Question about sending email into the AOL void

[ratkil]

Almost every day at least one email I send to someone with an AOL address is either getting delayed for several hours or not getting there at all, however later ones go through fine. Anybody have any ideas how to track these to see what is happening? It has my curiousity peaked now.

 

[Locutus of Board]

Cut out your eyeball and glue it to the email. You should be able to watch it no problem.

 

[ratkil]

Oh you a funny guy LOB, yeah, I'll glue something to that mail alright, "here kitty kitty kitty........"

 

[Lord Evermore]

Theoretically your ISP's mail server makes a direct connection to one of AOL's 5 mail servers. The headers in the email will tell you exactly which servers received the mail and passed it to the user.

AOL's mail system (and network) just plain is suck. It's lag and overload on their servers and their network, that's it. Sometimes it causes a problem, sometimes not. But all ISP's have occasional problems where mail gets delayed, AOL just does it more.