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rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

Occasionally I get an email that had been sent hours earlier. For instance today I received an email that according to the time stamp had been sent about 4:30 this afternoon but I didn't receive it until about 10:30 at night.

Does this happen to anyone else and do you have any idea why?

sunny

bigR · Oct 14, 2004

Could be any of a number of things. A bottleneck somewhere along the route, but most likely a mail server is overwhelmed by either a denial of service attack or a deluge of spam and is queuing incoming mail, then slowly working its way through the backlog. Anyway, that's my thought on it.

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

That makes sense, bigR, but not sure it applies in this case. It can happen with one email out of several from this person the same day. For instance that 4:30 email I mentioned was one of the first that day from one certain person, there were several later that came through just fine.

Still I suppose your theory could apply, I don't know enough about the workings of email or just how it's handled on the server.

Thank, bigR.

sunny

Glenn I · Apr 22, 2005

The FBI or CIA are reading your mail.

rb2d2 · Sep 25, 2004

I wouldn't be a bit surprised!

wave

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

bigR · Oct 14, 2004

Or the sender could be sending it out later, not immediately after it's written. Check the full headers, and you should be able to see what time each server got the email. You may have to adjust for time zones, but you should be able to see where the email got hung up.