[AT] O. T. #$%& emails getting lost...

Mike Sloane msloane at att.net
Thu Aug 19 10:24:06 PDT 2004


Messages are rarely transmitted whole - the individual packets that make 
up a message are broken up and sent by many different routes, then 
re-assembled at the final destination (postoffice server at an ISP). The 
re-assembly process depends on the header being intact so that all the 
other pieces can be put together in order for delivery to your PC. If 
one of the packets gets damaged, the postoffice server requests that the 
originating server re-send that packet. But if the header information 
gets damaged in transit, it can cause the message to lose its identity 
and therefor will be discarded by the postoffice server because it can't 
request a re-send of the original. The strategy is that if you will 
eventually re-send the message. This doesn't happen often, but it does 
happen. It is a little more complicated than what I wrote, but that is 
the essence of the issue. Now, that being said, it is also possible that 
your ISP is having disc or memory problems that is causing it to lose 
messages, but that is another problem altogether.

Mike

Robinson wrote:

>         I lost a couple of more emails this week. I get a ton of email 
> due to owning a batch of list and belonging to a bunch more. I also get 
> a lot of genealogy research email. Some weeks I feel like I am losing as 
> much as one out of 100. That is fairly often when I get maybe 6,000+ a 
> month (I have one list that generated over 2,000 messages last month). I 
> know I lose one in the shuffle now and then myself but not many. Some 
> weeks I don't feel like I have lost any.  I suppose some get nailed by 
> some gung-ho server that smashes it as it passes through. I suppose some 
> end up getting infected someplace and get blasted for that. This ATIS 
> list mail sometimes never gets back to me but I see it got to the list 
> because it is quoted in other emails. Is everybody on this list losing 
> stuff or is it just a personal curse?   :-)
> 
> 
> 
> "farmer"
> 
> Francis Robinson
> Central Indiana, USA
> robinson at svs.net
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
> 

-- 
Mike Sloane
Allamuchy NJ
Email: (msloane at att.net)
Website: <http://www.geocities.com/mikesloane>
Blog: <www.mikesloane.blogspot.com
Tractor images: <www.fotki.com/mikesloane>
Work: none - retired

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
-Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)




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