Subj : ISP E-mail connection To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Thu Mar 12 2026 07:33:00 Hi Ky! > Every so often (like maybe once every two to five weeks) my primary e-mail > account will not want to connect to send out mail: just sits there and > eventually times out. ("Grrr!") The thing is I'm not sure where the > problem is as it will sometimes cause a window on Thunderbird to lock -- > the remainder of the computer is operational. KM> That is not unusual when an email program is hung up with a KM> no-reply from the server. Thunderbird has no mechanism for giving KM> up, and the STOP button isn't connected to any function (20 year KM> old bug), so it just has to time out, and meanwhile it acts hung. KM> And if timeout takes too long, it may get hung for real. OK, that helps explain some of the 'reactions' (or lack of!) which followed the attempts to stop. KM> Your timeout may be set too long; it shouldn't be over 30 KM> seconds. I'll have to check (first find!), but I have the feeling the timeout is set for ~30 seconds, just 30 seconds of nothing happening seems to be a reaally l-o-n-g time! > ...Used "sudo kill -9 > " (Ubuntu) to removed the mail windows -- and of course immediately > after that I was able to reload TBird and send the message. (Timing?) > So the question is how do I determine who is causing the problem? Did > Thunderbird lock because of the ISP or is TBird the problem? KM> A traceroute utility will show where the hangup is. And... looks KM> like there are multiple issues. Pasting traceroute below. OK. I have used traceroute before; now to re-familiarize! ...Quick check: not installed on this computer (yet!) -- so it has been a while since I needed it. KM> Twelve99.net is rebadged Telia and is all sorts of problems KM> everywhere for years, notably it's known for injecting latency on KM> static IPs. Twelve99.net appears to be Metronet's backbone, which KM> means ALL of your traffic goes through their pipe. Oh goodie! Nothing I can do to get around other than switch providers and that doens't guarantee anything forever. KM> Apparently some, but not all Starlink traffic goes that way too KM> -- some hosts trace that way (per below, and I know my exit node KM> hits the ground in SLC) and some don't. Traffic is MUCH faster KM> when twelve99.net is not in the loop. Like, about 20x faster. KM> Twelve99.net nearly always does some timeouts along the way. "I'm just being polite and waiting my turn!" And sort of with the 'waiting your turn' delay, there are times when I'd swear I'm waiting for a hard drive to spin up some where out there: I'm waiting for a page to start loading and after a while (several seconds but seems like a minute) all is fine. One reason why I was a bit suspicious of a cache being updated or something like that. KM> Which means you need to check your DNS server, and make sure it's KM> not hopping through twelve99.net. However, there's nothing you KM> can do about metronet using a crap backbone. > MyMetronet.NET goes to powerxmail.com. Not sure of the relationship but > needs to be configured that way. The error message (by TBird) indicated KM> Appears that mymetronet.net and metronet.net are the same outfit, KM> yes? Yes. I think MyMetronet was more for the e-mail, maybe consumer side, and Metronet for the general business. KM> powerxmail.com is just what someone named the mail server. 1&1's KM> is named pop.perfora.net, for some historical reason no one KM> remembers. Did a bit of snooping and I think powerxmail is a portal to Zimbra, which is: Zimbra Collaboration, formerly known as the Zimbra Collaboration Suite before 2019, is a collaborative software suite that includes an email server and a web client. Zimbra was initially developed by LiquidSys, which changed their name to Zimbra, Inc. on 26 July 2005. So Metronet appears to have bought some e-mail software, which possibly points to Zimbra via the powerxmail path. Numberous providers use powerxmail. KM> Traceroute: KM> (undefined.hostname.localhost is Starlink, evidently that's my KM> connection's satellite bounce. AWS anything is Amazon Web KM> Services, commonly a bulk hosting provider.) KM> === KM> C:\WINDOWS>tracert powerxmail.com KM> Unable to resolve target system name powerxmail.com. For the above reason. My quickie search clicks immediately went to a login page. KM> C:\WINDOWS>tracert mymetronet.net KM> 11 58 ms 58 ms 58 ms ipls-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net KM> [62.115.123.145] Booooo! I'd guess 'ipls' is Indianapolis. which is Metronet's headquarters. Twelve99 -- welllll.... KM> C:\WINDOWS> KM> === Was there supposed to be anything after this? Seemed like an odd cut. ¯ ® ¯ BarryMartin3@MyMetronet.NET ® ¯ ® .... The horror continues.... --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA þ RNET 2.10U: ILink: Techware BBS þ Hollywood, Ca þ www.techware2k.com --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com (454:1/1) .