INWHGI (1): (I Never Would Have Guessed It)

OK so on the side I run a little hosting company. I'm migrating to another server. That means my customers have to change their email settings. So with this one customer, they have about 15 email addresses, and the Outlook settings had to be changed on all the computers.

No problem.

Except that two people discovered that when they send email, it appeared to send (went into sent mail folder) but in fact never arrived. They could check email but not send.

Thought at first that Port 25 was blocked, so we changed their SMTP server to use their local ISP. Nope.

Checked passwords. Nope.

Recreated accounts on the server. Nope.

Stared at the screen. Didn't help.

Wait! What's this? Something funny about that signature? Delete signature. Email goes through. Go to other problem computer, delete signature. Email goes through.

Go figure. Who'd a thunk that the signature would have anything to do with successfully sending email?

To my brother Jon: way to go, dude, for figuring this one out. I owe you BIG-time.

Part II:

We figured out what was going on. Both secretaries had the word "specialist" in their signature. What the big deal with "specialist"? Well, it contains the word "cialis."

And the hosting company was surreptitiously blocking, in fact, deep-sixing, in fact, completely swallowing without trace, any email containing the word "cialis." No matter where it occurred.

They changed the filter after I protested.