Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gmail having issues

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 460 posts

Re: Gmail having issues

#371

Post by octoberfranklin »

jeffbee wrote: post #263
octoberfranklin wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really cannot believe they did not immediately hack in a new rule to their SMTP server: never return a 5xx (permanent failure), instead return a 421 (temporary failure try again later). That simple fix buys them 24-72 hours to solve this properly. Yeah, it burdens servers sending mail to them because now they have to hold on to all mail (including mail that really is permanently undeliverable) for another day or so…

Why would that be better than just shutting off the delivery stack altogether?

In case less than 100% of gmail is experiencing this bug.

Re: Gmail having issues

#372

Post by bayindirh »

ascar wrote: post #326
bayindirh wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I said this in another comment but this seems like a naive way to react to an "address does not exist error" that they've already delivered to before. Like HTTP, SMTP is also designed to be stateless so, in the first place, the remote server shouldn't return a permanent error in temporary failure scenarios. The default error should be 450: "Requested action not taken – The user’s mailbox is unavailable”, not "the u…

Your answer kind of misses the point GP was trying to make. Google's mailserver could genuinely believe that the user doesn't exist, if the user service doesn't fail completely but cannot access part of the data and thus doesn't find a user record. In this case the returned "user doesn't exist" error is intended behavior of the mail server and the post you replied to still stands. If you sent to that email successful…

> Your answer kind of misses the point GP was trying to make.

Actually, I don't think so.

> Google's mailserver could genuinely believe that the user doesn't exist, if the user service doesn't fail completely but cannot access part of the data and thus doesn't find a user record.

As a system administrator and/or provider you have to think about worst case scenarios and provide sensible defaults. Your mail gateway should have some heartbeat checks to subsystems it depend on (AuthZ, AuthN, Storage, etc.) and it should switch to fail-safe mode if something happens. Auth is unreliable? Switch to soft-fail on everyone regardless of e-mail validity. Can hard fail others later, when Auth is sane.

Storage is unreliable? Queue until buffer fills, then switch to error 421 (The service is unavailable due to a connection problem: it may refer to an exceeded limit of simultaneous connections, or a more general temporary problem) or return a similar error.

SMTP allows a lot of transient error communication. Postfix, etc. has a lot of hooks to handle this stuff. Just do it. Being Google doesn't allow you to manage your services irresponsibly. If we can think it, they should be able to do it too.

Re: Gmail having issues

#373

Post by fwn »

gpmcadam wrote: post #366
oakfr wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting the same quality of service as gmail with your own mail server. The fact that gmail fails every so often (extremely rarely actually) is a good sign: zero failure would mean that they are over-investing in quality and losing flexibility. Gmail only needs to be as good as the best web service out there.

But you can pay for email from other providers like Fastmail and Proton and just have your own domain with MX pointing at them. Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product.

> Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product.

Services also tend to be better if lock-in effects on customers are low. ... and using your own domain for email does reduce lock-in significantly.

unrelated: the link in your profile does not seem to work.

Re: Gmail having issues

#374

Post by marcan_42 »

herodoturtle wrote: post #348
marcan_42 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the access to the services is remote, but I'd say having the entire team in the same room does help coordinate incident response.

Agreed. And I'd hope that their plan B of "get the whole team on Hangouts" isn't met with connection / auth issues. Kinda feel bad for the googlers. Hope they get this right.

When I was there they had an IRC network for this reason. I hope they still do. Not quite the same as VoIP but fewer dependencies...

Re: Gmail having issues

#375

Post by gpmcadam »

fwn wrote: post #373
gpmcadam wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can pay for email from other providers like Fastmail and Proton and just have your own domain with MX pointing at them. Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product.

> Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product. Services also tend to be better if lock-in effects on customers are low. ... and using your own domain for email does reduce lock-in significantly. unrelated: the link in your profile does not seem to work.

thanks! i stopped using keybase when they were acquired by zoom and didn't update my bio.

Re: Gmail having issues

#376

Post by aksss »

himinlomax wrote: post #341
vxNsr wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is your livelihood, but as someone who basically never wants marketing emails, all I can think is "nice" hopefully I get auto-unsub'ed from a ton of lists.

If they normally successfully deliver to gmail, it's safe to assume a large number of people who do receive their emails want to receive them.

That conclusion makes zero sense to me unless counting on the nebulous nature of the descriptor, “a large number”. They deliver successfully to my Gmail account on a regular basis so I must want to receive it? Feels like you’re telling me to stop dressing like a slut. ;)

Re: Gmail having issues

#377

Post by kuschku »

herodoturtle wrote: post #348
marcan_42 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the access to the services is remote, but I'd say having the entire team in the same room does help coordinate incident response.

Agreed. And I'd hope that their plan B of "get the whole team on Hangouts" isn't met with connection / auth issues. Kinda feel bad for the googlers. Hope they get this right.

That's why the network folks at Google and AWS use IRC for just that purpose. Simple, no external dependencies, just works.

Re: Gmail having issues

#378

Post by lima »

nikanj wrote: post #317
sebmellen wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very interested to know this as well. I am trying to switch my company over to Google Workspace right now and support has been telling me my signup issues will be "resolved in 48 hours or less." What a joke. And this after we're leaving AWS Workmail because of bounced emails. No luck with signing up so far.

Heavily recommend you don't switch your company over to Google. Microsoft seems to understand that in the enterprise world you actually have to have support personnel, not just an opaque AI without chance for appeal

Google has decent support for paying customers.

Re: Gmail having issues

#379

Post by oakfr »

fwn wrote: post #373
gpmcadam wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can pay for email from other providers like Fastmail and Proton and just have your own domain with MX pointing at them. Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product.

> Services are better in my opinion when you pay for them and you’re not the product. Services also tend to be better if lock-in effects on customers are low. ... and using your own domain for email does reduce lock-in significantly. unrelated: the link in your profile does not seem to work.

Does gmail have such a big lock-in effect on users since it allows them to use the gmail interface with their own email? (i.e. you can split the service and the UI)

Re: Gmail having issues

#380

Post by skrause »

cutler wrote: post #369
gpmcadam wrote: post #353

People will suggest running your own mail server, and if you have the time and energy then definitely do that. But the next best thing you can do is simply just use your own domain. That way, you can at least decide to migrate your email elsewhere. Don't use the free domains you get from things like gmail or other providers, because then you have to _change_ your email address, and not just your MX records.

The main problem with self-hosting is indiscriminate blacklisting by Google and Microsoft. You only need to be on the same network as some spam artist to end up shunned. The tech giants are our new overlords.

You can self-host the receiving side of your mail server (with spam filtering etc.), but send all your mail through a mail provider with a good reputation. Configure your own SMTP server to use that other server as a relay, you can even do your own DKIM signing before sending off your mail. At least then you shouldn't have a problem with IP reputation.
Post reply on HN