I am using the php mail() function and everything works fine in that I can send to everyone on the Internet EXCEPT AOL users.

Does anyone know why?

David

    I figured it out. In case anyone is interested, it appears that certain email servers do a reverse dns lookup of the smtp gateway before accepting email for delivery. Since I did not have a reverse record in by DNS (bad boy) AOL was rejecting any email originating from my server. Not a mail() glitch.

      a month later

      So David, any way to fix this problem without direct access to gateways?

        Yes. make sure that you have a reverse record in your dns. Your dns admin should know how to do this.

          9 months later

          I have a bit of a different problem...I CAN send text/html formatted messages everywhere to include AOL. I can read the test messages via Outlook Express and Netscape, but not on AOL. On AOL, I get the FROM:, TO: and Subject ok, but the text is received as follows:

          --Marker3c9ace7811809
          Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
          Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

          SG9vdGVyIENydWIz...and many lines of this stuff

          Anyone know a solution?

          Thanks,
          Shelly

            Hi David,

            I happened to see this posting of yours as a chance. And believe me, it's helped me one great bit. I was facing an identical problem and my webhost refused to take the blame. I think your posting hits the nail on the head.

            Thanks once again

            Nilesh

              Hi Shelly,

              I think the headers are not being sent properly. For example what you've shown should be an attachment, while there is no content-disposition. I think you need to get the headers right.

              Outlook at times accepts a lot of things which may not follow the rules.

              Regards

              Nilesh

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