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SMTP Status Codes Library PDF
SMTP Status Codes Library PDF
1.
1.0.1
1.1.1
2.
2.0.0
2.1.1
2.1.4
2.2.0
2.2.1
2.5.0
2.5.1
2.5.2
3.
3.5.4
4.
4.2.0
4.2.1
4.2.2
4.3.1
4.3.2
4.4.1
4.4.2
4.4.6
4.4.7
4.5.0
4.5.1
4.5.2
4.6.5
4.7.1
5.
5.0.0
5.0.1
5.0.2
5.0.3
5.0.4
5.1.x
5.1.0
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.1.4
5.1.5
5.1.6
5.1.7
5.2.x
5.2.1
5.2.2
5.2.3
5.2.4
5.3.0
5.3.1
5.3.2
5.3.3
5.3.4
5.3.5
5.4.0
5.4.1
5.4.2
5.4.3
5.4.4
5.4.6
5.4.7
5.4.8
5.5.0
5.5.1
5.5.2
5.5.3
5.5.4
5.5.5
5.6.3
5.7.1
5.7.2
5.7.3
5.7.4
5.7.5
5.7.6
5.7.7
Page 1
Message Description
The sending mail server is unable to start an SMTP session with the receiving mail server.
Typical causes include:
The sending mail server is unable to communicate with the receiving mail server
Typical causes include:
A Linux email system software configuration error.
A newly installed or configured firewall preventing connection to the receiving mail
server
Incorrect hostnames and/or IP addresses
The sending mail server received a nonstandard success response from the receiving mail
server see rfc876
This code prefaces a message about the receiving mail server status or a System help
reply to the user requesting help information
This code is in reply to the HELP command. It displays information about the receiving
mail server
This is normally the first message received from the receiving mail server and indicates
that the mail service is running
SMTP Code 2.2.1 : The domain service is closing the transmission channel
The receiving mail server is ending the mail session the conversation with the sending
mail server is ending as there is no more mail to send in the session
Message Description
Page 2
Message Description
The sending mail server has successfully delivered the message. The message was
accepted and transmitted OK
The email account is not local to the receiving mail server but the server will accept the
mail and will forward it
The user account appears to be valid but cannot be verified, however the receiving mail
server will try to deliver the message
This code is generated in response to the DATA command. The receiving mail server has
received the From and To information and is now asking for the Message Body.
In response to this code, the sending mail server must send the body of the message to
the receiving mail server and indicate the end of the message body with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
This is a Novell GroupWise SMTP error generated by the sending mail server when
communications problems occur during the transmission of the actual message between
the sending and receiving mail servers.
Typical causes include:
The receiving mail servers anti-spam firewall does not like the sending mail servers IP
address or HELO command
A physical communication problem with the network, switches, routers, firewall or
internet line
SMTP Code 4.2.1 : Service not available the sending email program should
try again later
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Message Description
Typical causes include:
The recipients mailbox is over the storage limit
The message delivery directory on the receiving mail server is currently over a size limit
imposed by the Network Administrator
The email being sent is larger than the incoming email size limit in operation at the
receiving mail server
SMTP Code 4.3.1 : The recipients mail server is experiencing a Disk Full
condition
The receiving mail server is experiencing a Disk Full error condition, or an Out of Memory
error condition
SMTP Code 4.3.2 : The recipients Exchange Server incoming mail queue has
been stopped
This is an SMTP status response specific to Microsoft Exchange Server and indicates that
the receiving mail servers incoming mail queue has been stopped and cannot deliver any
email messages at this time
This code emanates from the sending mail server when the receiving mail server is not
responding. The sending mail server will automatically try again a number of times
The sending mail server started delivering the message but the connection was broken
during transmission.
Typical causes include:
Any type of network related issue that could result in a connection being broken
between the sending and receiving mail servers
SMTP Code 4.4.6 : The maximum hop count was exceeded for the message
Page 4
Message Description
Your outgoing message timed out because of problems with the receiving mail server
that objected to your message
Typical causes include:
There is a problem with the message header such as too many recipients
There is a protocol timeout between the sending and receiving mail servers
This code indicates that a temporary routing error occurred or that a bad routing
configuration exists between the sending and receiving mail servers
Typical causes include:
A Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) connector is configured to use DNS without a
smart host and is also configured to use a non-SMTP address space such as an X.400
address space.
A message was sent to a recipient who was identified as a member of a routing group
that was deleted.
SMTP Code 4.5.0 : Requested action not taken the mailbox was unavailable
at the remote end
The receiving mail server could not access the mailbox to deliver the message.
Typical causes include:
Page 5
Message Description
The action has been aborted by the receiving mail server due to some local problem or
error on that server.
Typical causes include:
Overloading on the receiving mail server from too many messages
Error in relaying the message from the sending mail server due to a transient failure,
e.g. DNS, Greylisting
The message has been rejected by the receiving mail server because of anti-spam
measures
The receiving mail servers disk system has run out of storage space, so the action had to
be cancelled.
SMTP Code 4.7.1 : This is a local error with the sending mail server and is
often followed with Please try again later
The last command sent by the sending mail server was not recognized as a valid SMTP or
ESMTP command or is not formatted in the way the that the receiving mail server
expected
Page 6
Message Description
The command sent by the sending mail server was correct and recognised, but the
parameters (the arguments, e.g. email address) were not valid.
Typical causes include:
An invalid email address
An invalid domain name recipient
A Unix/Linux SEND MAIL command which does not follow the established standards
The command or function issued by the sending mail server is valid but has not been
activated as it is not supported by the receiving mail server
SMTP Code 5.0.3 : Bad sequence of commands or the remote SMTP server
requires authentication
The command and parameter sent by the sending mail server are both valid, but the
parameter is not implemented on the receiving mail server, or a parameter is missing
This code indicates a general categorizer-based failure (bad address failure). An e-mail
address or other attribute could not be found in the receiving mail server directory.
Typical causes include:
Email contact entries do not have the targetAddress attribute set and occurs most
frequently when MDAccess receives "object not found" errors from DSAccess when the
Categorizer is doing the homeMDB lookup on a user.
Microsoft Outlook is used to save an e-mail message as a file and someone opens and
replies to this message offline.
Page 7
Message Description
The e-mail account does not exist at the organization the message was sent to.
Typical causes include:
The recipient e-mail address was entered incorrectly by the sender.
No recipient exists in the destination e-mail system.
The recipient mailbox has been moved and the Microsoft Office Outlook recipient
cache on the sender's computer has not updated.
An invalid legacy domain name (DN) exists for the recipient mailbox Active Directory.
SMTP Code 5.1.2 : The host server for the recipients domain name cannot be
found (DNS error)
This code is received when one of the mail servers on the way to the destination is
unable to resolve the domain name of a recipient email address
Typical causes include:
The recipient email address contains an incorrect (misspelt or non-existent) domain
name
The sending or receiving mail server has a DNS problem and cannot resolve domain
names
Two or more recipients in the Exchange organization have the same address.
Typical causes include:
This error typically occurs because of a misconfiguration in Active Directory. Possibly
because of replication problems, two recipient objects in Active Directory have the
same SMTP address or Exchange Server (EX) address
Page 8
Message Description
The recipients mailbox address at the receiving mail server does not exist or is invalid
SMTP Code 5.1.7 : Problem with senders mail attribute. Check properties
sheet in ADUC
The sender has a malformed or missing SMTP address, the mail attribute in the directory
service. The mail item cannot be delivered without a valid mail attribute.
SMTP Code 5.2.x : Problem with the large size of the email
SMTP Code 5.2.2 : The recipient's mailbox has exceeded its storage quota and Typical causes include:
is no longer able to accept new messages.
The recipient's mailbox storage quota is insufficient and has been exceeded.
The recipient must reduce the size of the mailbox or the administrator must increase
the storage quota before delivery can be successful
SMTP Code 5.2.3 : The message is too large, and the local quota is exceeded
The mailbox storage and the queue storage quota limit on the receiving mail server have
been exceeded.
The recipient is in a misconfigured dynamic distribution list. Either the filter string or the
base DN of the dynamic distribution list is invalid.
Page 9
Message Description
Typical causes include:
The sending mail server requires authentication (username +password) every time a
mail is sent
The sending mail server has been blacklisted by the receiving mail server
The recipients mailbox does not exist at the organization
SMTP Code 5.3.1 : Mail system full. Check recipient server mail store
database size limit
The receiving mail servers mailbox store database size may have reached the 16Gig limit
and will no longer accept mail
The receiving mail server is not accepting network messages and is likely due to some
connectivity issue.
SMTP Code 5.3.3 : Remote server has insufficient disk space to hold email.
Check SMTP log.
SMTP Code 5.3.4 : Message too big. Check message size limits in remote
server system policy
SMTP Code 5.3.5 : Multiple virtual servers are using the same IP address and
port. Email probably looping
Page 10
Message Description
There is no DNS server that can resolve email address.
Typical causes include:
An invalid IP address has been entered for one of the mail servers
One of the mail servers does not have a valid fully qualified domain name (FQDN)
Lookup of one of the mail servers FQDN failed
This response is almost always sent back by an anti-spam, intrusion prevention, or mail
filtering appliance / firewall at the receiving server end.
The sending mail server cannot establish a connection with the receiving mail server
The sending mail server cannot route mails to the receiving mail server
SMTP Code 5.4.4 : Cannot find the next hop. Check the routing group
connector
This code occurs if no route exists for message delivery, or if the categorizer could not
determine the next-hop destination.
Typical causes include:
The domain name specified in the email address is invalid
No mail exchanger (MX) records exist for the specified domain name
Page 11
Message Description
The message was considered too old by the receiving mail server, either because it
remained on that host too long or because the time-to-live value specified by the sender
of the message was exceeded.
SMTP Code 5.4.8 : Microsoft advise. Check your recipient policy. SMTP
address should be cp.com Not server.cp.com
SMTP Code 5.5.1 : User not local or invalid address - Relay denied
Message Description
Page 12
Message Description
Typical causes include:
The recipients mailbox has reached its maximum allowed size
The size of the incoming message exceeds the incoming size limit of the recipients
mailbox, as specified by the Network Administrator
There is an invalid email address in the To, CC, or BCC field of the email message
The sending mail server is trying to send through as specific ISPs SMTP server and yet
the sending server is not connected to the internet through that ISP
The email is being sent from a Microsoft Exchange server configured to send directly
via DNS (rather than relaying to an ISPs SMTP server) and there is no public reverse
DNS record pointing back to the public IP of the Exchange server
There was a permanent error trying to complete the mail transaction which will not be
resolved by resending the message in its current form. Some change to the message
and/or destination must be made for successful delivery.
Typical causes include:
The receiving mail server believes that the email being sent is spam or that the IP
Address of the sending mail server has been blacklisted.
The email address does not exist or has been disabled
With IBMs Lotus Domino this is either a Domino bug or a Disk Full error
An SMTP command utilised by the sending mail server is not recognised by the receiving
mail server
Typical causes include:
An incompatible SMTP protocol version between the sending/receiving mail servers
Page 13
Message Description
Typical causes include:
The email message contains more than 250 attachments. More than 250 attachments
cause the MAPI_E_TOO_BIG error.
The email has been sent with a malformed addr822 header.
SMTP Code 5.7.1 : Unable to relay or Delivery not authorized or Client was
not authenticated
The receiving mail server will not relay any mails received from the sending mail server
Typical causes include:
Unable to relay
A third party tries to use a receiving mail server to send spam, and the receiving mail
server rejects the attempt. By the nature of spam, the sender's e-mail address may
have been forged and the resulting NDR could have been sent to the unsuspecting
sender's e-mail address.
A domain name service (DNS) mail exchanger (MX) record for a domain points to a
receiving mail server where that domain is not accepted.
A sending mail server or client that should use the receiving mail server to relay
messages does not have the correct permissions to do this.
This error occurs when the sender tries to send a message to a recipient but the sender
is not authorized to do this. The sender must request permission to send messages to
the recipient.
This error occurs when the receiving mail server must be authenticated before
message submission, and the sending mail server has not authenticated with the
receiving mail server.
Page 14
Message Description
Typical causes include:
The sending mail server prohibited reassignment to the alternate recipient.
The external IP address of the ISA server does not match the SMTP publishing rule
The email cannot be processed because it would violate the security policy in force on
the receiving mail server
Typical causes include:
There is an invalid PTR record that does not match the domain/hostname of the
sending mail server
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