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StrictWell, it seems that it’s time to switch web hosts yet again. I had been using Flux Services, which I was very happy with. They’re only $7.95 a month, which includes 1 GB disk space, 50 GB transfer, unlimited email addresses, 5 domain pointers, and 2 MySQL databases. They also have SSH access, which this Linux user considers a necessity. And they don’t charge extra for people who pay month-to-month, which is a nice (and rare) bonus.
Unfortunately, last week I tried to send just under 200 emails out to a mailing list. I got back a couple dozen bounces, which didn’t surprise me at first, because I didn’t know how good the addresses were. However, when I started to read the bounce messages, most of them said “unrouteable mail domain”. This was puzzling, since the domains were ones like yahoo.com, hotmail.com, aol.com, etc. Even more puzzling, some emails to the very same domains were making it through.
After much digging around, I found that this message can also be used when an SMTP server has rate limiting in effect. Sure enough, I contacted Flux Service’s support, and found they limit outgoing mail to a paltry 150 emails per hour! I was pretty upset, not only because I found this limit to be extremely low, and that their support seemed to be unwilling to help (besides suggesting I send emails through some ridiculous PHP “time-release” program), but because this policy was completely unadvertised, and the error message I received had nothing to do with the reason my emails were rejected. So I wasted over an hour of my time solving a “problem” that was really my own hosting company’s ridiculous policy!
I can understand they’re trying to prevent spammers, but considering their SMTP server requires authentication, it shouldn’t be difficult at all to track down and stop abuse using more reasonable means. So, I set out to look for a new web host. And I found one that I am very pleased with so far.
So now I’m with Site5 Hosting. For $1 less per month ($6.95, if paid annually), they offer 1.5 GB disk space, unlimited transfer, unlimited MySQL databases, SSH access, plus all the other usual stuff. Plus, they give me my own IP address! This is practically unheard-of on such a low-cost package. I was worried I’d get some maxed-out, slow server, but things seem even faster than they were before. Reading all their support forums sounds like people are very pleased with their service. And, they impose no limits on outgoing email!
Anyhoo, I’m posting this so that maybe the next person who googles “unrouteable mail domain” finds a bit more helpful info that I did, and finds just as good a solution as I did.
Update 4/25/2006: The information on Site5’s plans is no longer correct, and I’m transitioning my websites from Site5 to a VPS, but I’m leaving the rest of the post intact in case it’s useful for anyone.
April 13th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
Thanks for clearing that up. I was getting the same damned message. Now I know why. I agree with your comments on this 100%. Hosts should let their customers know about such limits.
June 29th, 2005 at 11:02 am
Hi:
I´m having the same problems with Ehostpros.com
They are limiting emails sent. However, the problem of "unrouteable mail domain" starts even a LOT BEFORE their limit is reach.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I have been using <A HREF="http://www.HostRefugee.com/">HostRefugee Web Hosting</A> for about a year now. I just recently started getting the unrouteable mail as well. I found out through customer support that I am limited to 1000 emails per hour. They helped me setup DaDa Mail which allows me to send my emails in batches.
June 20th, 2006 at 9:28 am
We have been sending 150 mails per hour for 10 hours (that being our hosting providers limit) and have also ensured that we recieve a copy of the mail each hour to verify that the mails are going.
But somehow, each time we dont recieve the copy of the mail the third time (hour) and otherwise we keep recieving regularly every hour. We are not able to trace this problem.
Could anyone help me out with this ?
July 1st, 2006 at 12:47 am
PHP List of http://www.PHPlist.com is a great program to use to send email in batches. However, even though my ISP allows 1000 emails per hour and I’m sending in 500 batches, I still get the same error. Best is to clean up your database by using an email verifier such as Advance Email Verfier.
You might be surprised to see that your IP has already been blacklisted.
August 8th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Tnaks for sharing.
August 28th, 2006 at 7:52 am
I am operating a hosting company myself and it is totally impossible to stop hackers from using insecure scripts on customer accounts to send spam. Now if you do not have a limit the mail server will just send out like 100.000 emails and as a result of this you will end up on all the spam blacklists and your customers will be totally unable to send emails to anyone for 24 hours or more as a result of this. Limiting the amount of emails that can be sent is absolutely something that hosts have to do in the customer`s interest.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:38 am
I agree with you that limiting outgoing email on customers’ accounts can be necessary depending on the type of hosting plan. However Site5 erred in that:
* this rate limit was not advertised,
* the error message I received had nothing to do with the "actual" error, causing me hours of pointless troubleshooting, and
* the rate they used (150/hour) is way too low for someone who sends out *opt-in* mailing lists.
While the last point may be subjective, the first two are just plain bad customer service, which is why I left.
December 4th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
this unrouteable mail domain problem took me for frekin forever to figure out. in my case it was fixed by turning off the option to "Track the origin of messages sent though the mail server by adding the X-Source headers (exim 4.34+ required)" in WHM. I’ve seen other posts that talk about "preventing user nobody from emailing" or enabling / disabling SuExec. hope this helps someone :)
December 19th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Thanks so much for this! I recently changed ISPs for a client who was having problems using the NetFirms webmail interface. Now she’s with Elite, using Horde and she’s getting this message b/c of the limit. She didn’t actually get to their limit of 100 emails an hour per domain, but she was pretty close. Although I understand it, it’s hard to explain to someone who’s response is "I never had this problem with Yahoo." AUGH!
February 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Thanks Che! This fixed my problem.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I could not agree more. I had the same thing with SINGHOSTER.COM. I have told the webhost that we have a legitimate mailing list, but he is such a nut case that he classified me as a SPAMMER. And I was sending out a miserable 50 emails per hour.
After having paid up for 1 year and using the site for only 1 mth, he decided to freeze my emails and I could not even check for emails. Email for support results it nothing. I ask for evidence and he could not even produce it…
What recourse do we have against such nut cases ?
Be warned…
May 4th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Thanks for your help.
This has cleared things up for me so much!
:-)
July 5th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Dear Che
iam using cpanel how can i configure to stop “unrouteable mail domain”
January 24th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Thanks for those tips… I just Googled for that term as you suggested and here we go… I need to contact my hosting company… I am paying much more than you here for hosting and cannot contact my forum members… that is strange…