E-mails delivered to wrong mailbox

I'm sure I am not the only one suffering from this. We use the POP3 connector in SBS at a couple of our client sites and use a global mailbox with rules to distrubute the mail. Every now and again an e-mail that appears to be correctly addressed in the header information gets delivered to the wrong mailbox. I can't see anything wrong with the original mail address and it meets the rule precisely and yet in the Message Tracking centre it looks as if it was addressed to completely the wrong person. Whenever I send a test message to check this out of course it always goes to the correct mailbox! Its very frustrating and I'm beginning to feel like it is just a fault in the pop connector tool.

Here is a couple of extracts from the e-mail header (anonomized of obviously)

From: "xxxxxxx Reid" <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
To: <xxxxxx.Jones>

X-Original-To: [email protected]


Any thoughts?

I had a client a few years back with sbs 2000 who had something similiar and it was to do with the way the email has been sent. In our case it was an obscure BCC issue that meant the header name couldn't be extracted in the normal way under POP and the solution was pure SMTP.

I wonder if in your case when a BCC comes in, its missed and then it ends up in the designated postmaster's mailbox as an unknown receipient.

If your unable to find a solution, consider using VPOP to collect and pass emails to exchange. VPOP has the ability to extract email addresses from anywhere in the header whereas exchange (i believe) only looks in key places.

Terry

How important is this to your boss etc - it sounds like a bug, but why not get MS on the case via the support phone number - either they can show you that the issue is inthe e-mail being sent, the pop server, or it is a ms bug mis-routing, in which case it is free.

might be worth it versus the time you are investigating.

 

ttfn

David

I have not listened to it as yet but the the latest podcast from the SBS support team is all about the pop3 connector in SBS.  Might give you some food for thought:

http://sbspod.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=86704

 

oh and by the way.......

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=265739

Thanks for the responses guys. This isn't a BCC or even CC issue, I have explained that problem to the client and they understand it. The issue is only when there is only one recipient of the mail and it appears to match the global mail box rules OK and yet it still goes to the wrong mailbox.

I would go SMTP but they are stuck for now in a contract that doesn't offer that option. If things get sticky then I think a third party pop product would be my choice.

Interesting that you suggest contacting MS support David. Coming from a small dealer background I have always assumed that the cost would be prohibitive. It's that mentality that my time doesn't cost anything that is so hard to overcome in a very small business where I am the owner. I would be interested to know more about how support works, at what point do the support people decide who is to blame and whether or not to charge?

I have used Microsoft support a bunch of times over my entire career and a few times since I have been a small business owner such as yourself.

First of all, generally the level of support is very good.  You are paying a premium price but you do receive premium support.  I used support last week for a cost of £200 and it was worth every penny.  I knew before calling that it was not a Microsoft issue, but I needed some expert guidance (was not for an SBS system btw).

I put in another call last year for a problem which I believed was caused by a fault in the software and there was certainly no dispute and the money was refunded and a successful resolution was found.

So, it is worth it?  Depends how much of your own time you are prepared to spend and if the customer is willing to let you pass the cost on to them.

In your case I would say the £200 probably is not value as you could almost certainly figure out a way of getting either SMTP or induvidual pop boxes for each user for less than £200.  There are not many contracts which prevent you from changing your own MX records after all!