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Mac Forum / General / Networking / June 2005What's Causing the Mail Delay?
I send and receive email via mac.com A friend sends and receives email via austin.rr.com If she sends me an email I receive it virtually instantly. If I send her an email it takes several minutes for her to receive it. This is consistent and repeatable behavior. Why is this happening?  SignatureJames L. Ryan -- TaliesinSoft > I send and receive email via mac.com > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Why is this happening? How about reading the mail headers and seeing where the delay is? > > I send and receive email via mac.com > > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > > How about reading the mail headers and seeing where the delay is? More specifically, look at the timestamps in the Received: headers. I can think of a few possibilites: (1) rr.com and mac.com mail servers end up sending by different routes (2) one or other mail server batch-processes its mail queue at a lower frequency than the other (3) one or other mail server is scanning outbound mail for viruses etc. (4) one or other mail server is doing more in-depth scanning of inbound mail for viruses etc. (5) either rr.com or mac.com simply has better hardware, optimization... Why does it matter, though? A few minutes here or there is nothing. If you need faster communication, use messaging instead of mail! > I send and receive email via mac.com > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Why is this happening? Your SMTP server is likely slower than hers is. SignatureTom "Tom" Harrington Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X. Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more. See http://www.atomicbird.com/ > I send and receive email via mac.com > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Why is this happening? Unless you measure the delay in hours or more, you're making a big deal over nothing. Email is not really expected to be instantaneous. SignatureBarry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** > Unless you measure the delay in hours or more, you're making a big deal > over nothing. Email is not really expected to be instantaneous. Anyone remember e-mailing via BITNET, where you would get notices as the mail hopped from node to node and eventually reached the final destination? -Andrew SignatureAndrew Starr eMailman(r): http://www.emailman.com NewsReaders(sm): http://www.newsreaders.com Both of the above now have forums (newsreader or web access)! > > Unless you measure the delay in hours or more, you're making a big deal > > over nothing. Email is not really expected to be instantaneous. > > Anyone remember e-mailing via BITNET, where you would get notices as the > mail hopped from node to node and eventually reached the final > destination? I remember that delivery confirmation seemed to be automatic, but not confirmations from each intervening node. Maybe my site was just very well connected? One interesting side-effect of this was that it made it impossible to forge a return address without alerting the owner of that address. A friend once demonstrated to me how easy it was to forge an email, doing so using my BITNET address as the return. However he also sent the message to a BITNET address, and so I got a delivery confirmation for it. SignatureTom "Tom" Harrington Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X. Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more. See http://www.atomicbird.com/ >> I send and receive email via mac.com >> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Unless you measure the delay in hours or more, you're making a big deal > over nothing. Email is not really expected to be instantaneous. I should have made it clear that my question was one of technical curiosity and not one of real concern over the differences in the times. SignatureJames L. Ryan -- TaliesinSoft > I should have made it clear that my question was one of technical curiosity > and not one of real concern over the differences in the times. OK. There are two common designs of mail relay servers. In one, when it receives a message, it immediately tries to send it to its destination. If that fails, the message is queued for later retries. Eventually it will be delivered or returned to sender if this continues to fail for too long (usually 3-5 days). The other design is that the incoming message is just put into the queue, and a separate process goes through the queue looking for messages to deliver. Some servers actually use both mechanisms, depending on their load. When the load is light, they try to deliver immediately. When the system is heavily loaded, it just queues the messages, since that's faster. SignatureBarry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** > If I send her an email it takes several minutes for her to receive it. James, You may ask her how she is setup to pop mail. Some only POP once a day where others POP hourly. Call her on the phone and have her POP the mail right after you send a message |
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