Troubleshooting Mail Problems
This help file applies to all PPP users (Basic PPP, Personal PPP, Business
PPP, Dedicated Dialup), all operating systems (Windows 95/98/NT,
Macintosh, Unix, etc.), all POP3/IMAP/SMTP e-mail clients (Microsoft
Outlook Express/97, Eudora Lite/Pro, Netscape Messenger, etc.).
This file will assume you're not accustomed to basic telnet and PINE
functions.
Overview:
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Sometimes, when retrieving e-mail, your e-mail program may hang and get
stuck on a particular message. In almost all cases, this is due to one of
three problems:
* An e-mail is excessively large - probably due to an attached file -
and your e-mail client can't get the whole thing before timing out.
* One of your messages includes control characters which your e-mail
client interprets incorrectly.
* An improperly formatted sender or recipient e-mail address is not
being properly recognized by your e-mail client.
Initial Troubleshooting:
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Ensure that you are connected to Smartnet.
The best way to handle a stuck mail problem is to first try to see if you
can get your e-mail program to accept it without locating and deleting the
message.
Be patient! If your e-mail client is taking a long time to get mail, but
not giving you an error message of any sort, try giving it some time - it
may be successfully downloading a large e-mail attachment.
Let's assume you have a message with a very large attachment of 3 megabytes
(Smartnet's file size limit for e-mail). Depending on how fast your modem
speed is, this file could take 15 minutes to download:
28.8K - 15 minutes 33.6K - 13 minutes 56K - 8 minutes
64K ISDN - 7 minutes 128K ISDN - 4 minutes
If you had more than one very large attachment, the download would take
that much longer. Your e-mail program most likely tells you what message
it's on. If the message number increases after a long wait, then pauses
again, it's probably working on another large attachment.
Your e-mail program may be set to check for mail after a certain amount
of time. Frequently, this is set to 10-15 minutes. Your e-mail client
might be trying to check mail again before the previous check is finished,
which can result in an error. Try setting this to a longer period. If
it's at 5, change it to 15, if it's at 15, change it to 20. Restart your
e-mail program and try downloading your mail again.
If your e-mail program hasn't given you an error, and seems to be
downloading mail (albeit slowly), stopping the process and trying to
re-deliver mail several times is probably not going to help - in fact, the
opposite is usually the case.
If time doesn't solve the problem, you might want to try rebooting your
computer and attempting to retrieve your e-mail again before moving onto
the next step.
Advanced Troubleshooting:
-------------------------
If none of the above has solved your problem, or if in fact your e-mail
client is giving you an error code when retrieving mail, you'll want to
take a look at the messages on our server and see if any of them are
likely to be causing your problem.
Ensure that you are connected to Smartnet, then telnet into Smartnet. In
Windows 95/98, the easiest way to do this is:
Start button > Run...
Type: telnet smart.net
and press OK
You will be presented with a telnet window, and you will be asked for your
username and password. When you type your username, this is the part of
your e-mail address before @smart.net - do not include @smart.net. When
you type your password, your characters will not be seen on the screen.
This is normal.
Once you are logged in, you will either automatically be put into the PINE
e-mail program (if you are a Basic PPP customer), or you will see a Unix
prompt like:
smarty:[/home/username] _
If you have a Unix prompt, type pine and press enter.
When you run PINE, you may be asked several questions, such as "Do you
wish to request this document", "Do you wish to delete messages in folder
old-mail-dec-1999", and "Do you wish to move messages from (one folder to
another)". Answer 'no' to these questions by typing the n key, you may
have to do this several times.
After this, you will be presented with the PINE menu, which looks like
this:
? HELP - Get help using Pine
C COMPOSE MESSAGE - Compose and send a message
I FOLDER INDEX - View messages in current folder
L FOLDER LIST - Select a folder to view
A ADDRESS BOOK - Update address book
S SETUP - Configure or update Pine
Q QUIT - Exit the Pine program
Using and Understanding PINE:
This will only cover a few basics of PINE that are helpful in
troubleshooting e-mail problems. If you would like more information about
using PINE and advanced features, thorough documentation is available at:
http://www.washington.edu/pine/
Type the i key to go to your message index. You will see a list of your
messages. Here is an example:
1 May 19 Mail System Intern (422) DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER
+ N 2 Oct 17 Seer Nathaniel (1,759) Hey! Where are you going?!
N 3 Oct 18 Joe (7,515) Internet Junk Mail Oct 18 01:21:1
+ N 4 Oct 18 Cecil and Rhonda W (2,428)
+ N 5 Oct 18 Cindy Williams (1,574K) [Fwd: Phone message]
N 6 Oct 19 Joe (9,456) Internet Junk Mail Oct 18 23:38:1
N 7 Oct 19 pcweek_survey (2,017) Help PC Week craft its editorial
N 8 Oct 20 Joe (11,574) Internet Junk Mail Oct 20 00:17:3
N 9 Oct 21 Ben (977) Next Week
N 10 Oct 22 KJhonson@Kevinsgrp (1,366) Ive just been wondering...
N 11 Oct 22 Zimmermans (1,277) New Hand Drawn Comic for you
N 12 Oct 24 Evancio2@aol.com (935) Your comics
+ N 13 Oct 25 Bud Richards (12,267) Fw: Fw: [Fwd:
Some things to note:
The first message from "Mail System Intern" is a system message. You can
safely ignore it. If you delete it, it will be re-created. This is an
e-mail that PINE uses for its own purposes.
Message format:
+ N 5 Oct 18 Cindy Williams (1,574K) [Fwd: Phone message]
The N next to the messages indicates that they are new, IE that they have
not been read (either by PINE or your e-mail client).
This is followed by the message number (in this case, 5). If your e-mail
program stuck or gave you an error while on message 10, message 10 may be
the culprit. If you also have a mail from "Mail System Intern" as the
first message, message 11 would be suspect, as your e-mail client doesn't
see the first message PINE sees.
Next is the date (Oct 18), then the name of the sender (Cindy Williams).
The next part is the file size (1,574K). This is the size of the message
text plus any attachments to that message. If the file size is listed as
(977), this indicates 977 bytes. If there is a K after the file size, this
measurement is in kilobytes. (1.574K) is about 1.5 megabytes.
At the end is the subject (or at least the first few dozen characters of
it).
To navigate your messages, you can use your cursor keys (up and down), and
the minus (-) key and spacebar (one page up, one page down). To read a
message, move the cursor so it is highlighted, and press your enter key.
To move up and down in the messages, the cursor keys, the minus key, and
the spacebar are used the same way as they are when you navigate the mail
list.
When you wish to return to the message index, press the 'i' key. Any
messages you have read will no longer have an 'N' next to them. In order
for your e-mail client to see them, you need to make them new again. To
do this, type an asterisk '*', followed by the 'n' key.
To delete a message, either while reading the message or while in the
index highlighting the message to be removed, press the 'd' key. A 'D'
will replace the 'N' and will be marked for deletion - this will not occur
until you exit PINE, so you can change your mind and undelete it by
pressing asterisk '*' then '!' then 'D'.
To quit PINE, press 'q'. You may be asked something like "Save the 1 read
message in "old-mail"?". Any messages that are not marked N or D are
included - including the system message from "Mail System Intern" if it
exists. Press N in most cases, as it may indicate that you forgot to
reset a message back to 'new'. Once pine is closed, all messages marked
for deletion are now gone - if you had a lot of mail or large attachments,
PINE may take several seconds to close. If you are a Basic PPP customer,
you can close your telnet window. If you have another kind of PPP
account, you will be returned to the Unix prompt. Type exit and press
enter, then close your telnet window.
Finding and Dealing with Errant Messages:
Large Messages
In most cases where you're having difficulty retrieiving your e-mail, it
is the result of a large message with attachments. Given that the file
sizes are displayed, these are generally the easiest of the problems to
solve - just delete the offending message(s) (the 'D' key while reading
the message or highlighted in the index). You may wish to read the
message first (enter).
Bad Recipient Mail Address
If you have no large messages, one of two other less common problems has
likely occurred. This will require you to scan through messages, so
remember to set them back to 'new' when you're done. If the error your
e-mail client gives you lists a message, you should check that message and
the ones immediately before and after it.
One of the problems is a bad address in the header - some e-mail programs
are sensitive to this, others not at all. Here is an example of a header:
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 19:49:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Cindy Williams
To: Smartnet Technical Support , Joe Williams <>
Subject: Regarding web page information
In this case, there is invalid information in one of the To: recipients
(Joe Williams <>). Another example would be an e-mail address with a
space in it, or with a non-standard characters (test support@smart.net,
teståsupport@smart.net, etc.). You can either delete the messages or
forward it to yourself. To do this, press the 'f' key. You will see a
To: field - type in your full e-mail address. Then hold the CTRL key and
press 'x' to send the message, and answer the 'Send message?' question by
pressing 'y'. Your e-mail program will no longer try to treat the
incorrectly formatted e-mail address as a recipient.
Garbled Text/Control Characters
Sometimes when e-mail is sent through various servers on its way from the
sender to the recipient, there can be an error along the way that
partially scrambles part of the text. Your e-mail program can interpret
these as control characters and give you an error message or otherwise be
unable to interpret the messages.
Let's view part of the above paragraph as it might appear if there was
a problem with it:
Sometimes when e-mail is sent through various servers on its way
from the sender to the recipient, there can be an error along the
way that partially scrambles part of the text. Yo¦”é
The very end of that section has invalid codes. Another example:
Sometimes when e-mail is sent through various servers on its way
from tùÈ ü {z’“¥ho the recipient, there can be an error along the
way that partially scrambles part of the text. Your e-mail
To resolve this problem, either delete the message, or forward it to
yourself after editing it - to do this, press 'f' to forward, add your
e-mail address to the To: field as in the previous example, then use your
cursor keys to go to the scrambled portion of the message. To delete a
line, hold the CTRL key and press 'k'. Once you have deleted the
scrambled lines, send the message (hold CTRL and press 'x' and answer
'send message?' by pressing 'y').
Recurring Problems:
-------------------
You may find yourself repeatedly getting large file attachments from the
same sender over and over. Often, this is a friend or relative who has a
habit of sending humorous graphics or executables to friends and family.
Aside from the virus risks associated with running attached executables,
having to fix your e-mail because of the same person over and over might
become a hassle.
If you have a Unix Shell, Personal PPP, or Business PPP account, you can
filter your e-mail based on 'rules' of your choosing. For more
information, please read:
http://www.smart.net/cgi-bin/textfile.pl?filter.hlp
Technical Support: support@smart.net
Billing: billing@smart.net
Webmaster: webmaster@smart.net