My email is fixed with a workaround, but the emails sent in the past 24-48 hours may be permanently lost.
I finally got a bounce after noon today. The bounce suggests that SBC’s email servers are refusing to communicate with my web host‘s (1and1.com) SMTP server, mout.perfora.net. The bounce’s message was vague, but I think it was just a 24 hour warning. Usually SMTP servers keep messages for 2-3 days before totally giving up, so if the problem can be fixed in the next 24 hours, I may receive all the queued up emails.
This problem is currently at level 3 tech support at 1and1.com and in the Policy Department of SBC. 1and1.com is having serious email delay problems, but they don’t seem to be related to my problem. Regardless, those serious email delay problems are preventing them from quickly resolving my problem
. And SBC level 2 tech acknowledged that it appears that SBC may be blocking emails from mout.perfora.net. But nothing is for sure yet.
I think the likely culprit is that SBC is blocking 1and1.com. It’s just too coincidental that 1and1.com’s mail server is unable to communicate with two SBC servers but can still communicate with the rest of the world.
Here’s the workaround: 1and1.com can forward emails to up to 3 different locations. I already have a GMail account, so I am now forwarding all aren@cambre.biz emails to my GMail account in addition to my swbell.net account. Furthermore, I am having my GMail account in turn forward all emails back to my swbell.net account. So hopefully this will allow my emails to continue populating my swbell.net account as before. Then when either SBC or 1and1.com gets its act together, I will start getting duplicates in my swbell.net account and can shut off this GMail forwarding.
Hopefully this problem will be fixed soon! I don’t want to permanently lose all those emails.