Email Error 554, Relay Access Denied

Got an email problem to throw at you --

User tries to send email to [email protected] that forwards email to [email protected], but it bounces back like so:

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:



[email protected] on 3/6/2006 9:34 AM

There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator.

<exchangeserver.domain.com #5.5.0 smtp;554 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied>



Googling the 554 error, everything I've thus far read said it's a problem with the sender's SMTP settings. However, this user can send email to anyone else, just not this particular user.

I checked the settings on the server that handles email forwarding, and all that's configured as it should be -- [email protected] is indeed configured to pass email along to [email protected].

Can you send an email to the second one OK, without forwarding it?

Sounds like someone may have some sort of recipient filtering enabled on their SMTP server or within Exchange (especially if it's 2003). Is [email protected] an object that is in Active Directory?

Using a special "tech support" account we set up through their exchange server, I tried sending a test message to the forwarding account. I received the same bounce back message myself. I just tried sending it directly to the actual email account, and have yet to get a bounce message.

Note this is sending mail as an entirely different user on the same Exchange server.

Ok the so you can send a mail direct to the user with out going via the forwarding address, thats a start!

Can you be more specific on how you are configuring the forwarding - as it would seem that this is where the problem is!

On the SMTP server is a program called Rocklife MailSite that handles the forwarding. I go into Mail Site Console --> SMTP server name --> Domains --> email.com --> Mailboxes, then run a search for the user name. In the SQL mailbox properties for this user, the "Forward mail to:" field is set to [email protected].

It works for all the other users, so it looks to be configured properly.

oookay, maybe some kind of filter on the recipients end that is blocking the forwarded (is that a word??) mails??
Can you post any headers?

(Again, I've only changed user and domain names.)

Microsoft Mail Internet Headers Version 2.0
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 13:41:13 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;
boundary="9B095B5ADSN=_01C640D8F002D48E00000FA9exchange01.publi"
X-DSNContext: 7ce717b1 - 1194 - 00000002 - 00000000
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

--9B095B5ADSN=_01C640D8F002D48E00000FA9exchange01.publi
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=unicode-1-1-utf-7

--9B095B5ADSN=_01C640D8F002D48E00000FA9exchange01.publi
Content-Type: message/delivery-status

--9B095B5ADSN=_01C640D8F002D48E00000FA9exchange01.publi
Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: from mail pickup service by exchange01.publishingconcepts.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC;
Mon, 6 Mar 2006 13:41:12 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C64155.EC54F2FD"
Subject: Test Message
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.3790.0
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 13:41:11 -0600
Message-ID: <B987BCFC6DA0134F812E3ADD55C79247C270AD@exchange01.publishingconcepts.com>
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Thread-Topic: Test Message
thread-index: AcZBVwmChDBg8nGZQC+D+KVBeOqzog==
From: "PCI Tech Support" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Mar 2006 19:41:12.0480 (UTC) FILETIME=[ECA37A00:01C64155]

------_=_NextPart_001_01C64155.EC54F2FD
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

------_=_NextPart_001_01C64155.EC54F2FD
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


------_=_NextPart_001_01C64155.EC54F2FD--

--9B095B5ADSN=_01C640D8F002D48E00000FA9exchange01.publi--

Hi

Did the email have an attachment, if so, some carriers may have files size limitations, and you may need to split the attachment or check with the carrier to increase the size....

Nope, no attachment.

What about the recipients POP settings??? Also what about SMTP Authentication settings, on the users PC.

Confirmed it's not a user problem -- It's something with the Exchange server, as the problem is specific to users on this particular server, so I've discovered. It simply wont' allow relay to this account, though it will to every single other account.

One thing we discovered is that the domain that the email address belongs to does not resolve to an IP address, thus it has no A record. Could this be part of the problem?

Quote:

---

One thing we discovered is that the domain that the email address belongs to does not resolve to an IP address, thus it has no A record. Could this be part of the problem?

---

Yes

Had this problem on one site with an exchange server...no reverse look up...certain domains will block this.

Work around is to upload mail to ISPs smtp server ....

MLF

Yep it sure would AK!

As MLF says if it cant do a reverse lookup it could very well be bounced - this is how some Anti Spam filters work!