Emails sent to customer on server get bounced saying user does not exist???

[Matt Grant]

I have a domain on my server (Plesk 10.4.4) and people are randomly getting bounces when they send email to specific users on the domain. Te bounce message says that the user does not have a mailbox on the server. The user does exist and receives email from people all the time. It is just certain outside emails coming in that get the bounce. How can I tell the server to let these people email them and not bounce them. I have the SPAM filter disabled on their domain and am not having this issue for all domains. What is weird is, the same person emailing my client that gets a bounce, does not get a bounce if they email me and we are on the same server. Where can I look to see why it is happening?

Here is the latest bounce message...


From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:28 AM
To:
Subject: failure notice

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at oproxy9.bluehost.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<[email protected]>:
xx.xx.xx.xx does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.7.17) Giving
up on xx.xx.xx.xx.


Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[IgorG]

http://kb.parallels.com/797

 

[Matt Grant]

I have tried everything in the KB article that you referenced but it is still happening. WHat is weird is that it is not entire domains. This issue is not widespread, it is only one or two people on 1 or 2 domains out of 110 domains. The users having the issue can receive email from 99% of the world, but then it randomly bounces with a "Remote host said: 550 sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.7.17) Giving up" to same sender each time they send mail to one of my users.

Isn't there some sort of log somewhere that I can post or look at to see what is going on? Or a master list I can tell the server about that allows mail to be sent to everyone on the list? The users are starting to get pissed and I need to figure what is causing this.


Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Matt Grant]

Anyone?

So this is just how Plesk works and there is no fix?

 

[Faris Raouf]

You'll find the log in /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

If there's no obvious/nasty error, look very closely at the TO: address listed in the maillog. There's a very high chance that there's an " ' " or a space or something odd in it. Same applies to the bounce message -- have another look just in case. Compare the formatting to a "genuine" bounce/log entry to help you spot any anomolies.

Very often we see situations like this caused by people incorrectly copying and pasting an address including the < > or the " ' " that can be visible when you view an email address in Outlook and other email clients. And those can be hard to spot sometimes.

 

[Matt Grant]

I would like to run mck on a single domain, instead of the entire server (160 domains). Is it possible? If I understand correctly, when I run /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk --with-spam it disables all email in/out until the process is completed? I am only having issues with one domain and it would be much simpler if I could run the tool on problem domain.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Matt Grant]

Anyone know a way to do this?

 

[Faris Raouf]

I'm not aware of a single-domain option for this.

mchk doesn't take long, and even if it takes more than a few minutes no incoming email is likely to be lost even if qmail is stopped while it runs.

 

[Matt Grant]

Even with about 500 email accounts with about 30gb of emails? I read elsewhere that it could take many hours to complete and that the mail server is offline while it runs. Is there any chance of something getting screwed up if I run it at midnight and check it in the morning? I don't want create a mess because of a couple of problem accounts. Where will the log be located once it has finished?

 

[Faris Raouf]

I would not leave it unattended, no.

If you've read that it takes ages then I'm likely to be wrong and it might take a long time. I just don't remember it ever being something I've worried about. Mind you, I've not counted how many mailboxes we have on our systems -- maybe much, much fewer and maybe that's why it has never bothered me on those very few occasions I've run it.

Either way, it is something to do late one evening and a close eye kept on it.