Q: Some of my incoming mail is missing, where does it go?

Messages don't just go missing, there's usually a good reason for them not arriving. If there was a delivery problem (for example, if there were attachments that triggered an anti-virus filter or the mail came from a known spam source), the mail would have been bounced back to the sender with an error message explaining the problem.

If you raise a support issue about missing mail, be sure to give us a time of sending, the address it was sent to and the address it was sent from, so we can attempt a search through our own systems, but please note that if another mail relay/server is involved, your mail may be stuck there, and we might not find anything.

Q: Is there a limit to the the size of mail (and attachments)?

Yes, we currently limit the overall size of emails to around 10mb. Incoming messages larger than 10mb are rejected as they are received, an error message explaining the issue is returned to the sender.

The limit can be adjusted for metered accounts, just ask. Alternatively, consider using your web space to provide access to larger files.

This is called Multi-Recipient Forwarding. Multi-Recipient Addresses (MRAs) are email addresses that will automatically forward email to one or more additional email addresses.

Q: My email is being delayed! What's happening?

Look at the headers of the message, and check the lines beginning with Received - the lowest line is the first server that the message passed through. Each Received header has a timestamp, which you can follow to see where the delay happened. If the delay was in one of our servers, then it may have been caused by a problem with the remote server for a forwarding account. Most messages are delivered within a few seconds.

Q: My connections to your mail server are timing out.

Also: error messages containing 0x800CCC0E or 0x8004210A

You're getting a time-out error. These are generally caused by problems in communications between your PC, your ISP, and our mail servers.

Unless we have made an announcement about a mail server being down, the problem will usually at your ISP or your PC.

Do you have any virus scanners (AV software) running? If so, and it is scanning the mail as it is incoming, or outgoing - then this can cause the email server to time out, as the virus scanner is slowing down the transfer of data.

You may wish to try a different ISP temporarily, or another PC, if there is one available. Finally, please check the webmail interface, customers with server timeout issues have reported that webmail has helped them get past the problem.

Unfortunately, there's not much we can do in these cases, because we don't know what else is running on your PC, or what connectivity problems your ISP may be having.

Q: What triggers the Anti-Virus filter?

We scan mail for content that could harm your workstation. This usually means attachments with auto-executable content, an exploit employed by Internet worms, trojans and viruses.

Any message that contains these attachments will be rejected at the mail server. The attachment file types are: ade, adp, bas, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, crt, eml, exe, hlp, hta, inf, ins, isp, jse, lnk, msc, msi, msp, mst, pcd, pif, reg, scr, sct, shs, url, vbs, vbe, wsf, wsh, wsc.

To circumvent this, simply ask the sender to wrap the attachment in a compressed archive (for example: zip) before sending.

Q: What happens with spam?

All mail passes through a spam detection algorithm.

Please note that tbData will not tolerate spam originating from our network or spamvertising services that are hosted on our network

Mail considered to be spam will have additional header records inserted before forwarding. You can set the filters in your mail client to process these mails as you choose.