450 Recipient Rejected: Rate limit exceeded

[gibbons]

I'm getting this message occasionally when I send emails. Different email addresses, length of message, etc doesn't seem to matter. Any ideas?

I did a search on my email provider (everyone.net) and found nothing.

 

[mikea]

I'm getting this message occasionally when I send emails. Different email addresses, length of message, etc doesn't seem to matter. Any ideas?

I did a search on my email provider (everyone.net) and found nothing.

Sounds like an anti-spam measure, rejecting if your mail server sends too many messages too fast.

Is the message coming from your ISP?

I hate to tell you this but you or a neighbor prolly have a spambot running.

 

[wsuffa]

Usually it's some form of rate limiting on either your mail provider or the recipient. Since it's happening with more than one address, I'd guess it's your provider.

Either 1) you're sending too many messages in too short of a span, 2) there are a ton of other users sending a lot of emails at one time, or 3) there are too many recipients on a bunch of emails (like email lists).

Only way to tell for sure is to talk to tech support **** for your ISP.

Edit: or as Mike notes, possibly a spambot running on your system or someone else on your ISP.

 

[mikea]

The only thing is usually spambots have the mail server built in so they don't need your ISPs mail server.

Your ISP has a badly configured mail server.

 

[gibbons]

I'll run all my spyware/anti virus software scans again. Just did that Thursday of last week. Then I'll talk to my ISP. Thanks.

 

[wsuffa]

Your ISP has a badly configured mail server.

For most mail servers (and web servers, too), there's a throttle setting in the configuration to limit maximum connections and max files in queue. There's an optimum setting for the memory/disk storage a server has - if you put too many users on a weak server with limited bandwidth, it can have the same effect (assuming that the throttle settings are set back based on server size).

The most likely case is that someone on your server is whalloping the server with a load of emails, which is causing a problem to other users. For MOST ISP servers (most meaning those that don't have an authenticate before allowing outgoing connection), they don't/can't tell who's sending the outgoing email to/through them.

Mike, some (a few) ISPs configure port 25 to send to their relay host rather than just blocking it. That's a common configuration used by hotel systems with a number of roaming users.

 

[gibbons]

The most likely case is that someone on your server is whalloping the server with a load of emails, which is causing a problem to other users. For MOST ISP servers (most meaning those that don't have an authenticate before allowing outgoing connection), they don't/can't tell who's sending the outgoing email to/through them.

I assume something like this was happening. My scans found nothing on my computer last night. This morning all is normal. Nice of my provider to let me know.