Multiple message bounces

[Glen McGregor]

My employer uses Outlook mail servers running on Macs. Because I'm out
of the office almost all of the time, I have set up my forwarding on my
account. The mail is forwarded to a POP server with my home DSL
provider. Works great, except...

If someone sends a huge attachment, or if I"m away and unable to clear
mail off the POP server it gets filled up and mail from the Outlook
server will bounce from the POP (10 Meg limit).

The bounce message will get ping-ponged back and forth in an infinite
loop. If don't catch it right away, this can cause 10,000 or more bounce
messages that have brought the Outlook server to its knees.

The tech guys get pissed at me for letting this happen and threaten to
cut off my forwarding. But it seems to me that the server should have
some way of catching this once the bounce messages start looping.

Any ideas?

(And, no, my POP provider doesn't let me turn off bounce notification.)

 

[William Smith]

My employer uses Outlook mail servers running on Macs. Because I'm out
of the office almost all of the time, I have set up my forwarding on my
account. The mail is forwarded to a POP server with my home DSL
provider. Works great, except...

If someone sends a huge attachment, or if I"m away and unable to clear
mail off the POP server it gets filled up and mail from the Outlook
server will bounce from the POP (10 Meg limit).

The bounce message will get ping-ponged back and forth in an infinite
loop. If don't catch it right away, this can cause 10,000 or more bounce
messages that have brought the Outlook server to its knees.

The tech guys get pissed at me for letting this happen and threaten to
cut off my forwarding. But it seems to me that the server should have
some way of catching this once the bounce messages start looping.

Hi Glen!

I'm not an Exchange server administrator but I'm almost positive that
Exchange has the ability to stop the ping ponging of messages. It's
something your email admins should be working toward whether or not your
messages are bouncing.

But you could probably create a better rule that not only forwards new
messages but also does NOT forward mail messages returned from your POP
server. You have the ability to specify many different options within
the one rule.

However, I would suggest that instead of auto-forwarding your mail to a
POP account you look into whether or not your company uses OWA (Outlook
Web Access). This allows you to connect directly back to your company's
email servers via web browser. This too needs to be enabled by your
admins.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[Glen McGregor]

Thanks, Bill. I'll ask them about these suggestions.