Pinging a mail server problem

Hi Guys,

We have a computer connected to Force9/PlusNet which up until last Friday
was receiving mail from mail.cbams.net - part of a hosting package with
Deenine Internet (hostplus.co.uk).

On Friday the e-mail server dissapeared and the owner phoned me to see if I
could help out. I went to see the machine and true enough, as he had said he
could not see the mail server. So - I pinged it and tracert'ed it to see
where it was going. His machine didn't even acknowledge the server existed.

I then tried pinging other mail servers that I use - we could see every
single one of them.

So I came home and VNCed into his computer where I could run the pings on my
computer and his computer at the same time. My machine found his mail server
and pinged successfully whilst his machine was still getting 100% packet
loss and not seeing the server. I too use Force9 for my broadband
connection.

We thought it may be his machine, so we tried it with his laptop. That too
could not see the mail server through his broadband connection.

So far we have contacted Force9 and Deenine - both of which are slow to
respond or some reason. Deenine are useless and we have been waiting a good
48 hours since our last ticket was updated. Force9 responded this morning,
but because they could ping the mail server from their network they
couldn't see the problem.

Needless to say we are stumped with this one, and so I am turning to you
guys. Can you think of anything?

many thanks,

Gareth Edmondson

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:43:22 +0100, Gareth Edmondson
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> We have a computer connected to Force9/PlusNet which up until last Friday
> was receiving mail from mail.cbams.net - part of a hosting package with
> Deenine Internet (hostplus.co.uk).
>
> On Friday the e-mail server dissapeared and the owner phoned me to see
> if I
> could help out. I went to see the machine and true enough, as he had
> said he
> could not see the mail server. So - I pinged it and tracert'ed it to see
> where it was going. His machine didn't even acknowledge the server
> existed.
>
> I then tried pinging other mail servers that I use - we could see every
> single one of them.
>
> So I came home and VNCed into his computer where I could run the pings
> on my
> computer and his computer at the same time. My machine found his mail
> server
> and pinged successfully whilst his machine was still getting 100% packet
> loss and not seeing the server. I too use Force9 for my broadband
> connection.
>
> We thought it may be his machine, so we tried it with his laptop. That
> too
> could not see the mail server through his broadband connection.
>
> So far we have contacted Force9 and Deenine - both of which are slow to
> respond or some reason. Deenine are useless and we have been waiting a
> good
> 48 hours since our last ticket was updated. Force9 responded this
> morning,
> but because they could ping the mail server from their network they
> couldn't see the problem.
>
> Needless to say we are stumped with this one, and so I am turning to you
> guys. Can you think of anything?
>
> many thanks,
>
> Gareth Edmondson
>
>

Hi Gareth,

I'm getting a tracert timing out on Webfusion's network and no response to
a ping

C:\Documents and Settings\Agent>tracert mail.cbams.net

Tracing route to mail.cbams.net [212.67.195.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 2.csc.ptb-intgw2.plus.net [172.29.18.2]
2 2 ms <1 ms 1 ms vlan30.ptb-gw4.plus.net [212.159.0.10]
3 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms fa0-0-0.ptb-gw1.plus.net [195.166.129.129]
4 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms atm1-0.pth-gw1.plus.net [195.166.129.245]
5 6 ms 6 ms 6 ms gi4-0-22.pth-gw1.plus.net [195.166.129.209]
6 6 ms 14 ms 21 ms 195.66.224.25
7 8 ms 7 ms 7 ms bre-bb-b-so-510-0.inet.ntl.com
[62.253.188.122]

8 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms ren-bb-a-so-100-0.inet.ntl.com
[62.253.185.165]

9 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms lee-bb-b-so-600-0.inet.ntl.com
[62.253.185.162]

10 18 ms 19 ms 24 ms lee-bb-a-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com
[62.253.187.185]
11 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms nott-t2core-a-pos51.inet.ntl.com
[62.253.188.34]

12 21 ms 21 ms 21 ms nott-lam-1-pos000.inet.ntl.com [80.1.79.14]
13 22 ms 20 ms 21 ms no-dns-yet.ntli.net [213.104.191.154]
14 22 ms 21 ms 21 ms ext-fe1-0-wf1.webfusion.co.uk
[212.67.210.233]
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 ^C
C:\Documents and Settings\Agent>ping mail.cbams.net

Pinging mail.cbams.net [212.67.195.70] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 212.67.195.70:
Packets: Sent = 3, Received = 0, Lost = 3 (100% loss),

although this could be perfectly normal for this server.

What result does your friend get? If it isn't resolving the host name try
by IP - 212.67.195.70

Might also be worth flushing the DNS from a command prompt if this is the
case (use ipconfig /flushdns)


With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"PlusNet Support Team" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:43:22 +0100, Gareth Edmondson
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Hi Guys,
>>
>> We have a computer connected to Force9/PlusNet which up until last Friday
>> was receiving mail from mail.cbams.net - part of a hosting package with
>> Deenine Internet (hostplus.co.uk).
>>
>> On Friday the e-mail server dissapeared and the owner phoned me to see if
>> I
>> could help out. I went to see the machine and true enough, as he had said
>> he
>> could not see the mail server. So - I pinged it and tracert'ed it to see
>> where it was going. His machine didn't even acknowledge the server
>> existed.
>>
>> I then tried pinging other mail servers that I use - we could see every
>> single one of them.
>>
>> So I came home and VNCed into his computer where I could run the pings on
>> my
>> computer and his computer at the same time. My machine found his mail
>> server
>> and pinged successfully whilst his machine was still getting 100% packet
>> loss and not seeing the server. I too use Force9 for my broadband
>> connection.
>>
>> We thought it may be his machine, so we tried it with his laptop. That
>> too
>> could not see the mail server through his broadband connection.
>>
>> So far we have contacted Force9 and Deenine - both of which are slow to
>> respond or some reason. Deenine are useless and we have been waiting a
>> good
>> 48 hours since our last ticket was updated. Force9 responded this
>> morning,
>> but because they could ping the mail server from their network they
>> couldn't see the problem.
>>
>> Needless to say we are stumped with this one, and so I am turning to you
>> guys. Can you think of anything?
>>
>> many thanks,
>>
>> Gareth Edmondson
>>
>>
>
> Hi Gareth,
>
> I'm getting a tracert timing out on Webfusion's network and no response to
> a ping
>
> C:\Documents and Settings\Agent>tracert mail.cbams.net
>
> Tracing route to mail.cbams.net [212.67.195.70]
> over a maximum of 30 hops:

<snip>

> although this could be perfectly normal for this server.
>
> What result does your friend get? If it isn't resolving the host name try
> by IP - 212.67.195.70
>
> Might also be worth flushing the DNS from a command prompt if this is the
> case (use ipconfig /flushdns)
>
>
> With Regards,
>
> Dave,

Hi Dave,

Funnily enough this is what I am getting today. However it is not
representative of what has been happening over the past week. I have posted
screenshots to Force9 online support of both machines (on the same screen)
showing how it is there for one machine and not there for the other.

I will follow your flush dns advice when my customer get's back from his
weekend break. Out of interest, why would his DNS change just like that? Can
DNS tables or whatever get corrupted? If his DNS was messed up surely no
other mail server would be pingable.

On another note - any idea why Force9 were so slow to answer my update?
Ticket - 14272817

Thanks for the advice,

Gareth Edmondson

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:23:12 +0100, Gareth Edmondson
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>
> Hi Dave,
>
> Funnily enough this is what I am getting today. However it is not
> representative of what has been happening over the past week. I have
> posted
> screenshots to Force9 online support of both machines (on the same
> screen)
> showing how it is there for one machine and not there for the other.
>
> I will follow your flush dns advice when my customer get's back from his
> weekend break. Out of interest, why would his DNS change just like that?
> Can
> DNS tables or whatever get corrupted? If his DNS was messed up surely no
> other mail server would be pingable.
>
> On another note - any idea why Force9 were so slow to answer my update?
> Ticket - 14272817
>
> Thanks for the advice,
>
> Gareth Edmondson
>
>


Hi,

The only other thing that really makes sense would be that the owners of
the server you are trying to connect to have barred your IP address. Have
you tried contacting them to see if this is the case or if they can see
you trying to connect and have logs showing the failure reason?
Regarding the ticket, we have been very busy, but I suspect the real
reason is something we thought we'd fixed were if a customer appends an
open ticket it sends it to the back of the queue. I'm going to have to
investigate further.

With Regards,

Dave,
--
| Dave Tomlinson Broadband Solutions For
| Customer Support for Home & Business
| PlusNet plc @ http://www.plus.net
+ ----- My Referrals - It pays to recommend PlusNet -----

"PlusNet Support Team" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 20:23:12 +0100, Gareth Edmondson
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Hi Dave,
>>
>> Funnily enough this is what I am getting today. However it is not
>> representative of what has been happening over the past week. I have
>> posted
>> screenshots to Force9 online support of both machines (on the same
>> screen)
>> showing how it is there for one machine and not there for the other.
>>
>> I will follow your flush dns advice when my customer get's back from his
>> weekend break. Out of interest, why would his DNS change just like that?
>> Can
>> DNS tables or whatever get corrupted? If his DNS was messed up surely no
>> other mail server would be pingable.
>>
>> On another note - any idea why Force9 were so slow to answer my update?
>> Ticket - 14272817
>>
>> Thanks for the advice,
>>
>> Gareth Edmondson
>>
>>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> The only other thing that really makes sense would be that the owners of
> the server you are trying to connect to have barred your IP address. Have
> you tried contacting them to see if this is the case or if they can see
> you trying to connect and have logs showing the failure reason?
> Regarding the ticket, we have been very busy, but I suspect the real
> reason is something we thought we'd fixed were if a customer appends an
> open ticket it sends it to the back of the queue. I'm going to have to
> investigate further.
>
> With Regards,
>
> Dave,

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply. It seems it may be a problem with Deenine Internet and
their hosting branch Hostplus.co.uk - both of their websites are still up
and running but it seems today (Sunday 24th) that all of my hosted websites
with them are down.

My webmail is working, yet my mail server mail.indigo-cube.co.uk will not
authenticate through Outlook Express.

The problem mail server that I mentioned before is still unavailable even
though DNS is resolving the name to an IP address. The website www.cbams.net
is also down.

So I guess the problem cannot be with Force9 or Plusnet. Thanks for your
help anyway.

Is anyone else having problems with DeeNine Internet or Hostplus.co.uk?
Please get in touch. They are not answering their calls, they are not
answering support tickets. If they have gone bust then they need to let
their customers know.

Thanks again Dave,

Gareth

<snip>

>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> The only other thing that really makes sense would be that the owners of
>> the server you are trying to connect to have barred your IP address. Have
>> you tried contacting them to see if this is the case or if they can see
>> you trying to connect and have logs showing the failure reason?
>> Regarding the ticket, we have been very busy, but I suspect the real
>> reason is something we thought we'd fixed were if a customer appends an
>> open ticket it sends it to the back of the queue. I'm going to have to
>> investigate further.
>>
>> With Regards,
>>
>> Dave,
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> Thanks for the reply. It seems it may be a problem with Deenine Internet
> and their hosting branch Hostplus.co.uk - both of their websites are still
> up and running but it seems today (Sunday 24th) that all of my hosted
> websites with them are down.
>
> My webmail is working, yet my mail server mail.indigo-cube.co.uk will not
> authenticate through Outlook Express.
>
> The problem mail server that I mentioned before is still unavailable even
> though DNS is resolving the name to an IP address. The website
> www.cbams.net is also down.
>
> So I guess the problem cannot be with Force9 or Plusnet. Thanks for your
> help anyway.
>
> Is anyone else having problems with DeeNine Internet or Hostplus.co.uk?
> Please get in touch. They are not answering their calls, they are not
> answering support tickets. If they have gone bust then they need to let
> their customers know.
>
> Thanks again Dave,
>
> Gareth

I have just run some tracert commands on the following domains:

www.servicestatus.co.uk [212.67.195.70] and it goes as far as >
ext-fe1-0-wf1.webfusion.co.uk

www.indigo-cube.co.uk [217.199.169.228] - this goes all the way and ends at
> server11.hostplus.co.uk but it did come into the 'hosteurope' network.

www.yggwyr.swansea.sch.uk [212.67.195.70] - this website also times out at >
ext-fe1-0-wf1.webfusion.co.uk

www.cbams.net [212.67.195.70] - this website also times out at >
ext-fe1-0-wf1.webfusion.co.uk

www.wrenvalenurseries [212.67.195.70] - - this website also times out at >
ext-fe1-0-wf1.webfusion.co.uk

All of the above websites are hosted by Hostplus.co.uk (which are owned by
DeeNine internet)

Now what can I understand from this? I have looked at the webfusion.co.uk
network and discover that they are now part of HostEurope Networks which
have since been rebranded as Pipex.

So should I be contacting Pipex? Webfusion, Hostplus or DeeNine Internet.

Too many companies, not enough information.

Best wishes

Gareth Edmondson