSL line so they must redirect it and relay / speak on port 25 to the original smtp server you trying to reach.

The problem is of course - the non mweb server does not use Port 587.
This leaves all the (very non computer literate) people needing to change the port back to P25 on all their various devices when they leave the office and use 3G, hotspots, at home etc and back again when in the office.

I would like to hear from a technical person at Mweb what their case is!
This is an unacceptable level of annoyance.
Phoning is useless.

Hi Ivork,

I would advise reading the following article as to why the change happened. You can contact our abuse team for further queries.

Regards,
MWEB Guy

 

[Ivork]

Should you wish to send mail through an external relay server in future, you will have to use the mail submission port (587), which should be supported on all standards compliant relay servers.

Says Who? smtp.vodacom.co.za doesn't and neither does mine!
Hardly a RFC requirement so not sure what you mean by "standards compliant" rather than "what a lot of ISP's are doing". Port 587 we used for relaying between mailservers - not client relay. Maybe not relevant now but some devices in the past you were stuck with smtp=P25 (which is the RFC requirement).

Me I'll choose another random port for my mail server so I don't have to change it all again once the spammers catch on to P587.

But much thanks for clearing it all up.
It is understandable in a way what Mweb is doing.

[EDIT]
I’m not entirely sure it is the right way, legal or ethical, to go about it.

For example we like to monitor all our incoming & outgoing mail at the office.

Someone claims to have sent a message & the recipient denies ever receiving it. We could prove to the recipient “look here, here is the smtp log between your server and ours”.

But now we screwed if they sent it from home and use Mweb cause you hijacked their port and sent it via your server. Now how long will it take to get that delivery log from Mweb - if you even log it & for how long do you keep said logs?

 

[MP3]

This issue persists still today 9 years later... I mean MWEB are utterly useless, "no there isn't a problem on our side"

Uh, yes there is!

 

[deweyzeph]

I can't believe people still use an email account from their ISP in this day and age.