RE: emails sent with QtmmSendMail API take > 5 minutes to arrive -- MIDRANGE-L

See inline...

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"Abstract Art: A product of the untalented, sold by the unprincipled to the
utterly bewildered."
-- Al Capp

Thanks, Dennis, for the analysis.

Such as it is, you're welcome.

The concern about the e-mail delivery time is more about demoing this
application. It would mean the possibility of a 5 to 9 minute thumb
twirling while waiting for the e-mail to arrive at the user's PC.

Ah, you need a diversion. Or smoke and mirrors. Makes sense... but this is
unfortunately the reality of demoing and internet.

By the way, when I noted the "e-mail client is set to automatically
send/receive every 1 minute", I meant on my PC (Outlook). Is there a
setting I might have control of at Comcast?

Very unlikely, and as I indicated I don't think there's a (visible) problem
at Comcast. I'd be more inclined to believe that Outlook is not checking
every minute, or ---as a stretch--- that some setting (mail filtering,
perhaps?) is causing messages to not be immediately available?

Here's something to try: Outlook / Tools / Options / Other / Advanced. Set
"Enable logging" on. Quit and restart Outlook. Let it run for five
minutes. Tools / Options / Other / Advanced. Disable logging. Quit
Outlook. (Restart it if you want.) Check %APPDATA%\Local\Temp\Outlook
Logging directory. Look inside to see when the polls actually took place.
(How many were there in the five minute run?)

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dennis Lovelady
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 8:34 AM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: emails sent with QtmmSendMail API take > 5 minutes to
arrive

If I'm reading this correctly, here's what the headers show:

02.50.54 UTC ELIJAH (aka ELIJAH.UNBEATENPATH and LOCALHOST) SMTP server
received the message from itself to send (Presumably, this is the time
of
the call to the Qtmm... API.)
02.53.46 UTC ELIJAH delivered the mail to COMCAST.NET (there are no
intermediate servers; COMCAST must be the ISP. (?))
02.58.45 UTC some client (presumably yours) picked up the message from
COMCAST.

The Mail Transfer Agent on the iSeries did not immediately send the
message.
It is probably set to send on some interval in order to reduce resource
costs of the MTA process. See SMTP parameters. Not sure how much you
can
(nor even want to) affect this.

COMCAST didn't report any movement from server to server, so it stands
to
reason that there was none, and that the client picking up the mail is
not
working on the 1-minute interval as expected. Or COMCAST did move it
around
and didn't update headers (a real no-no, especially for ISP!). This
would
be easy enough to test, by sending a series of messages (spaced, say 30
seconds apart) from some outside (and I do mean outside) source. See
if
there's a multi-minute gap between receipts at the client end. Also,
do you
not have web mail option on your COMCAST service? Seems to me that'd
be the
ideal place to look when trying to time these things.

But the thing rolling around in the back of my mind is: why worry about
5-minute delivery time? Heck, even pager services usually run slower
than
that! Consider also that e-mail delivery is not guaranteed, for a
number of
reasons. If these are concerns, you'll be wise to steer clear of e-
mail,
and use a different, guaranteed method of delivering the news. You
need
sort of an internet-based Federal Express.

You should also check with the ISP(s) involved and find out what the
service
level expectation is for e-mail (in terms of time and delivery rate).
Maybe
if you record the conversation, you can sell the resultant laugh to one
of
those TV sitcoms.

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"A true friend is the most precious of all possessions and the one we
take
the least thought about acquiring."
-- La Rochefoucauld

Dang! What's your OS version? What are the SMTP configuration
parameters?
(CFGTCPSMTP <F4> / CHGSMTPA <F4>)

I will say that I have never seen a mail log generated by the
QtmmSendMail API, though I'd have done a lot to get that at some

point

in my past.

I will have a closer look at your headers. We have to keep in mind
that some servers may not be set to exactly the right time, but it
looks like the ELIJA.UNBEATENPATH server held on to the message for
three of those minutes.
The configuration of the Mail Transport Agent on that server should

be

reviewed. I'll look more closely during my commute.

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"A banker warned the British poet Robert Graves that one could not
grow rich writing poetry. He replied that if there was no money in
poetry, there was certainly no poetry in money, and so it was all
even."
-- Robert Graves

Well, here's the text generated by the program as the e-mail (and

into

the
joblog). Notice in the outgoing text that it went at 21:50:53, but
I didn't receive it until 21:59. And, by the way, my e-mail client
is set to automatically send/receive every 1 minute. You'd think I
should have gotten it within 2 minutes, no?

Connection to localhost established

220 ELIJAH Service ready.

HELO ELIJAH.UNBEATENPATH

250 ELIJAH.

MAIL FROM:<Needle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

250 OK.

RCPT TO:<email@xxxxxxxxxxx

250 OK.

DATA

354 Enter mail body. End mail with a '.' in column 1 on a line

by

itself.
From: Needle

<Needle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx >

To: Thomas Garvey

<email@xxxxxxxxxxx >

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:50:53 -0500
Subject: The following activity has been detected...
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="--=_TGBoundary"
Your mail reader doesn't support MIME!
----=_TGBoundary
Content-type: text/plain
Dear user,
For your convienience, I've sent you this message in both text

and

HTML
format. You are currently reading the text version.
Thanks,
Needle
----=_TGBoundary
Content-type: text/html
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
.normal {font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;}
.italics {font-style: italic;
font-size: 10pt;
font-family: Verdana;}
.emphasis {font-style: italic;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 10pt;
font-family: Verdana;}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<p class="emphasis">something changed</p>
<table class="normal" border="0"><tbody>

<p class="normal"><table border="0"><tbody></p>

<tr class="normal"><td width="300px">The field that was
changed</td><td

width="125px">STATE</td><td width="575px"></td></tr>

</tbody></table>

<p class="italics">

(see bottom of e-mail for more details and technical
information)

</p>

<p class="normal">

Needle requires a response to this e-mail.
 If no response is received within a prescribed time,

this

e-

mail

will be resent to you, and also sent to the file manager.
You may optionally forward this e-mail to another appropriate
respondent
but Needle will still be monitoring for a response from you.
</p>

<a
href="http://192.168.0.3:8080/Needle/start.html?&p1=420690677&l1=9";>
Respond</a><p class="normal">

Do not reply to this e-mail with an e-mail response.

It is necessary that you click the Respond button

to properly respond to this alert.

</p>

<p class="italics">

Additional details...

<table class="normal" border="0"><tbody>

<p class="normal"><table border="0"><tbody></p>

<tr class="normal"><td width="300px">When the change
happened</td><td

width="125px">21:50:25</td><td width="575px">on
08/30/10</td></tr>

</tbody></table>
</body>
</html>
----=_TGBoundary--
.
250 OK.
QUIT
221 ELIJAH Service closing transmission channel.

Here's the internet headers on the e-mail as it arrived.

Return-Path: needle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Received: from imta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (LHLO
imta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net) (76.96.62.29) by
sz0132.ev.mail.comcast.net with LMTP; Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:58:45

+0000

(UTC)
Received: from ELIJAH.UNBEATENPATH ([ip address])
by imta03.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast
id 0qtl1f02E4D2xjZ03qtlQ5; Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:53:46 +0000
X-CAA-SPAM: 00000
X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.1
cv=ZtNYpkfGEsrQmeE3LWOG7ut6eSFqSRv3BcqX9JLKiOc=
c=1 sm=1 a=bjoO5BJrWb0A:10 a=Uc51vfO31vj6OHgIASGzNg==:17
a=AHoJO_Ans-6ajpN_WfQA:9 a=eS3ILy3VWOo-O6-zsQ7wbJENpKgA:4
a=Zaop3NGBAAAA:8
a=z_yR5i3L8K5S0-7NN7sA:9 a=32Gvy_8dC9Ivhm8OFF0A:7
a=XoJv4PSB43LHXj83IQIDlDXZiRgA:4 a=m0e0AD9m6KYA:10
a=w55ngzyDdcAA:10 a=qiWi7Edwir4A:10 a=NWVoK91CQyQA:10
a=Uc51vfO31vj6OHgIASGzNg==:117
Received: from ELIJAH.UNBEATENPATH(localhost[127.0.0.1])
by ELIJAH (IBM i5/OS SMTP V05R04M00) with TCP;
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:50:54 -0500
From: Needle <Needle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To: Thomas Garvey
<email@xxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:50:53 -0500
Subject: The following activity has been detected...
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="--=_UPIBoundary"
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAABAr/BQAVxJeHFcVucxXFbYk=
X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA==

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dennis
Lovelady
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 6:13 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: emails sent with QtmmSendMail API take > 5 minutes to
arrive

Hi, Tom:

With regard to your delay time, that may not be unexpected,

especially

when
internet is involved. So many factors. If you provide more
information about the architecture(s) of the message(s) in question,
perhaps we

can

help. Also, have a look at the headers on the received mail; they

will

indicate the point at which delays occur.

Finally, can you elaborate on the meaning of this?

Also, the joblog on the task that sends the e-mails (using the
API) includes every statement in the outgoing e-mails,

In this context, what does "every statement in the outgoing e-

mails"

mean?
Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
I talk to myself at work because nobody else here understands me.

We're using the QtmmSendMail API to send e-mails. However, it

can

take more than 5 minutes before they arrive at their destination.
What I don't know about e-mail could fill volumes, but I'm hoping
maybe it's just some configuration setting on the SMTP server on
my IBM i.

Also, the joblog on the task that sends the e-mails (using the
API) includes every statement in the outgoing e-mails, thus
filling the joblog quickly when it's allowed to run for any

decent

length of

time.

Can this be controlled or limited, or should I just plan on

ending

the

task regularly?

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