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Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds..."

MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds..."

I'm trying to send a small (a few paragraphs of text) message to a list of email addresses (sending it 'To' one of my email addresses, and 'Bcc' to everyone in my list). I get the error about the size of the message exceeding a temporary size limit of the server.

But... if I send the same message to only one or two people then it sends fine.

Mailing the same list of addresses in the same way has worked fine up until today.

My suspicion is that it's a problem relating to one of the recipients.  Mail client is Thunderbird.  Is there any way I can get more information about the error?

23 REPLIES 23
MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

By an extremely tedious process of elimination I've found that the error is caused by one particular email address - if I send just to that address I get the error, if I send to all of the other addresses it works.  So it seems that Plusnet's SMTP server is telling my mail client the wrong error.

OskarPapa
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Registered: ‎09-10-2018

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Hi @MikeBz, thanks for your post.

 

We're sorry to hear of your email woes and for our delayed response.

 

As you say - with it being just the one email address it's extremely likely that it's the recipient address at fault here.  Are you able to mail the address in question via webmail, rather than your client?

MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

I just tried it via WebMail - it fails to send and briefly pops up the error SMTP Error (452): Failed to add recipient "xxxxx@yyyyy.co.uk" (... temporary failure).  (Obviously I haven't replicated the actual email address there).  Which at least is more useful in that it tells me the email address associated with the problem, although the error (452) actually means "Too many emails sent or too many recipients: more in general, a server storage limit exceeded." so Thunderbird is correctly reporting it, kind of, it just isn't telling me the email address associated with the error.

If I try to ping the domain name part of the email address then it fails (could not find host - i.e. no DNS resolution for that name).  But here's the strange thing, if I use webmail to try and send to a completely fabricated domain name (pingpongpo.co.uk) then I get a different error:  SMTP Error (550): Failed to add recipient "anyone@pingpongpo.co.uk" <anyone@pingpongpo.co.uk> recipient rejected - domain has no delivery address (DNS MX or A record)).

The domain name in the failed 'real' email address certainly used to exist, so it seems that there is some different behaviour from PN's mail servers depending on whether it's a now-defunct-domain-name or a never-existed-domain-name.

OskarPapa
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Posts: 1,325
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Registered: ‎09-10-2018

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Hi @MikeBz, thanks for getting back to me.

 

Yeah, the 2 different errors certainly isn't overly helpful in diagnosing the issues IMO!

 

Is it only the one address over webmail and client?

MikeBz
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Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

It's only the one address out of those in my list. It seems that the domain name has gone away recently (I'm not sure how recently).  I don't see any reason why I shouldn't post the domain name here?

OskarPapa
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 1,325
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Registered: ‎09-10-2018

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Hi @MikeBz, don't worry - posting the domain is absolutely fine as long as we don't have a full email address posted.

 

We are aware of some issues with the 123reg domain, is it a 123reg address that you're mailing?

MikeBz
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Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

It's sky4aviation.co.uk.

OskarPapa
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Registered: ‎09-10-2018

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Thanks for that @MikeBz,.

 

As soon as you got that over to me I started running a search on the domain. As of yet, it's still searching and so it definitely looks like it's a domain issue at fault here.

MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

The domain not existing is triggering fault but in some cases (sky4aviation.co.uk) it causes the mail server to report the wrong error code (452 not 550), whilst in other cases (make_up_a_non_existent_domain.co.uk) the mail server reports the correct error code (550).

Gandalf
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Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

I'd like to raise this with our network operations team for further investigation.

Could you PM me the full e-mail address please?

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Thanks, done.

Gandalf
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Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Cheers Mike, I've raised this with our network engineers and we should have an update early next week.

We'll let you know as soon as we know more. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
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Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

Hi Mike. We've received a response back advising if you experience this problem via webmail.plus.net too? If you do could you PM me the date, time, To & From addresses and the subject line please? 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
MikeBz
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Registered: ‎14-09-2012

Re: Sending small message, but get "The size of the message your are trying to send exceeds...&

I tried webmail on Friday as requested (to the email address quoted in my last PM), the results are in the 4th post in this topic.  I'll pm you with as much of the detail you've requested that I have.