Server and System Status

As of this moment, the NC027 IP address is no longer blocked by Microsoft on their Hotmail / Outlook.com / Windows Live service. Additionally, test messages we’ve sent have been delivered to the in box of the test account. We have removed the workaround.

As I was hitting the “publish” button on the last update, another email came in from Microsoft that contradicted the email we had received just 68 minutes earlier. The latest email states, “Our investigation has determined that the [NC027 IP address does] not qualify for mitigation.”

We will continue to jump through Microsoft’s hoops, but in the meantime the workaround is still in place.

After literally begging for a review of the situation and making three submissions to Microsoft, they have finally granted the IP address of server NC027 a “conditional mitigation”. This means that they have removed the block on this mail server’s IP address, but will put it back the second they see any reason to do so. Because they say that it will take 24-48 hours for this to propagate throughout their system we will leave the workaround in place for at least that long.

Two things have become clear from this and the Yahoo situation:

• Dealing with megalithic entities like the all-powerful, large, free webmail providers — Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and their ilk — and their drone-like employees who are only allowed to copy and paste canned responses, is supremely frustrating.
• We have a growing problem on our hands as a result of their huge footprint and their lack of concern for the many other companies like NinerNet on the Internet.

On the latter point, as stated in our first post on this issue with Hotmail, if you’re running a mailing list by blind-copying (or, even worse, simply cc’ing!) any more than about a dozen email addresses (of close friends or family or colleagues), we suspect that this may be the cause of the recent problems. Within the next 30 days — and hopefully much sooner than that — we will be implementing limits on the number of email addresses that can be cc’d or bcc’d in a single message. If you’re doing this, please contact us as soon as possible for options to ensure that your mailing list can continue to operate. It would be better to contact us as now in order to avoid disruptions to your mailing lists later.

Thank-you for your patience.

We are still waiting for a response form Microsoft on this issue. In the meantime we have implemented a workaround that we developed during the Yahoo situation that will get email through to Hotmail and their domains, but there is a high likelihood that email to Hotmail domains will end up in the recipients’ “junk” or “spam” folders.

We will post further updates here as they become available.

We have become aware that server NC027 has again been placed in the private block list of a major email provider. About three weeks ago Yahoo blocked this mail server for no good reason — and refused to reveal the nature and source of the alleged complaints that they received — and now Hotmail/Outlook.com has done the same. This means that all email to various Hotmail domains (including outlook.com) is being bounced immediately. Here is what the bounce message looks like for the hypothetical email address example@hotmail.com:

<example@hotmail.com>: host mx1.hotmail.com[207.46.8.167] said: 550 SC-001
    (BAY004-MC5F27) Unfortunately, messages from 212.71.255.195 weren't sent.
    Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network
    is on our block list. You can also refer your provider to
    http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors. (in reply to MAIL
    FROM command)

This mail server’s IP address is — as usual — NOT in the major block lists / blacklists, all of which can be checked using a website like MXToolBox. This service checks 105 known blacklists, and we are listed in exactly 0 (zero) of them.

I will echo the advice that we posted during the Yahoo problem: If you’re forwarding email from your domain to a Hotmail account, we strongly suggest that you stop doing that. If you’re doing that or using personal, free accounts for business use on Hotmail or other free email providers, we also strongly suggest you stop doing that. If you need help achieving — with your own domain and the hosting services you’re already paying for — what you’re currently doing with free email accounts with third-party providers, talk to us and we’ll help you do it a better way.

Additionally, if you’re running a mailing list by blind-copying (or, even worse, simply cc’ing!) any more than about a dozen email addresses (of close friends or family), we suspect that this may be the cause of the recent problems. Within the next 30 days we will be implementing limits on the number of email addresses that can be cc’d or bcc’d in a single message. If you’re doing this, please contact us for options to ensure that your mailing list can continue to operate.

We are attempting to resolve this issue with Microsoft and will post updates here. Thanks for your patience.