Mostly all was well. Mostly. Then one day, I sent a message to a mailing list I am on. And I did not get a copy of the message in my Inbox. See, here’s what is supposed to happen:
- My email client connects with Google, authenticates, and transfers the mail.
- Google accepts it, does the DNS magic to decide where it is for and connects to that mail exchanger (email server). Let’s say it was for mylist@lists.example.com.
- The, in this case, Mailman list server, changes the Subject, adding the prefix [MYLIST], adds some footers about how to unsubscribe, etc., and
- then tries to send to every list member.
I had the system administrator of lists.example.com check the mail log. The log showed Google accepting the messages. I just never got them. I sent messages to postmaster@gmail.com. I sent to postmaster@avolio.com (also, Google, now). I went to the help page and followed the steps and sent in a report complete with mail headers. No response.
Then I looked at the discussion groups and found a bunch of others with the same problem of Not receiving emails sent by myself to discussion list. Hmmm.
As I posted, in part, to the forum
Now, I see that Google throws away email that seems to be some percentage identical to email I sent.
As a previous poster pointed out, it is *not* identical. The Subject line is changed (at last with a Mailman server) to put the list name in brackets in the subject line, headers are added, and footers are added. I suppose Google thinks this is a feature but it certainly is incorrect behavior in the email world. And, of course, I as a sender get no confirmation that the list server is working correctly.
This really is not as bad as I thought — I thought I could get no email from the lists. It is, however, bad.
How exact is exact, Google? You are throwing away mail that is sent to
me.
“Don’t be evil.” This is close.
No comments:
Post a Comment