Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
CMondavi
Newbie

We have an off-site employee in the Boston area who uses Verizon for her household internet access (the package includes web access, land line & mobile service).

When she started with our company, we issued to her a notebook with Lotus Notes 8.5.3

While at home, the employee has found that her outgoing Notes mail with large file attachments is slow to be delivered. Sometimes it will not go out at all. Messages with small or no attachments are delivered normally.

Apparently the email works normally using a different web connection, like a public WiFi hot spot.

We just issued a new notebook to her, and the behavior is the same.

Earlier this week, we verified that her 7MB email to me required 10 minutes for delivery.

We tested 3 addresses with the same results.

We disabled Symantec Endpoint Protection, but that made no difference.

Strangely, web browsing performs normally & high bandwidth activities like streaming video work fine.

Also, other PCs in her house (using a different email client) send even large emails very quickly.

We have several dozen remote users, and no others have this issue.

Again, the connection is not entirely blocked -- just slow performance with outgoing email.

Is there any known conflict between Verizon and Notes or SEP?

Thanks,

Jim

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Re: Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
tlb7
Contributor - Level 3

Not sure I can help but...why let that stop me...'-}}

First...while I used LN many, many eons ago, I'm not up on current versions so I certainly may well be wrong.

You use the term "delivery" and I take that to mean that actual time it takes from email send by the originator to email receipt by the recipient. Is that what you mean by "delivery"? If so, I suspect that it's the vagaries of whatever Verizon network server/"path" the mail takes from Boston to wherever you are located.

If, by "delivery" you mean the amount of time it takes for the email to have completed the sending process in the email client after clicking on the Send button (vs. anyone receiving the email) then, I suspect that the issue more than likely has nothing to do with LN but is on the Verizon side and also more than likely may be due to Verizon's outgoing email spam scanners being slow--I use Eudora and I find that send mail process is slow, particularly with either long emails, emails with a number of embedded links and/or any sort of attachment.

You could probably test the slowness-threshold by creating a series of attachments of varying sizes--you know how long a 7mb attachment takes so what happens with say a 2mb or 4mb or 6mb attachment? You may find a sweet-spot attachment size. 7mb does approach what I believe is the Verizon mail max of 10mb so I suspect that even without the issues you've described, 7mb is going to take longer to "process".

Hope the above might be useful...

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Re: Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
CMondavi
Newbie

Yes, the delivery time in my description is from when the Verizon user hits "send" to the arrival in my inbox.  The slow delivery is peculiar, but the big problem is when no delivery happens.  Think I'll ask the user to run a web connection speed test -- now I'm curious about her upload speed.  IBM has offered to analyze the Notes log, but it sounds like that would be more in connection with SEP.  We use that security software on all our PCs, so don't see that as the cause.

The twist to this is that email performance is fine on the other PC in the household (owned by our employee).  When Notes mail gets stuck, she can use the other PC which has no trouble sending out large files like her PowerPoint business presentations.  Think she said the client is Outlook.  However, her husband uses that PC for his business, so it's not an alternative except in an emergency.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.  If a solution is found, will post an update here.  

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Re: Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
tlb7
Contributor - Level 3

>>cmondavi: Yes, the delivery time in my description is from when the Verizon user hits "send" to the arrival in my inbox. 

Thanks for clarifying...'-}}

>>The slow delivery is peculiar, but the big problem is when no delivery happens.

How long do you wait to think "no delivery"?

>>The twist to this is that email performance is fine on the other PC in the household (owned by our employee). 

Hmmmm...that to me (as to you) points to something in LN although it could be some setting difference(s) between the different systems. Any possibility that LN could be installed on the husband's system to see if the same thing happens? Is the O/S the same on both systems? A/V the same on both systems? Firewall?

I think there is software out that that will do a trace on sent emails--I've read about but can't remember the name of the software and I'm not sure how it works. If I'm correct that this sort of software exists, it seems to me that it might well give you the detail level info that you need for what's going on behind the scenes.

Logically, the LN sent mail and the Outlook (oh! gag! '-}}) sent mail should use the same Verizon servers but perhaps there is something in how the LN sent mail is processed by Verizon that delays the sending? I use Eudora and recently had problems with outgoing mail--error message would display but very often sending a second time would go through just fine.

It turned out to be a problem with "CRAM-MD5" such that adding the line "SmtpAuthBanished=CRAM-MD5" (no quotes) to Eudora's ini file in the [Settings] section fixed the problem (see post #7 by user "jfadden" on page 3--this link is to page--of the following thread: http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-net-Email/problems-sending-email-what-authentication-is-needed/... )

>>Thanks for your thoughts on this.  If a solution is found, will post an update here. 

You're welcome...do post an update as I'm curious...

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Re: Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
CMondavi
Newbie

If delivery requires more than an hour, that is an unacceptable delay.  One test sent to me took a week to be received – that was a surprise.

Unfortunately, the husband’s PC cannot be used for any diagnostics.  It is in continuous use for his business.

Once our employee has some time, we’ll create a log file as advised by IBM.

Thanks for sharing your experience & for the link.  Hope to have an update soon.

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Re: Outgoing Lotus Notes email slow
tlb7
Contributor - Level 3

>>cmondavi: If delivery requires more than an hour, that is an unacceptable delay.  One test sent to me took a week to be received – that was a surprise.

There's definitely something wrong...those receive times are bad...

>>Unfortunately, the husband’s PC cannot be used for any diagnostics.  It is in continuous use for his business.

Bummer...

>>Thanks for sharing your experience & for the link.  Hope to have an update soon.

You're welcome...hope the log helps get things sorted out...I'm very curious about what you will find so, if you remember, do post an update when you get a chance...

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