Integrated Online Solutions

2005.10.26 Regarding GMail and Vex.Net

There is a longstanding issue with the GMail failing to connect to the Vex.Net mail server. Many people trying to send messages from GMail to @vex.net accounts (and any virtual domains hosted by Vex.Net's DNS) are reporting that Google reports a DNS timeout failure trying to look up the domain to deliver to. This issue is still outstanding. We have attempted to contact Google several times via their contact/feedback system, as well sought information via the gmail Google group. Also several of our clients who have noticed the problem have reported the problem to Google. We have not heard of anyone getting any response from Google, despite many attempts. We can assure everyone that there is no problem with our mail server. We are receiving mail, as usual, from all other mail servers. We can only assume that the problem GMail has connecting to our DNS server is a problem with their infrastructure. Searching through the Google groups there are some reports of others having similar problems. We also have heard from a friend (as ridiculous as this sounds, it is sadly so far our best source of information) who knows someone who works at Google that it is a known problem and being worked on. None of this however is of much comfort to us, our our frustrated clients. Oddly, there are at least a few particular GMail users that have no problem sending mail to Vex.Net hosted accounts. I have one friend with a GMail account who has emailed me often recently with no problem; while everyone else I know with a GMail account (including tests I send myself) reports the mail bouncing after several days in (timeout) limbo. This seems to me more indirect evidence that it is a problem with GMail's infrastructure. This is an incredibly frustrating situation, especially because we can get absolutely no response from Google (whom one would have expected better from, considering their reputation for not being "evil"). We would love to know why this is happening, why particularly our DNS server or IP apparently disagrees with some/most of GMail's servers; but without communication from Google we are completely in the dark. We have made no changes to our server configurations or infrastructure around the time that situation came to our attention (more evidence that the problem did not originate with us). We have double checked everything we can think of since this started. If anyone out there can get any more information out of Google regarding this please let us know. We'd also encourage everyone who has experienced failures from mail being sent from GMail to report the problem to Google. Google's GMail bug report form: http://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_bugs?referrer=bugflow Google's GMail Group: http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion