Not receiving the Delivery Report

Question: I tried to run 2 test lists (as I usually do before sending out to my clients), and I didn't receive either test batches in my inbox. I also noticed that I didn't receive my mailer report from the day prior until 6 hours after the emails were done sending. Something weird is going on, and I need to know if maybe your server went down? The recipients to my email yesterday didn't get their emails delivered until 3, and 4 am today.

I haven't changed any settings or done anything different than I have been for the past year. Please advise. Thank you!

Answer: Nowadays it is a common practice for system administrators to use spam checking and anti-virus software directly on their email servers. The idea is to eliminate or reduce the relaying of spam messages and the spreading of viruses thru the emailing system. On the one hand checking messages at the server level can drastically reduce the amount of junk that will end up on your mailbox but on the other side that system is far from being perfect and as a result, legitimate emails will also get caught and will never get delivered. Such messages are called 'False Positives.' On average, 15% of legitimate messages do not get through to the inbox because of the false positive problem, and the rate is increasing along with the volume of spam.

You will find more information about this issue My message never arrives despite it says it was delivered. We also wrote a blog entry here at maxprog about How do I stop emails being marked as spam?.