Checking Your
Mail Client
If you have reconfigured or installed a new mail client you may be
wondering if its functioning as expected. The link below will allow
you send and receive a test message without needing to disturb any
real live people (since its probably 2am and they are fast asleep).
Sending an email to Echo@TechServInc.com
will trigger an automatic reply and confirm that you mail is working
as expected (assuming you receive an email back again). Our server
will reply very quickly usually within a few seconds of receipt. If
your outgoing and incoming servers are equally quick, you should see a
return mail within a moment or two. If your servers are not so quick,
it may be several hours.
Check the time stamp on the return email, and you
will see how long it took your server to deliver the initial message
and how long the return trip took. If you don't receive a reply and
you 'think' that your mail client is working, try an alternate echo
location such as Test@TZNet.com.
Live System
Testing
If you have not received forum mail for awhile, you may be wondering if the
"system" is up and running. There can be many reasons for a
lack of mail, natural ebbs in
the flow of discussions, problems with your mail system, or problems
with the forum mail systems. Occasionally, usually on a weekend, there
may be a day or two without any messages posted to any of the forums.
You can check for yourself that the servers are functioning by
submitting the form below, or by sending an email to ForumStatus@TechServInc.com. This
will post a message to a special forum setup strictly for testing purposes. If all
systems are functioning properly (including you own), you will receive a reply email.
Please be aware that this will test the entire "system",
including your servers as well as the forum servers, both ISP's, and the
Internet and routers between. If the system test fails, the next step is
to determine the reason so it can be resolved.
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If You Don't Get a Reply...
Forum mail generates about 1500 bounced messages every day. Chances are
that if your having problems, its somewhere on the internet or at your
own mail or Internet Service Provider. Many of these are intermittent
problems on the net due to heavy traffic or systems failures. They are
usually resolved within minutes or hours, and since most mail servers
retry sending messages for days, the messages usually get through
eventually without you ever knowing there were problems unless the delay
was substantial.
If the live test fails, here is what to do next.
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Check the system status shown at the top of the page. Does it
indicate a known problem or that maintenance is taking place?
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Send a message to both echo locations if you haven't already done
so. If both fail to respond, the problem is most likely on one of
your own systems, at your Internet Service Provider, or somewhere
else on the net, but not on the forum servers.
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If the system check fails and the echo to TechServ fails
but you are able to send and receive other mail, the forum servers
may have lost their Internet connection. You can test this by
pinging the server (techservinc.com). Our service
through our current ISP has been very good. We have suffered network loss only a few times and
in most cases the service was usually restored in less
than an hour. It is conceivable that a long term outage could occur.
Such an outage would likely be due to power failure from storm or
other catastrophe.
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If you get a reply from the TechServ echo but the system test
fails, then the forum mail server is operational, but likely that
list server is down. In this case, email the Forum Administrator to
bring it to attention.
Contact ForumAdministrator@TechServInc.com
if believe the servers are down or to help you resolve problems.
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