Thanks Barry, I surely hate to unblock those addresses. Sometimes I get more than 100 e-mails from addresses and subject lines that I am sure are porno, and my Netfriend SriLanka is pretty prolific too. I will bite the bullet and unblock them for part of today only. I was aware that messages are delivered in pieces, but I forgot that they had to all be reassembled before delivery. You are so right, the internet is amazing! Nancy From: "Barry" <[email protected]> > Hello Nancy, > > Sunday, February 6, 2011, 2:05:58 AM, you wrote: > > NW> I keep hearing the tone when a new e-mail drops into my mailbox, > NW> but there is no new e-mail. I am using Outlook Express. I have > NW> several blocked e-mail addresses (Spam) that go directly into the > NW> Deleted Items. Both my Inbox and Deleted Items show the number of > NW> unread e-mails, some times these numbers change some times they > NW> don't. > > This usually happens due to corrupted or conflicting message rules and > the only way to resolve it appears to be deleting rules until the > problem goes away or deleting them all and starting from scratch :-( > > NW> On several mailing lists every so often I will read an answer to a > NW> question that I never saw come through on the list. So...where is > NW> this e-mail going? > > This isn't too unusual with mailing lists and the missing message may > have fallen foul of a badly set up anti-spam program on a server that > part of the message goes through or isn't able to forward on for one > reason or another. What isn't generally understood about e-mail is > that your messages are not sent in one chunk - they are split into > many smaller packets and each one may go via a different route between > the sending and receiving server. It only takes for one of those > packets to not arrive for the whole message to fail to send and since > mail servers cannot hold onto partly received messages for long they > end up being deleted. Upshot is that the message does not get through > and since it's incomplete the receiving server cannot re-assemble to > find out where it came from and send a bounce message back to the > sender or alert the recipient. It it was able to re-assemble then the > message would be there and ready to pick up :-) > > That's why you'll see that in all e-mail providers terms of service > that it isn't a guaranteed service, but agreed that this isn't made > *too* clear by any of them !! > > It also doesn't help that in terms of internet traffic e-mail packets > are the lowest priority of all and in times of congestion or routing > outages then they are the first things to be dropped to try and get > the system back in action. > > When you consider exactly how 'the internet' works it's amazing that > it works as well as it does really <lol> > > -- > Best regards, > Barry mailto:[email protected] > MicroSoft Free Zone running Ubuntu 10.04 'Lucid' 64bit > > > > > ********* > Visit the threaded archives of this list: > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SENIOR-NEWBIE > ********* > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >