Email SENT to a non-existent domain?

Today I sent an email to "some.one@non-existant.domain" as part of our test suite. A subsequent JobDeliveryStatusRequest revealed that this email has been "SENT".

How is this possible when the domain doens't exist?

The following is the result from the JobDeliveryStatusRequest:

      <JobDeliveryStatus xmlns="http://ws.easylink.com/JobDeliveryStatus/2011/01">
        <JobId>
          <XDN>flusme</XDN>
          <MRN>957615</MRN>
        </JobId>
        <RecStatus code="0">LAST_IN_XDN_NO_MORE</RecStatus>
        <JobData>
          <JobId>
            <XDN>flusme</XDN>
            <MRN>957615</MRN>
          </JobId>
          <BillingCode>2012-09-19_21:37:37</BillingCode>
          <CustomerReference>2012-09-19_21:37:37</CustomerReference>
          <DeliveryPriority>express</DeliveryPriority>
          <EntryTime>2012-09-19T11:38:26.000Z</EntryTime>
          <ExpirationTime>2012-09-20T11:38:26.000Z</ExpirationTime>
          <Subject>Testing 2012-09-19 21:37:38</Subject>
          <UserId>T2/xxxxxxxxxx</UserId>
          <PostedTime>2012-09-19T11:39:00.000Z</PostedTime>
          <JobState>Delivered</JobState>
          <JobState>Posted</JobState>
          <DestinationCount>1</DestinationCount>
          <ServiceType>MR</ServiceType>
          <JobFlags>8194</JobFlags>
          <EmailFrom>xxxxxxxxxx</EmailFrom>
          <Class>p2p</Class>
          <CharacterSet>ISO-8859-1</CharacterSet>
          <RetryAlgorithm>2000</RetryAlgorithm>
          <DeliveryGroup type="Normal">
            <DeliveryGroupId>2</DeliveryGroupId>
            <AttachmentInfo attachmentNum="1">
              <FileName>test.png</FileName>
              <Size>10524</Size>
              <AttachmentFlags>pull</AttachmentFlags>
              <AttachmentFlags>trackable</AttachmentFlags>
              <AttachmentFlags>image</AttachmentFlags>
              <Security>none</Security>
              <ContentType>image/png</ContentType>
              <TotalPulls>0</TotalPulls>
              <DistinctPulls>0</DistinctPulls>
            </AttachmentInfo>
            <DeliveryDetail xqn="1">
              <Ref>2012-09-19_21:37:37</Ref>
              <Destination type="internet">some.one@non-existent.domain</Destination>
              <State code="7">Sent</State>
              <PrimeAlt>0</PrimeAlt>
              <ListId liststore="MR" ownership="user">adhoc</ListId>
              <FirstAttemptTime>2012-09-19T11:39:17.000Z</FirstAttemptTime>
              <LastAttemptTime>2012-09-19T11:39:17.000Z</LastAttemptTime>
              <Attempts>1</Attempts>
              <RawDeliveryUnits unit="bytes">1725</RawDeliveryUnits>
              <RawCumulativeUnits unit="bytes">1</RawCumulativeUnits>
              <LocalizedDestination type="internet">some.one@non-existent.domain</LocalizedDestination>
            </DeliveryDetail>
          </DeliveryGroup>
        </JobData>
      </JobDeliveryStatus>

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

skamens

Please see this posting for an explanation of the "Sent" status for email jobs:

https://apiforums.easylink.com/content/how-determine-delivery-status-email-and-sms-destinations

n079614

OK, Sent just means an Email message was past to an MTA and that an SMS message has been past to an Aggregator.

I've just checked the Portal for the results of the first email I sent to a non-existant domain about 24 hours ago and the forwarded report shows:

Posting Summary:

                                 Percent
Posted                 1         100.00
Cancelled              0           0.00
Pend                   0           0.00
Blocked                0           0.00
Error                  0           0.00
Total                  1

Of the       1 items posted, there are:
                                 Percent of posted
Assumed delv'd         1         100.00
Soft/Hard Bounce       0           0.00

Surely by now, some part of the system would have discovered that there is no MX record for this non-existant domain which would have resulted in failure of some sort (perhaps a hard bounce)?

Does this mean that we should check for an MX record for the domain before submitting an email job via the API?

skamens

You shouldn't have to do your own MX record lookup, but I can't say why the failure DSN didn't come in for this.

I suggest opening a ticket with customer care so this can be investigated by the folks who maintain the delivery infrastructure; it's possible that the proper failure indications aren't getting back to the test system.