The story described herein is true. The names were changed to protect the innocent.
Case Number 1:
Oscar sent an email (no attachment) to Sally. Sally received that email.
Oscar sent another email – with a 100k-file attachment – to Sally. Oscar received no errors related to that delivery. Sally received ONLY the email, not the attachment. Her ISP had no error related to that email.
Case Number 2:
Felix sent an email (no attachment) to Sally. Sally received that email.
Felix sentanother email – with a 100k-file attachment – to Sally. Felix received an error stating that the attachment exceeded the allowable size. His mail server has no file attachment limit (so he says). Sally received neither the email nor the attachment. Her mail server (hosted by her ISP) has an attachment limit of 3mb. Her ISP had no error related to that email.
Testimony:
Felix and Oscar are not in the same location, nor do they use the same email system or ISP.
Oscar is able to send email attachments (so he says) to everyone else without problems.
Felix is able to send email attachments (so he says) to everyone else without problems.
Sally is able to receive email attachments (so she says) from everyone else without problems (atleast that she is aware of).
Summation:
This is the classic case of all involved blaming the other. And there are really four parties involved, Oscar or Felix, their respective ISPs, Sally, and her ISP.
Deliberation:
Sally is the one being held ultimately responsible to solve these problems. Should she be? Is she the best one suited to solve the problem? Who is the best one suited to solve it?
What happened to the file attachment Oscar sent? Felix had his email rejected. Why? And who rejected it?
This certainly is an odd couple of problems.
Does anyone care to testify to any or all of these questions?
Maxwell
