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Mail recipient's address altered en route

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  • 09-05-2014 11:11am
    #1
    Fogmatic
    Registered Users Posts: 986 ✭✭✭


    A trivial problem compared with most here (only 1 problem address so far, and resolved by using an alternative address), but I'm curious about why it happens!

    I received an email (via Thunderbird) from name@company.co.uk. I replied (using webmail, as my SMTP setting is temporarily not working), checking the address was correct before sending. As usual, I told mail2web to send me a copy for my records.

    I didn't receive the automated acknowledgment I've invariably had from that company, and the copy from mail2web had the address as name@company.webmail.cra.eircom.net.
    The same happened with numerous attempts, except sometimes with the additional recipient co.uk@zmmta401.webmail.cra.eircom.net.
    In the end, I sent the message to another address at the company (info@company.co.uk), and it got through fine.

    Maybe it's an address type that can be problematic? (I can't test from a mail client at the moment, and can't think of anyone with that type that I know well enough to test on! Perhaps any name@website.anything address would do for that?).

    cra.eircom.net sounds familiar (from previous troubleshootng), but I don't really know what that server does (my knowledge of comms is very patchy).


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    #2
    Spear
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Help & Feedback Category Moderators Posts: 25,331 CMod ✭✭✭✭Spear


    cra.eircom.net refers to Crown Alley last I recall.


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    #3
    Fogmatic
    Registered Users Posts: 986 ✭✭✭Fogmatic


    Spear wrote: »
    cra.eircom.net refers to Crown Alley last I recall.
    Thanks Spear, but I'm afraid I have no idea what that is?

    Today I happened to get an email from a similar type of address (name@organisation.org.uk), asking me something. When I replied this time, pressing the Send button brought up the message 'Error: Error in sending email'. (As opposed to the usual 'sending succeeded' message I got before).
    It was about the slowest time on the internet though (just after 6pm), and something may have timed out (especially with an image attached). So I'll try again in the morning.

    Forgot to mention my email address is an eircom one, and my (non-Eircom) broadband is from a local mast (not mobile; Fixed-wireless?). Then via wireless LAN to the computers. Using Thunderbird 24.3.0 (kept Windows Mail just for diagnostic purposes).


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    #4
    Spear
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Help & Feedback Category Moderators Posts: 25,331 CMod ✭✭✭✭Spear


    Crown Alley is an Eircom exchange and hosting facility.


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    #5
    Alun
    Registered Users Posts: 21,466 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    Yes, all of eircom's mail servers DNS entries contain "cra", e.g. mailxx.svc.cra.dublin.eircom.net. The zmmta bit probably refers to Zimbra MTA (mail transfer agent) the platform they use for webmail.

    OP, can you post the header of the original mail you received from the UK company? Maybe there's something odd in one of the address fields (From or Reply-To), an invalid character maybe.


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    #6
    Fogmatic
    Registered Users Posts: 986 ✭✭✭Fogmatic


    Thank you for the info Alun, and for trying to help.

    When I tried again the next morning, though, my email sent successfully to the .org address; as did one to the co.uk one.
    As I'm sending via mail2web at the moment, I have to enter recipients' addresses every time (rather than simply press Reply in Thunderbird), so I suppose there's a possibility that I mistyped both addresses. But I think it's very remote; I typed them in & checked them extra carefully, and making the same mistake in all the sending attempts to both addresses seems unlikely.

    It looks like just one of those mysterious fleeting internet glitches, not worth any more puzzling over.
    (It's just not that that easy to stop doing it!)


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