Long lag time receiving e-mails

[Kip]

I am experiencing a very long lag time between when e-mails are sent to me
and when I receive them. Right now they are taking 12-24 hours. If I send a
message to myself it goes right through. My DSL internet provider is Bell
South. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with them today and they
concluded that it is an Outlook problem. Does anyone have any suggestions of
what I can do? Thanks in advance!

 

[John Blessing]

I am experiencing a very long lag time between when e-mails are sent to me
and when I receive them. Right now they are taking 12-24 hours. If I
send a
message to myself it goes right through. My DSL internet provider is Bell
South. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with them today and they
concluded that it is an Outlook problem. Does anyone have any suggestions
of
what I can do? Thanks in advance!

I can't think of any scenario where Outlook causes delay. I am assuming you
are using POP3 email account, the email is either at your POP3 server or it
isn't. If it is, then when Outlook does a send/receive, you will get it.

Easy way to test, get another email account that offers POP3 access (e.g.
gmail) and prove that you can receive email from that account without the
lag.

--
John Blessing

http://www.LbeHelpdesk.com - Help Desk software priced to suit all
businesses
http://www.room-booking-software.com - Schedule rooms & equipment bookings
for your meeting/class over the web.
http://www.lbetoolbox.com - Remove Duplicates from MS Outlook, find/replace,
send newsletters

 

[Kip]

I have 2 e-mail accounts but when I send messages to myself they go right
through. I sent my husband 2 test e-mails at noon today (est) and asked him
to respond. The e-mails went right through to him, he responded right away
and I have not received them yet.

Bellsouth said that the e-mails first go to the Bell South mail box on my
computer (which I never use) and that mail box sees that I am using Outlook
as my default and then it "forwards" them. They said they are hung up trying
to get to Outlook. I work from my home and this is very frustrating to me.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Bellsouth is nuts. Does your husband have a Bellsouth account too?

can you log into your mailbox on the Bellsouth mail server using your web
browser? if you see email there and aren't collecting it when you press F9,
then it's outlook's problem. If there is no mail there, then it's
Bellsouth's problem.

Outlook is not a mail server - it holds mail locally in your outbox until it
connects to the Bellsouth outgoing email server, which passes it to other
servers and on to the recipients mailbox. The mail is either sent and
received automicatally every 5 min or so or when you press Send (F9). When
Bellsouth incoming mail server gets new mail for you, it places it in your
Bellsouth mailbox and outlook collects it. It's not all that unusual for
there to be internet connectivity issues with mail servers which causes mail
to be delayed - seemingly floating around the internet looking for the right
server.

You can usually tell if it's Bellsouth problem (or another email server) by
looking at the internet mail header and checking the time stamps - each
server that handles the mail adds the time they took possession and I'm
guessing there is a delay clearly shown there. right click on a message in
your inbox and choose options - you'll see the header in a small text box.
you can copy and paste it into notepad or word for easier reading. The
servers add their time stamps at the top - so newest are first as you read
down the header.

The only way it is outlook's problem is if outlook doesn't collect your new
mail until you restart outlook or reboot the computer. Outlook will
occasionally stop collecting email under certain conditions - like if you
check email too often (like less than 5 min apart). If you can see mail on
the Bellsouth server and outlook doesn't download it, try restarting outlook
or rebooting.

 

[Kip]

Thank you Diane,

I'm going to check out the server time stamps as you suggested.

No I did not have any mail in my Bellsouth mailbox which was waiting. So I
am assuming it was a Bellsouth server problem.

Do storms in the area affect that kind of thing? THanks again.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

severe storms can affect internet connectivity as can extended power
outages, but normal storms are not usually a problem.