554 Denied - What does it mean?

[stanbusk]

I would recommend you not to use Word to create this message and check the result. Word uses a lot of invisible control characters that can produce unexpected effects. Note that inline attachments in styled text can only be pictures, you can't use a PDF.

[mapski99]

Stan,

PDFs are only being attached, graphics are being dropped inline.

Part of the probem is that Maxmailer on a 500Mhz G3 ibook is slow as molasses when typing. And that is after shutting down every other application. When other applications are running, it can take 10 seconds to type a word.

The other problem is that the files are being created, edited, and styled in Word. Users are collaborating on the content of Word files that are being shared and moved around. A long file is going to be a pain to edit over and over in MaxMailer as changes are made to the Word file. Even in a single user environment it's extra work. In a group environment, Word is the standard and that is how work is created and edited.

I tried copying from MS Word to TextEdit (RTF mode). Saving, then copy to MaxMailer. That didn't help.

Are you suggesting copy from Word to something like BBEdit? That would be the same as saving the Word file to TextOnly. Either way, all formatting would have to be done in MaxMailer.

[mapski99]

Stan,

MS Word is the most popular text editor in the world, yet there is no mention of these "known" problems of cut/paste between MaxBulk Mailer and Word.

Every other part of the program is great. I recommended it to my client after evaluating many other programs. Inline images and styled text were a big selling point. Only after spending time learning it and teaching the program to the client, did we run across the bug....just as a campaign was supposed to be sent out the door. Everything looked fine, then hours of troubleshooting ensued after the 554 error.

I just rechecked your documentation.....

1. Under composing a message, it says "You can drop text files or paste text from any other text editor to the message field as well."

2. Under Message Formats > Styled Text (Pro), it says, "MaxBulk Mailer converts all the text into HTML code".

3. Attachments > Inline Attachments, it says: "MaxBulk supports inline attachments and inline pictures in the message body."

Considering that Styled Text is only in the "Pro" version which costs more, and the populatiry of MS Word, you should really have notes and warnings about using MaxBulk with MS Word in your documentation, and probablly even in the sales literature.

[mapski99]

[stanbusk]

Let's see.

#1 The MHTML format is what we use to send Styled Text and HTML with inline pictures. Using attachments (not inline) with such format is not recommended because some applications will not render the whole message properly. Use a link to your PDF document on your site instead.

#2 MaxBulk being slow when typing is a system issue. If you use MaxBulk in a different account on your system or reinstall that system you will find out the problem disappears. As far as I know it comes from duplicates or corrupted fonts.

#3 No problem if you use Word but if you want to avoid problems, copy the text, paste it the TextWrangler or BBEdit, select all and use the Zap Gremlins function. I have seen a lot of customers using Word without problems and without doing anything other than copying and pasting text as is. The problem I think is some control character that is transmitted to MaxBulk thru the clipboard. Some characters are forbidden in an e-mail message.

#4 There is not a known or unknown problem with Word. There are rare occasions where copying and pasting from Word can give problems. Right now I am not sure where it comes from but the problems I have seen so far just caused some little glitches to styles, not a 554 error. What you could do is to first try with the MaxBulk document that gives problem and remove half the text, Then try again. If it still doesn't work remove more text. You can do that until it works. Then try to localize the exact place it fails. It would be interesting to see what character or if invisible the character code that is causing that. An other good idea is to contact your postmaster and ask what the error 554 means and why you get it.

I repeat again, we do not say anywhere anything about incompatibilities with Word because it is not the case. I would say more that 50% MaxBulk customers use MaxBulk with Word. It is not a bug either. First we should pinpoint where your problem actually is, and then add a filter or something to MaxBulk. Note that MaxBulk already filters a lot of forbidden characters.

[mapski99]

[mapski99]

I contacted Verio (the mail/web host), and they state that 554 is related to their spam filter on their side which is blocking the message.

Their website FAQs stating that 554 was something different - grrrr.

No wonder I couldn't isolate specific characters within the Word file that were causing trouble.

[stanbusk]

Sorry if my explanations were not clear. About #4, it is not a known problem because it is the very first time I hear about error 554. It is also the first time I hear a piece of text is causing a protocol error.

What is known about Word is that in rare occasions some styles were not properly rendered, nothing else. Usually reformatting that piece of text were enough. Actually I saw that problem in Mac OS 9 and first Mac OS X versions. I haven't heard of it in some time now. In any case that wasn't causing protocol errors. Just text supposed to be bold wasn't or things like that. That problem was caused by invisible control characters wrongly passed to MaxBulk thru the clipboard. As far as I know that problem were fixed with last Mac OS X versions.

In your case I thought it could be something related to this *rare known issue*. But it is clear it is not the same.

554 error code can mean anything actually. As you state below it can be also triggered by a spam filter. Personally I think it is a big error from Verio then. Anyway, try to look at that article "avoiding to be caught by spam filter". It contains the address of a spam test system you can use to get a spam report for your message.

[mapski99]

Stan,

It turns out that the entire problem was VERIO.

VERIO has unsophisticated filters on our shared hosting account. They are tagging our outgoing mail as SPAM.

Verio as incorrectly states what the 554 error means on their webpages, which lead me down the wrong path. After your suggestions to go through line by line and check to see what is causing the problem in Word, I was unable to find any reasonable patterm. So I finally called Verio. That is when they said it's an spam filter on the outgoing mail.

Using the MaxBulk 'spam' review tool, I was able to change the Subject to get the full text through. But it wouldn't work with the inline image.

[mapski99]

Stan,

I am sorry that I took so much of your time.

You have been very responsive and helpful.

[mapski99]

In Summary,

MaxBulk Mailer was not responsible for my "554 denied" error at all. The problem was at the mail host.

The mail host was treating our outgoing message as spam and blocking it.

Cut and paste from Word to MaxBulk was not the problem at all.

MaxBulk Mailer worked great once I used a different mail host that wasn't treating my mail as spam.

MaxBulk rocks!

Stan was very reponsive as helpful.

-J

[mapski99]

If you get a "554" error when sending mail -> CALL YOUR ISP!

Don't mess around with settings, find out how your mail host/isp classifies a "554" error message. Ask them why you are getting the error.

-J

[stanbusk]

Good to hear! I was a bit worried about what was causing that problem. Now it is clear. Thanks for the updates. They will be useful for other users.

[FordTruckMan]

Hi - just joining in after suddenly encountering these same problems on my Verio-hosted email/web/etc plan. I've sent mailings out to our mailing list many times before with no problems until Wednesday of this week (just got lucky? something recently changed?)

I guess my question is: Did Verio offer any other solution to the problem? (i.e. they could agree to NOT mark you mail as spam or tell you what to avoid or anything like that?)

[nanoplanet]