Does anyone know an IP address alternative for pop.gmail.com?

[Bob]

A colleague abroad is having strange problems accessing her Gmail using
Outlook 2003 (via POP). Until a few days ago, everything worked fine (and
yes, we've checked for strange new installed programs and updates). Now it
just presents her with an error - 0x800408fc - and says it can't connect to
pop.gmail.com. Other email accounts work fine.

While I beat my head against a wall trying to work out what's going on, I
wonder whether anyone can point me to an IP address for pop.gmail.com that I
might use in the interim? I've got 173.194.78.109 from my desk here in
London, but I was wondering whether accessing it from Singapore might prove
problematic?

Many thanks.


---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

[c...@isbd.net]

Bob <b...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> While I beat my head against a wall trying to work out what's going on, I
> wonder whether anyone can point me to an IP address for pop.gmail.com that I
> might use in the interim? I've got 173.194.78.109 from my desk here in
> London, but I was wondering whether accessing it from Singapore might prove
> problematic?
>

It should be the same from everywhere, what I get is:-

chris$ host pop.gmail.com
pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.
gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.67.108
gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.67.109
gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:400c:c00::6d

--
Chris Green

[Graham J]

Get her to try:

Ping pop.gmail.com

then

tracert pop.gmail.com

Both should report the IP address that the local DNS supplies. If
that's different to what you get, tell us.

Can she get webmail to work?

Is she in a hotel, using the hotel WiFi? If so, get her to go to
another location and use a different internet connection ...

--
Graham J

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 27/04/14 14:31, Bob wrote:
> A colleague abroad is having strange problems accessing her Gmail using
> Outlook 2003 (via POP). Until a few days ago, everything worked fine
> (and yes, we've checked for strange new installed programs and
> updates). Now it just presents her with an error - 0x800408fc - and
> says it can't connect to pop.gmail.com. Other email accounts work fine.
>
> While I beat my head against a wall trying to work out what's going on,
> I wonder whether anyone can point me to an IP address for pop.gmail.com
> that I might use in the interim? I've got 173.194.78.109 from my desk
> here in London, but I was wondering whether accessing it from Singapore
> might prove problematic?
>
> Many thanks.

$ dig a pop.gmail.com

; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> a pop.gmail.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1708
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;pop.gmail.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
pop.gmail.com. 256 IN CNAME gmail-pop.l.google.com.
gmail-pop.l.google.com. 277 IN A 173.194.66.109
gmail-pop.l.google.com. 277 IN A 173.194.66.108

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
google.com. 109808 IN NS ns4.google.com.
google.com. 109808 IN NS ns2.google.com.
google.com. 109808 IN NS ns1.google.com.
google.com. 109808 IN NS ns3.google.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.google.com. 22405 IN A 216.239.32.10
ns2.google.com. 22405 IN A 216.239.34.10
ns3.google.com. 22405 IN A 216.239.36.10
ns4.google.com. 22405 IN A 216.239.38.10





--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

[Roger]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2014 14:31:13 +0100, "Bob" <b...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>A colleague abroad is having strange problems accessing her Gmail using
>Outlook 2003 (via POP). Until a few days ago, everything worked fine (and
>yes, we've checked for strange new installed programs and updates). Now it
>just presents her with an error - 0x800408fc - and says it can't connect to
>pop.gmail.com. Other email accounts work fine.
>
>While I beat my head against a wall trying to work out what's going on, I
>wonder whether anyone can point me to an IP address for pop.gmail.com that I
>might use in the interim? I've got 173.194.78.109 from my desk here in
>London, but I was wondering whether accessing it from Singapore might prove
>problematic?

There is the problem of not knowing about Google's network. If I
do a ping to that address I get 14 ms which means that it is in
Europe, probably the UK. Even if your colleague gets the same IP
addresses as we do (as above plus 173.194.78.108) I doubt that
she will be accessing the same physical servers.
--
Roger

[Theo Markettos]

c...@isbd.net wrote:
> It should be the same from everywhere, what I get is:-

It isn't. Google's DNS returns different values depending on where you are.

New York:

pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.

gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.68.109
gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.68.108
gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2607:f8b0:400d:c00::6d

Maidenhead:

pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.

gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.66.108
gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.66.109
gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:400c:c03::6d

Frankfurt:

pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.

gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 74.125.136.109
gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 74.125.136.108
gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:4013:c01::6d

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Er no

The same lookup will return different results depending when you
actually look.

TTL on the record is 5 minutes so its presumably a way to load balance
the thing.

173.194.64.108/09 is shown a few minutes ago
173.194.77.108/09 from the SAME lookup website

[Brian Gregory]

For some old UK gmail accounts you have to use pop.googlemail.com

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

[c...@isbd.net]

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 27/04/14 20:06, Theo Markettos wrote:
> > c...@isbd.net wrote:
> >> It should be the same from everywhere, what I get is:-
> >
> > It isn't. Google's DNS returns different values depending on where you are.
> >
> > New York:
> > pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.68.109
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.68.108
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2607:f8b0:400d:c00::6d
> >
> > Maidenhead:
> > pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.66.108
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 173.194.66.109
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:400c:c03::6d
> >
> > Frankfurt:
> > pop.gmail.com is an alias for gmail-pop.l.google.com.
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 74.125.136.109
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has address 74.125.136.108
> > gmail-pop.l.google.com has IPv6 address 2a00:1450:4013:c01::6d
> >
> > Theo
> >
> Er no
>
> The same lookup will return different results depending when you
> actually look.
>

Yes, that would be my take on how Google varies the response, as I
understand how DNS works (not in *great* depth) there's no way that a
response can be varied on the basis of who asks because the server
won't know who asked.

--
Chris Green

[c...@isbd.net]

Theo Markettos <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> c...@isbd.net wrote:
> > It should be the same from everywhere, what I get is:-
>
> It isn't. Google's DNS returns different values depending on where you are.
>

But how does it know 'where you are'? It doesn't *directly* see your
DNS query so it can't map replies on the basis of where the query
comes from.

--
Chris Green

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

c...@isbd.net wrote:

>Theo Markettos <theom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>> c...@isbd.net wrote:
>> > It should be the same from everywhere, what I get is:-
>>
>> It isn't. Google's DNS returns different values depending on where you
are.
>>
>But how does it know 'where you are'? It doesn't *directly* see your
>DNS query

If you are using Google's DNS servers then they certainly do see the DNS
query - it's their function. If you use someone else's then it's less
clear...

But whereas eg a UK ISP probably only has one (set) of DNS servers, if you
use eg OpenDNS's servers they must have multiple sets - perhaps one in the
UK, a few in mainland Europe, and so on... It doesn't make sense that
someone in Alaska & someone in New Zealand would both have their DNS
requests routed to the same single server.

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to newsre...@wingsandbeaks.org.uk replacing "aaa" by "284".

[George Weston]

Slightly off-topic but does anyone have an answer to this?
I have a secondary gmail address that I access via POP3 (Window Live
Mail), which I set up to receive things like neighbourhood watch reports
and then forward them on, BCC, to local recipients (a list of about 100
email addresses).
The receive function still works but recently, when I go to forward
stuff on, it generates an error, so I now have to forward emails via my
personal email address.
It looks as if gmail now has a block on bulk forwarding.
Any thoughts?

[Kraftee]

"George Weston" <geow...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
news:bs6qoq...@mid.individual.net...

What error code are you getting?

[Andy Burns]

Jeremy Nicoll wrote:

> c...@isbd.net wrote:

>
>> Theo Markettos wrote:
> >
>>> Google's DNS returns different values depending on where you
>>> are.
>>
>> But how does it know 'where you are'? It doesn't *directly* see your
>> DNS query
>
> If you are using Google's DNS servers then they certainly do see the DNS
> query - it's their function. If you use someone else's then it's less
> clear...
>
> But whereas eg a UK ISP probably only has one (set) of DNS servers, if you
> use eg OpenDNS's servers they must have multiple sets - perhaps one in the
> UK, a few in mainland Europe, and so on...

And then you enter the spooky world of anycast IP addresses, the
multiple DNS servers can all have the same IP address, even though they
are located on different continents, you communicate with the one that's
'closest' to you ...

[George Weston]

"An unknown error has occurred.
Subject 'Fw: Neighbourhood Watch: Observe How Gwent PCC Makes His Decisions'
Server: 'smtp.googlemail.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0B
Protocol: SMTP
Port: 25
Secure(SSL): Yes"

Any ideas?

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 29/04/14 11:26, George Weston wrote:
>>> It looks as if gmail now has a block on bulk forwarding.
>>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> What error code are you getting?
>>
>>
> "An unknown error has occurred.
> Subject 'Fw: Neighbourhood Watch: Observe How Gwent PCC Makes His
> Decisions'
> Server: 'smtp.googlemail.com'
> Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0B
> Protocol: SMTP
> Port: 25
> Secure(SSL): Yes"
>
> Any ideas?

That error means 'I couldn't communicate with SMTP at all', Not 'it
rejected my mail'

The causes that a quick google reveals are usually either than port 25
(SMTP) is blocked or that SSL is incorrectly configured or not needed
at all.


Try dropping down to a command shell and see if you can telnet the
target on port 25 or not.

$ telnet smtp.googlemail.com 25
Trying 173.194.66.16...
Connected to googlemail-smtp.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mx.google.com ESMTP b1sm30504539wjb.37 - gsmtp
helo albert
250 mx.google.com at your service


...so not sure that SSL is needed..isn't that normally on a different
port entirely?

This document suggests it should be port 465 for SSL upload and POP on
995 for SSL encrypted downloads.


https://support.google.com/mail/answer/86383

It looks to me like you have something that shouldn't work but happens
to in one case but not in another.

Its not them, its you.

Set it up properly!

[George Weston]

Thanks for that - will investigate!

[George Weston]

Checked settings, which were previously set to user...@googlemail.com -
changed these to user...@gmail.com but this shouldn't make any
difference, as the two are now merged anyway.
Also changed the O/G (SMTP) port from 25 to 465. (I/C was already set to
995).
(Port 25 was set originally, many years ago when I first started using
googlemail, as instructed by googlemail, and has worked ever since and
had not been changed until today.)
Tried sending some test messages over port 465 and got exactly the same
result as previous, thus:
Email to single recipients are sent.
Email to my bulk list (100 recipients) rejected with same error message
as before.
(Sending the bulk email from my ISP's POP3 account works OK)
Back to square 1 - albeit using the correct O/G port now.
I'm now thinking that gmail has either recently put a block on
sending/forwarding emails to perhaps >99 addresses or that such a block
already existed, as I've recently added a couple of new addresses to my
bulk list, now totalling 101. Next step - check with gmail...

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 29/04/14 13:03, George Weston wrote:
> Email to my bulk list (100 recipients) rejected with same error message
> as before.

Ah. you didnt say that the system works with a single address.

Yes google is trying to reduce use of it as spam central


Suggest using a different email system to send mail

Like your ISPs smtp relay instead.

[George Weston]

On 29/04/2014 16:09, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 29/04/14 13:03, George Weston wrote:
>> Email to my bulk list (100 recipients) rejected with same error message
>> as before.
>
>
>
> Ah. you didnt say that the system works with a single address.
>
> Yes google is trying to reduce use of it as spam central
>
>
> Suggest using a different email system to send mail
>
> Like your ISPs smtp relay instead.
>
>
>

Yep - that's what I've been doing.
Thanks for confirming what I thought.

[Steve]

Bob pretended :

> A colleague abroad is having strange problems accessing her Gmail using
> Outlook 2003 (via POP).

Office 2003 (and so Outlook 2003 I presume) has now reached end-of-life
like XP and won't be getting any more security updates/patches, so I'd
advise your friend to get a new email program.

[The Natural Philosopher]

thunderbird??

[Kraftee]

"Steve" <no...@needed.com> wrote in message
news:Kv2dnW_EwJFlfcLO...@bt.com...

Or have a reasonably good AV program loaded..

[Brian Gregory]

Many ISPs will allow you to send using their outgoing SMTP relay with
the from field still containing your gmail address. So the recipients
still see the emails as being from your gmail address.

[Brian Gregory]

On 29/04/2014 16:09, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Ah. you didnt say that the system works with a single address.

I thought he pretty much implied it did.

[Andy Burns]

Brian Gregory wrote:

> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Ah. you didnt say that the system works with a single address.
>
> I thought he pretty much implied it did.

He did, perhaps TNP thought that George was the O/P rather than that
George had tacked a supplementary question onto Bob's thread?

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 30/04/14 01:18, Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 29/04/2014 16:36, George Weston wrote:
>> On 29/04/2014 16:09, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 29/04/14 13:03, George Weston wrote:
>>>> Email to my bulk list (100 recipients) rejected with same error message
>>>> as before.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ah. you didnt say that the system works with a single address.
>>>
>>> Yes google is trying to reduce use of it as spam central
>>>
>>>
>>> Suggest using a different email system to send mail
>>>
>>> Like your ISPs smtp relay instead.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Yep - that's what I've been doing.
>> Thanks for confirming what I thought.
>>
>>
>
> Many ISPs will allow you to send using their outgoing SMTP relay with
> the from field still containing your gmail address. So the recipients
> still see the emails as being from your gmail address.
>

most isps allow you to send anything if its from an ip address that
'belongs to them'

[George Weston]

On 30/04/2014 10:43, brightside S9 wrote:

> On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 13:03:33 +0100, George Weston
> <geow...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Checked settings, which were previously set to user...@googlemail.com -
>> changed these to user...@gmail.com but this shouldn't make any
>> difference, as the two are now merged anyway.
>> Also changed the O/G (SMTP) port from 25 to 465. (I/C was already set to
>> 995).
>> (Port 25 was set originally, many years ago when I first started using
>> googlemail, as instructed by googlemail, and has worked ever since and
>> had not been changed until today.)
>> Tried sending some test messages over port 465 and got exactly the same
>> result as previous, thus:
>> Email to single recipients are sent.
>> Email to my bulk list (100 recipients) rejected with same error message
>> as before.
>> (Sending the bulk email from my ISP's POP3 account works OK)
>> Back to square 1 - albeit using the correct O/G port now.
>> I'm now thinking that gmail has either recently put a block on
>> sending/forwarding emails to perhaps>99 addresses or that such a block
>> already existed, as I've recently added a couple of new addresses to my
>> bulk list, now totalling 101. Next step - check with gmail...
>

> Have you tried a google search 'gmail smpt limit'
>
> There appears to be limits set for various users and other things. All
> above my head though!
>
Many thanks for the heads up.
Found it!
https://support.google.com/a/answer/166852?hl=en
As I suspected, they set a limit of 100 addressees for each email sent.
Next step - trawl through my list of 101 contacts and see if I can
delete anyone!

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

George Weston <geow...@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

> As I suspected, they set a limit of 100 addressees for each email sent.
> Next step - trawl through my list of 101 contacts and see if I can delete
> anyone!

If you're originating all the outbound messages, why not just split the
contacts list down the middle and send everything out twice, to each half of
the list.

If other people are posting, take each incoming mail that needs distributed
to all recipients and send it just to two other special addresses, then use
those as if they were the mail-list distribution addresses for each half of
the list. Or something.

[The Natural Philosopher]

split it in two

[Brian Gregory]

Ah yes, probably.

[alexd]

c...@isbd.net (for it is he) wrote:

> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>> The same lookup will return different results depending when you
>> actually look.

It /may/ do that.

> Yes, that would be my take on how Google varies the response, as I
> understand how DNS works (not in *great* depth) there's no way that a
> response can be varied on the basis of who asks because the server
> won't know who asked.

Google's DNS servers may not know who you are, but they have an idea of
where the DNS request originates from, either because you're using their
public DNS server, or because you're using your ISP's DNS server, and Google
know where that is. As such, it makes perfect sense to direct you to their
UK servers if they think you or the DNS server through which you made the
request is in the UK. If the UK servers are having a problem, then they can
direct UK users elsewhere. This isn't unique to Google, anyone else with
vast customer bases [Facebook, Akamai, Microsoft, etc] will be doing similar
things.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEs...@ale.cx)
23:02:23 up 120 days, 41 min, 9 users, load average: 0.48, 0.38, 0.41
"If being trapped in a tropical swamp with Anthony Worral-Thompson and
Christine Hamilton is reality then I say, pass the mind-altering drugs"
-- Humphrey Lyttleton