pop3 timout on receiving mail

[silveroke]

Hi
I have a problem with quite a few clients that phoned me and I don't know how to resolve this. All these client's is using Vodacom 3G to connect. They can connect fine and browse the internet and sent mail. But there is a random problem that they get timout errors on trying to receive mail. The error is:
'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the receiving (POP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).
Now the first thing we usually check is if the mailserver is responding, but it does and customers using ADSL or dailup, even iburst is not having the same problems. Also, there is a few mailservers running here and the problem is on any of those mailservers, so not limited to one.
I have phoned Vodacom's helpdesk and they are unaware of any customer's phoning them with the problem. They even made a suggestion to forward contact numbers of these customers to them so that they can phone the customers and try to troubleshoot it from their side.
Any help in this regard will be appreciated.

 

[web]

Are they using Norton Anti-virus ?

 

[ryts]

I occasionally see this using the wrt54g3g router: pop3 fails to connect at start-up or if I press "receive". Usually it works if I click on "receive" again immediately.

FWIIW, this seems to have lessened since VC upgraded a month or so back to deal with a slew of problems.

Are you referring to a persistent problem such that mail never downloads? (never mind, you wrote "random" - this sounds exactly like what I observe).

ryts

 

[vodacom3g]

Hi
I have a problem with quite a few clients that phoned me and I don't know how to resolve this. All these client's is using Vodacom 3G to connect. They can connect fine and browse the internet and sent mail. But there is a random problem that they get timout errors on trying to receive mail. The error is:
'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the receiving (POP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).
Now the first thing we usually check is if the mailserver is responding, but it does and customers using ADSL or dailup, even iburst is not having the same problems. Also, there is a few mailservers running here and the problem is on any of those mailservers, so not limited to one.
I have phoned Vodacom's helpdesk and they are unaware of any customer's phoning them with the problem. They even made a suggestion to forward contact numbers of these customers to them so that they can phone the customers and try to troubleshoot it from their side.
Any help in this regard will be appreciated.

For each user (when the timeouts happen):

1) Run a speed test on http://speed.vodacom.co.za and post- This will give us an indication of throughput at that point in time (this is my primary suspicion)
2) Get the POP3 server URL and post.
3) Ping the server and post response time.
4) Check which APN they're using and post.
5) Check client IP (ipconfig) and post.

This should give us a good idea where the problem could be.

 

[ryts]

Hi V3G,

This is not a problem for me (my pulse is not the rhythm of emails arriving ) but there might be problems. I have two mail checkers running (to ensure they are not the problem) and both report "error" on the connect. My mail reader can connect fine - there was in fact a message. The problem will go away and the checkers will then work fine for a while then error etc.

Pings and speed look good to me.

As I wrote, no biggie for me but it may reflect an issue.

1) down 1023 kb/s up 312 kb/s
2) pop3.vodamail.co.za
3)

64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=124 ttl=243 time=405 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=125 ttl=243 time=397 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=126 ttl=243 time=375 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=127 ttl=243 time=418 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=128 ttl=243 time=1487 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=129 ttl=243 time=559 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=130 ttl=243 time=189 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=131 ttl=243 time=168 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=132 ttl=243 time=178 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=133 ttl=243 time=168 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=134 ttl=243 time=488 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=135 ttl=243 time=139 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=136 ttl=243 time=169 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=137 ttl=243 time=158 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=138 ttl=243 time=168 ms
64 bytes from mx1.vodamail.co.za (196.11.146.148): icmp_seq=139 ttl=243 time=158 ms

--- smtp.vodamail.co.za ping statistics ---
139 packets transmitted, 137 received, 1% packet loss, time 142389ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 139.793/389.997/1487.954/112.429 ms, pipe 2

4) Internet APN
5) IP: 10.63.71.79 (using wrt54g3g router)

ryts

PS: In the one mail checker that can, I changed vodamail to imap4 and it connected fine!