GMX.com delivery delays to Shaw.ca
 

I was sending several messages from GMX.com webmail to accounts at Shaw.ca and Telus.net . 2021-Nov-21 to 2021-Nov-23.

The messages took from 9:30 to 17:30 to be delivered to Shaw.ca .
All delay times ended in 30 minutes. For 8 messages the average delay was 12:30 .

There were no delays in the copies delivered to Telus.net (now powered by GMail).


My last test was in 2016, and there were no delays at that time.

To be clear I mean delays of 9 hours and 30 minutes to 17 hours and 30 minutes, with an average delay of 12 hours and 30 minutes.

No delays today.

Similar issue?
 

I’ve recently experienced a similar issue with emails sent to a Shaw.ca address taking many hours, while emails to other addresses were delivered promptly. I’m using Mailpoet (normally very reliable) to send emails from a website. Did you determine what the issue was with Shaw?

Unfortunately no, I don't know the cause.
I don't know whether

• GMX didn't want to talk Shaw
• Shaw didn't want to talk to GMX
• the format of my test messages was tagged as possible spam
• there was a glitch due to the time zone difference

Hmmm, looks like it's slow again today.
Just sent a test message to Shaw and Telus addresses. It has arrived at Telus, but not at Shaw yet.

Thanks, CyberSmurf.

Different Email servers have different spam rules and use different blacklists, so I can imagine a scenario where Shaw blocks email from a particular sender while Telus and others do not. But when emails are delayed for 12 hours or so, I don’t understand what is happening there.

I’m continuing to investigate.

I think I may have discovered a workaround for my problem. I am using the Wp forms plug-in in Word Press, members complete a COVID waiver form online, and when submitted they get a nicely formatted email with their completed form, which they can show to the activity leader. After changing the settings for WP forms to send emails as Plain Text rather than HTML, the emails are now being delivered promptly to all addressees, rather than 12 hours later for shaw.ca addressees. The emails are no longer nicely formatted, but we can live with that.

Obviously Shaw doesn’t have a problem with most html emails, it is just these particular ones created by WP forms, and strangely only when I use Mailpoet to send the emails. It is not obvious (to me) what exactly it was in my html emails that caused Shaw to delay delivery, but at least I now have a potential workaround.

Of course I could be wrong about my workaround, I guess it is possible that it works this morning only because Shaw is in a better mood today, time will tell.

Today's test only took 1:06 to be delivered. (1 hour six minutes)

Hi deedub,
I sent two messages from GMX to Shaw, one html and one text. They both were delayed by the same amount.

I did a new test where I set a filter in a GMail account to forward messages from @GMX to a Shaw address. I sent a test message to the GMail account and a different Shaw account.
Not surprisingly, the copy routed through GMail arrived at Shaw right away, while the copy direct to the other Shaw account was delayed.

Hi CyberSmurf,

I guess I jumped to conclusions about plain text versus HTML — when I tried sending plain text emails yesterday, the ones to Shaw.ca addresses were again delayed 10+ hours. So that is not the magic solution, and it is still a mystery as to why Shaw sometimes delays the emails.

… and this morning emails to Shaw are being delivered promptly(???)