Gmail Forwarding slowness (RESOLVED! 12/6)
Right now we are experiencing some slowdowns sending emails to Google’s GMail service. This only appears to be affecting mail being forwarded through our systems, and not sending directly through an email client using our mail servers. We believe the slowdown to be on Google’s end, however we are actively investigating the situation to see if there’s something wrong on our end causing the slowdown.
Again, email sent directly from an email client such as Thunderbird, Mac Mail, or Outlook should make it to GMail in a timely fashion, it is only mail being forwarded through our servers (forwarding-only addresses in the web panel) that is currently being affected.
Update: The mail queues are back down to normal now, and things appear to be running smoothly again!
Update: (11/28/2007 10:15 PST) Unfortunately it looks like this problem is back. Our admins are working to resolve it now. Messages are flowing, but the queue is quite backed up at the moment so it’s going to take some time.
Update: (11/29/2007 3:00 PST) We’ve moved all outgoing gmail forwards to their own server so that they’ll have dedicated processing time without affecting the rest of outgoing mail. The outgoing mail queue is still pretty full, but it’s steadily decreasing. We’re in contact with a Google support representative to get this resolved permanently. Mail to Gmail forwards are being delayed, but they are going through. A temporary workaround is to point your email forwards to a non-Gmail address or local DreamHost mailbox, as those are not affected by the delay. We’re sorry for the problems this causes you, and we’re doing all that we can to resolve this.
Update: (12/02/2007 1:00 PST) At the request of many of our customers, we are updating this page to let you know that we do not have any further information regarding this issue. We’re already in contact with Googles support team to resolve this issue, there isn’t much else we can do at this point. As far as we can tell, mail is still queued and not lost. Please try and refrain from contacting support about this for the time being, as they do not have any additional information that isn’t already posted here. As soon as we have ANY updates, we’ll be sure to post it here.
Update: (12/04/2007 9:43 PST) At the request of many of our customers, we are updating this page to let you know that we believe mail is now getting processed at a faster rate than during the weekend. The situation is not completely resolved yet as delays still exist, but there is no more problems apparent to cause further delays. We’re now waiting to catch up with the current mail flow. Again, sorry about all the inconvenience this is causing.
Update (12/05/2007 09:46 AM Pacific) Latest and greatest update! Gmail finally got back to us has whitelisted all of our outbound MX servers, plus one or two others we were using to hold the email that was being delayed by them. We cannot guarantee this will last forever, however, but for now, we’re able to send them forwarded email. We are incrementally having more of our mail servers start sending directly to gmail, instead of via our holding server. The holding server we setup has 1.4 million emails on it, and is sending them just as fast as it can/gmail will take them.
What this means to you:
1. Newly sent email to your DreamHost account that is forwarded to gmail should go through with relative speed. I am watching logs on a handful of servers and they are all sending just fine.
2. Email sent over the course of last week is sending out very quickly, and we hope will catch up today or tomorrow. 1.4 million emails is a lot of email, as you can imagine. We setup a brand new custom mail server with faster hard drives and a raid card to handle it.
We’re very sorry about how long this has taken. We have been working with gmail to get this resolved, however we are ultimately at the mercy of their servers accepting our email.
UPDATE 12/06/2007 9:07 AM Pacific:
It looks like our deferred mail server really cranked out the email yesterday, and is up to date. The only ones left in its mail queue for gmail are receiving this message back:
(host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[209.85.147.114] said: 450-4.2.1 The Gmail user you are trying to contact is receiving 450-4.2.1 mail at a rate that prevents additional messages from 450-4.2.1 being delivered. Please resend your message at a later 450-4.2.1 time; if the user is able to receive mail at that time, 450 4.2.1 your message will be delivered. (in reply to RCPT TO command))
Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to prevent that. Remember, you can always have your email delivered to DreamHost for use with any IMAP/POP3 client for easy access. We have received word from them that we are whitelisted, as previously stated, and all of our inbound mail servers are successfully relaying (forwarding) their email to gmail.
.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I’m getting email 4 days late now. This is absolutely ridiculous. If this isn’t fix this week, I’m cancelling my account.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Today I am seeing all mail forwarded to my gmail account in a timely manner. However, I am still missing mail at least 5 days old. I would have had it backed up on DH itself if I hadn’t run into another DH problem that was truncating mail spools. So I have backups since 11/28 (5 days ago), but unless email from before then is still in DH’s queues, then they’ve likely lost it forever.
I’ve been with DH for nearly 4 years and this is certainly the most serious and longest-lasting problem I’ve had with them. DH: we really need to see this resolved and no mail lost if you don’t want to lose customers like me.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
@ben - you said:
I would have had it backed up on DH itself if I hadn’t run into another DH problem that was truncating mail spools. So I have backups since 11/28 (5 days ago), but unless email from before then is still in DH’s queues, then they’ve likely lost it forever.
um Yike! How did you find out about this problem? did you get some DH support to track it down or is there some way i can check this myself on my acct to see if that’s where all my mail is stuck?
Have been very frustrated that everyone says just use the full DH account when my DH acct hasn’t received any mail (according to Webmail) for weeks - i was wondering why sep 19 was the last date in webmail since i have been getting it fine until the gmail issue the past week.
Any help on understanding what might be going on beyond the Gmail queue slowdown v much appreciated
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
If you read through the comments on this page and others in this blog, the general consensus seems to be “Don’t rely on DH for anything important.”
Which begs the question… who sets up “unimportant” websites and email addresses???? Am I to assume that unreliability is somehow the new standard in shared webhosting?
Dreamhost wants to pass blame on this to Google. But think about that for a second. I DON’T PAY GOOGLE. I pay Dreamhost. DH should EXPECT that things will go wrong with 3rd parties and have CONTINGENCY plans for this spam-related issue. Google greylisted DH for a reason.
DREAMHOST: Please watch your servers for unusual activity. Please monitor your servers for processor hogs. All of the problems I have had occurred because DH was letting shit get out of control. Let’s ask ourselves an obvious question: how will we prevent this from happening in the future?
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
forwarding to hotmail accounts isn’t workign either. this is pretty weak, DH.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:41 pm
@eric
I’m still amazed at the number of people who still don’t get it.
“Google greylisted DH for a reason. ” Yes. Because of the amount of spam being sent from the dreamhost servers.
You may think that you don’t “pay” google but you do. They’re reading all your e-mail they’re making targeted ads directly for you. You’re paying dream host to forward your mails. How is it their fault if gmail refuses the forward? It’s not that Dreamhost is refusing to forward them.
“Let’s ask ourselves an obvious question: how will we prevent this from happening in the future?”
STOP FORWARDING YOUR E-MAIL TO GOOGLE.
1) Set up google apps, let google be your MX
2) Set up POP3 and have gmail PULL.
What do you people not understand. Every single e-mail piece of spam you forward contributes to any company grey listing DH in the future.
–
What happens when Gmail starts refusing to accept mail from Comcast or Yahoo. What happens when you drop DreamHost and your new host gets grey listed?
What happens when Gmail stops accepting e-mail from non gmail accounts? What happens when Google stops letting you search from IP addresses that aren’t on the Gwireless 700 mHz spectrum
I’m just amazed. I know that their spam filtering is excellent, but talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. What happens when google, tomorrow brings gmail out of Beta and Says “$400 a year to access your account.”
At least with Dreamhost, I’m already paying them to host my mail and they are. If you want to access your e-mail THROUGH gmail, then set it up as #2 above and PULL it.
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
DS is a tard.
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I have always been fine using webmail and PREFER it to using Gmail.
So what I was doing was having mail come into my original 10 year old email address, forward it to Gmail to get filtered and then it gets forwarded to my alternate email which I have always accessed using Squirrel mail and it gets ’sent’ from my original 10 year old email account.
This has cut down from 200+ Spam a day to maybe 2 or 3 on a bad day.
Maybe DH really should have instigated a proper SPAM filtering system instead of patching up mess like this. People had been screaming out for it for long enough so when a proper solution came along (Gmail) the users took it upon themselves to fix the spam problem as DH had ignored it for so long.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Yes, it seems pretty likely that Google’s greylisting of DH is due to spam volume. There’s no reasonable reason to greyhost a web hosting company that is only sending a small amount of spam.
So for those of you that want to point the finger at Google, keep in mind that Google is reacting to something (bad) that is going on at DH.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I just had an e-mail arrive THREE days after it was sent. At this speed, it might be faster to use snail-mail.
Maybe Ted Stevens was right about the internet being a a series of tubes.
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Mail is now getting bounced as undeliverable.
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I should clarify, Mail from earlier in the downtime. Anyone who hasn’t redirected in some way by now is probably just a glutton for punishment.
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
“So for those of you that want to point the finger at Google, keep in mind that Google is reacting to something (bad) that is going on at DH.”
Yes. The BAD thing going on at DH is PEOPLE FORWARDING THEIR MAIL. It doesn’t matter if the spam originates at DH or if it is only forwarded by the DH servers.
To google it looks the exact same. By your accord, I think that DH should disallow forwarding that way their servers can’t get blacklisted by any hosts. This will also help us that send legitimate mail to people at gmail because we’re only sending phpBB registration emails, etc.
December 2nd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Someone put this on digg. so that it gets googles lazy ass going. put the link here so that everyone can digg it and it will reach the front page. the hell. googles and idiot for doing this. it should realize, that DH’s servers relay mail. not send out mail.
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
DS: I don’t disagree with the method you suggest. And I signed up for Google apps and I’m in the process of doing what you recommend (it does require some waiting for confirmation).
That said, the “solution” with Google apps doesn’t change the fact that my email has been buggo for a week. And it doesn’t change the fact that I have to spend several hours dealing with a STANDARD feature. Forwarding emails is not MY job, it’s my webhost’s job.
My only interest is in helping DH (and thus helping myself). I am simply pointing out a way to improve their service (namely, to keep better tabs on these scaling-related issues). I don’t want an average webhost… why should I settle for average performance?
Actually, aside from this latest gmail fiasco, I have noticed an improvement in the performance of my websites. DH does finally seem to be taking an ACTIVE interest in managing my servers. Hopefully, this will be the last and only gmail issue.
That said, I haven’t forgotten about the Google apps “solution” (ahem, workaround, if you ask me), therefore you can rest easy knowing that you have, actually, educated this DH customer.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:17 pm
This is a nightmare (no pun intended) for people using this service for financial means. Hurry up and fix it. it’s not googles problem, it’s our problem and therefor your problem dreamhost.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:43 am
@DS: Stop pluggin Google Apps. This is not a solution for most of us. Mail should work on a hosting party. Also.. saying that one should scrap forwarding services and keep it to themselfs, also does not work, since the spam-filters on DH are the problem.
The best solution would be DH adding super high tech spamfilters… and then forwarding the rest to Gmail.
Stop your high horse attitude about Google Apps. Its getting annoying.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:22 am
@DS:
‘I’m just amazed. I know that their spam filtering is excellent, but talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. What happens when google, tomorrow brings gmail out of Beta and Says “$400 a year to access your account.” ‘
PRECISELY the reason I won’t fully commit to GMail and set my MX to them. I own my domain and I choose where my mail gets delivered, without being held hostage to anyone. GMail is a mail client to me. A very good one, but not one I want to pay through the nose for, and certainly not one I want to be roped into by coercion.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:24 am
Received mail this morning at 04:19 ET from Thursday afternoon (~60 hours delivery time):
Thu, 29 Nov 07 20:22:53 GMT-0700
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:29 am
@Terminator
“Stop your high horse attitude about Google Apps. Its getting annoying.”
I have no high horse about google apps. People here are bitching about mail not getting delivered and that is a solution to still use gmail. Most of the comments I see here are by people that *must* use Gmail because any other service is unacceptable. Google Apps is one way to do this.
And yes. DH’s spam filters suck. Althouh *everyone’s* spam filters suck compared to gmail. However I just setup spamassasin and isbg (Imap Spam Begone) and it’s actually working rather well. Not GMail well, but well.
Set your gmail up to do a pull and be done with it.
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
I have been with dream host for awhile now. I am pretty new to web authoring. i Started doing work in php. i have created a mail response form using the php mail() function. all the mail i send from this works great. but the stuff i send to gmail never gets there or is DAYS late. sorry about the noob question, but is this the same issue as the one being discussed? Am i having my problem for the same reason?
thanks
December 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 am
@ryan lewis
Yes. This is the issue being discussed. Your mail (and forwarded mail) is all being delayed due to the grey listing.
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
Here’s the status for me:
inbound e-mail messages are still taking between 30-60 minutes to get through
e-mail messages from Thursday and Friday are still trickling in now
if any messages have bounced, the senders have not notified me.
This all comes at rather unfortunate timing, since last week I was in the middle of some correspondence about scheduling job interviews. I’ve since set the important addresses to retain a local copy before forwarding, and sent notifications to all parties about the issue and to please resend any e-mail messages I might have missed (a bit embarrassing, but it’s better than the alternative).
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:14 am
It is inexcusable to keep pointing the finger at google.
You are providing a service. You state in your advertisements that you can do email forwarding:
“Every DreamHost plan comes with unlimited email addresses @yourdomain.com! These addresses are configured through our web panel and can be set to go straight to a DreamHost mailbox or forward to another email address.”
THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR SERVICE. NOT GOOGLE.
I have to take responsibility and tell my clients that I purchase affordable, semi-reliable service from an over populated service. That is my problem and I accept that. I take responsibility and tell my clients I messed up and in trying to save some money got myself involved with consistently unreliable services that have been worth it despite the faults… up until now that is.
Why don’t you take responsibility Dreamhost? Stop passing the buck and tell us you’re going to fix this. Tell us WHEN you are going to fix this. I have 50+ clients who are absolutely freaking out because of this. This is unacceptable.
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:23 am
It appears it is fixed for now, but I still get old emails (clearly from the cue) dated as far back as 4 days ago coming into my inbox today.
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am
@kessinge:
DreamHost IS forwarding your mail to gmail. But… when it’s slow or not working… gmail isn’t “answering the phone.”
There’s an easy fix. Change your DH email account to hosted and have gmail pick it up there. Then, instead of gmail’s fully automated system blocking your forwarded mail, it will actually go out and get it, Your instruction to pick up the mail tells gmail that it’s okay.
Even when the queue is flowing, old email will filter in slowly, as the mail servers continue to retry to deliver. Each time they retry, they wait a little longer for the next try. So the FIRST email caught in the trap will be near the LAST to get delivered.
Yes, kessinge, you bought a discount service. A proper solution is to buy dedicated server hosting where the mail server is on your server… with your own ip address. FAR more expensive, and it could still get blocked by gmail if you get spammed enough. If you’re forwarding the mail that is.
BTW, this is not unique. Other isps have blocked DH before. And they’ve blocked other hosting ips as well, so it’s not unique to DH. So take your behind over to your DH control panel, change your email to hosted with an actual mailbox, then tell gmail to pick up there. IF you want your mail to work.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 am
I saw delivery return to relative normalcy this weekend (even though I still have messages 5-6 days old that haven’t been delivered). But this morning it’s back to the delays. I already have email a few hours old that haven’t been forwarded again. Perhaps this weekend’s reprieve was due to lower overall volume.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:22 am
@kessinge
Thanks Rich. It’s nice to see that SOMEONE understands how this works. Man. It’s like arguing with a bunch of … non engineers.
“THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR SERVICE. NOT GOOGLE.”
No. No. No. No. No. No damn it No. This is a problem with GOOGLE. Dreamhost is doing exactly what you tell it to do and Google is not answering the phone.
If you call to make reservations at a very upscale restaurant, but every time you call the line is busy. It might be your fault. Now if you’re calling hanging up, calling again, hanging up Basically autodialing the restaurant and you’re still not getting through, is it really your fault?
So, go buy your rack mounted CoLo and Pay $99 a month. And when the person in the rack next to you starts sending spam to google and gets your IP block black listed, you’ll be in the same boat and out an extra $92. a month.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 am
Status update:
emails in the Gmail queue from 11/29 and 30 trickling in
emails sent to my DH domain account directly 11/30 til now still have not arrived
test sent this morning from Yahoo to me@mydomain.com have not arrived
anyone else NOT getting email at their webmail or POP? How do I get DH to address this?
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am
There is one trick you can use to get your email to gmail. Set your mail not to forward, but set gmail to pick up pop mail from another account. (it’s in the setting menu, under accounts). Now it creates a slight delay in getting your mail, but at least you can read it using all your gmail tools.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:03 am
It’s surprising how confused people are about this whole thing, and how unrealistic their expectations are.
I bought a year of hosting for $20, as did many of you. I never thought that it would work as well as it does, and I certainly never forwarded my email without leaving a copy on DH servers where I could go get it any time.
Those of you who complain that DH is not doing its job are infected with a consumerist attitude- wherein personal responsibilty is passed off to some service provider in spite of all rational thought pointing to the faults in this method.
It’s simply astonishing that anyone would complain that they have no access to their email, and even more amazing that anyone would force this unprotected forwarding onto an unknowing customer.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:08 am
Here’s a link to gmail support if you want to bug them to stop greylisting dreamhost.
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=bugs&ctx=bugflow_receivenewbug02
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:09 am
Barb:
“There is one trick you can use to get your email to gmail. Set your mail not to forward, but set gmail to pick up pop mail from another account. (it’s in the setting menu, under accounts). Now it creates a slight delay in getting your mail, but at least you can read it using all your gmail tools.”
one question about pop3. i have been using imap for so long now that i forget the implications of using pop3. if i recall correctly, pop3 means that the mail is transfered to the client off of the host server which means that the mail once read is not available for reading on another client. how does this work with setting gmail to use pop3? i just want to make sure that i can read the same mail on different machines at different times.
sorry if this seems dense. i can see that there are settings to leave the message on the server but i’m reluctant to make any big changes right now.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:39 am
I LOVE GMAIL AND I HAVE EVERYTHING FROM DREAMHSOT FORWARDED THERE AND IT TAKES 3 DAYS TO GET AN E MAIL IT IS PISSING ME OFF
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 am
@cedub (and anyone else)
1) Log into Gmail
2) Click on “Settings”
3) Click “Accounts” and “Add another mail account”
A window will pop up
4) Enter “username@yourhost.com” and click “Next Step >”
5) Enter your username, password, pop3 server.
Then click “Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.” This will leave a copy on the dream host servers.
Click any of the other things you want such as SSL, labels, Archive.
Add account.
I’d suggest setting up the dream host so that it removes stuff after a set time or setting up a limit so that you don’t run out of room. (Although 1024 spams a day at 1k would take 3 years to even break 1 GB.)
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 am
@InnocentBystander:
Yes, I am a non-engineer. If I were an engineer I would probably run my own server, but as my lot in life stands, I pay someone, a yearly fee to do this for me, without any hiccups or problems (hopefully).
Yes I am reacting like a consumer because I am a consumer. One who is promised a set of services (granted none of them explicitly say “no problem with forwarding gmail” but all the same…) so why should I have any reason to believe that I won’t get what I’m paying for?
This is DH’s problem as long as they are offering a service that is broken. I can respect that they’re trying to do what they can, but everyone on this thread is trying to do whatever they can to make things work. We’re hearing a lot of workarounds, but we need a final solution from DH. Otherwise WE NEED TO OFFICIALLY HEAR WE ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG Else we should assume that the problem lay in DH’s court and they need to deal with it. I’m not saying that they can flip a switch and make it better, but they are accountable for this and we need answers.
Anyway… If its not their problem, why then would they be trying to fix it? They are beholden to thousands and thousands of people who rely on their services. They have to step up and let us know whats going on. This is a service they are providing and as a consumer I, along with everyone on this board, has a right to express what they feel is right and necessary from their services. A good business listens to that, and adjusts to it… Much like I might have to do by switching to a host who is able to deal with forwarding email better.
I love DH and the services they have provided thus far. Sure, its not perfect, but its the right price. I just want answers. Solid answers. This is business. Nothing is impossible here. If it was working 5 days ago, it can resume working… DH has to find a way to make that happen. DH needs to negotiate with Gmail to make this happen.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:07 am
@kessinge
“Anyway… If its not their problem, why then would they be trying to fix it?”
They need to make gmail aware of the problem so that gmail can fix it on their end. What DH is working on is getting all the mail to go through. They have 3+ days of backlogged e-mails. They’re ‘fixing’ was getting it on one server, etc. Making sure that gmail was doing their part.
“so why should I have any reason to believe that I won’t get what I’m paying for?”
Dreamhost didn’t change a single thing. Gmail stopped accepting stuff from DH and that’s where the problem started. You’re paying the cable company (dreamhost) for a service (forwarding) and if FOX (GMail) cancels House (Forwarding e-mail from DH) then that’s not the cable company’s fault.
“Much like I might have to do by switching to a host who is able to deal with forwarding email better.”
What happens when Gmail blocks that host? And the next one. Go reread most of my comments. I’m trying to explain to everyone that if Gmail decided tomorrow no more e-mail from non-gmail. What would you do? It’d be like the days of AOL and Comuserve.
@Barb
Thanks. Reported the problem. Lets see what gmail sends back
I’d be happy if they just put a foot down and said: No more forwarding to gmail. (Like no more forwarding to aol.) If you want to use gmail. Set it up as a POP3 pull. Otherwise, deal with it.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:09 am
update - have found the issue with nongmail email not arriving - apparently user error (mine) which when DH actually read my support requests they found quickly and apologized.
for anyone curious - i had at some point set up a second forward only on the same email acct to a different gmail address using some sort of keyword filter (can’t for the life of me remember doing or any clue why i would have but there it is) so that was where all my DH acct email was going (slowly).
Good luck to all still waiting out the greylist and do bug Gmail to remove it quickly.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Well, I guess another day and no progress on this. I understand that timing is up to gmail, but I feel like the least DH could do is periodically (a couple times a day) update the status to say “We are still waiting on Google” or “Google has replied but no resolution has been found”. To me, the largest issue is how this is being handled. I don’t appreciate being told “we haven’t fixed it, we need Google’s help, so stop complaining” which is how I read the status response above. I think all people want is a reasonable estimation of if and when this might be fixed so we can a) know when we will get the emails that are in limbo and b) decide if we need to look temporary or permanent solutions.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Hello,
Thank you for your report.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you
described should now be resolved. Please allow some additional time for
any further delayed messages to arrive. If you continue to experience
significant delays on new messages, please respond to this message, and
we’ll investigate further.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I submitted a bug report to google through the link someone posted and received this response. Not sure if google is blowing smoke or what.
“Hello,
Thank you for your report.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. The issue you
described should now be resolved. Please allow some additional time for
any further delayed messages to arrive. If you continue to experience
significant delays on new messages, please respond to this message, and
we’ll investigate further.
Sincerely,
The Google Team”
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
@Steve: “It’s surprising how confused people are about this whole thing, and how unrealistic their expectations are. I bought a year of hosting for $20, as did many of you.” Well… you might have found a reliable host for 20 dollars a year, but some of us pay that each month! If they sell it to you, why not expect better service for that? If I would have one domain for 20 dollars a year I would not have hassled that much over here… but I run several domains with millions of hits each month… and am dependent on email coming in… even if its forwarded to gmail.
@DS: I did not want to sound that harsh. I was just amazed with the fact that another hack or solution was given, but still the problem being Google that does not except DH mail.. and DH mailfilters sucking.
@Barb: I used it, and await Googles reply (if any). Oops… I also entered my DH emailaddress,… so that reply might even take a bit longer ;).
@All… Get this: I have been spam free, give or take two messages a week since 2001. If you do not post your emailaddress to website or each and every service out there, you won’t get bugged anyway. And use a good form action on your site helps. Soo… spam is not coming in at all, yet DH’s IP is grey or blacklisted anyway. I might be forced to think about my own server anyway, but its a staggering 4,399.95 dollars (3000 euros) what I want, and at a price of 20 dollars a month (not a year, Steve) I get the same, but its shared hosting. You folks do the math.
@Problem… Mails are dripping in as we speak, the older emails are coming later then new ones. I have not set up MX records on Apps, nor POP3 fetching. I only set my addresses to full hosting, and checked to keep mails in. I now delete them twice, keeping the webmail as a backup… gmail as the main service.
Ooh… and gmail is a solution for the most of us, that are not bound to one system. I run my sites on seperate computers spread around the country so I can update them the instance I need to. This is where emails on Gmail come in as perfect, since its viewable from anywhere. Sure… DH’s webmail is too… but its a bit cluncky in its usage. If this all was not a problem, I would have set my Outlook to fetch with POP3 ages ago ;).
Hope the solutions given by any member is working for others… I found my own working area, that works for me. POP3 fetching by Google sounds intruiging, though.
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:28 pm
FYI, the problem seems to be back (in full swing?). I’ve got two e-mail messages in my squirrelmail inbox that were sent to me three hours ago and I still haven’t seen them on the gmail side of things.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Following the suggestions from DS and others, I just setup a Google Apps account to manage my domain’s e-mail. Google walks you through this and takes about a 1/2 hour to complete. The only problem here is that I ended up with two different Gmail accounts, which was resolved by simply forwarding my new Google Apps account to my old Gmail account. With this, Google is forwarding to Google. No slow-downs. Back in business.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I wish DH used language that gave me the feeling that they even cared about how frustrating this is to us.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
people keep talking about forwarding your mail accounts. i have a PHP script that uses the servers mailer to send email to my friends and family ( some gmail users). The gmail users never get their mail or some people get it 30+ hours later. no idea if dreamhost will ever fix this problem ( i have been with them for 7 years) anyone have any suggestions for my issue?
thanks,
December 3rd, 2007 at 5:12 pm
@ryan
Your issue is the same as forwarding. It’s just more people start noticing when they’re missing email than when other people are
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
i got some mails delayed for 5 days, from nov 28 to dec 3. just queued in the dreamhpst server for 5 days.
If this problem continues, i probably switch to hotmail. (i dont like the squilrrelMail UI).
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
You guys need to start treating this like it is. This is a disaster; a no one goes home until it’s fixed kind of disaster. You’re talking about a chunk of your users who are utilizing a service that you advertise and collect money to support. Put a big red flag on this and recognize that it isn’t some server in your mom’s basement, it’s effectively an outage, and it’s ongoing. Does no one in your office know how to escalate a ticket?
I’m sick of paying a company for hosting only to find out six months in that you’re not professionals. What the hell kind of management puts up with employees who allow this kind of outage to continue? More importantly, is Dreamhost hiring? If you need a UNIX security guy, I would love a job with such little accountability.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Hmm. I _do_ wish there was a way for DH users to indicate how much of a disaster an issue is for them. This is a pretty high priority for me, and while I recognize that what DH can do is somewhat limited, it would be nice to know that they were doing what they can and that they recognize how many people are affected and how badly.
I’m sure in the scheme of DH problems, this doesn’t rank that high (compared to, say, losing a router, losing the panel, having a power outage, etc.), but it must rank somewhere, and I’d be curious to know where that is (and I’d even be curious to know how serious users find other problems I see listed on dreamhoststatus, which very rarely affect me). Perhaps a feature on the panel where we can rank how affected we are by each of the unresolved issues on dreamhoststatus (this would, of course, not include panel outage, but we all know how serious those are).