System slow - 2nd update

[turetzsr]

Hello Steve.  It might be tedious, but perhaps you should first try sending multiple reports, each with only one spam attachment.  If this works, perhaps you can try sending a report having two attachments and see whether it also works.  You might be right that the problem may have to do with unrecognzed delimiters for the attachments.  This would certainly explain why spamcop does not respond back.

Hi, tpe64,

...That I've done on several prior occasions.

...Since my last post, I have received replies to every one of my e-mail submissions (except my very latest), including one with one attachment followed by a carriage-return/ line-feed. All the others had three attachments but no CR/LF.

[darkmoebius]

Well, outside of that 30 minute blurb of activity, things are still jacked up for me.

49 submitted, 17 replies - midnight last night thru 11:45 tonight<_<

[turetzsr]

...Of the several submissions I've done today via e-mail, I have yet to receive a reply to one (the first) but have received replies to all the rest.

...New hypothesis: although the web submission version allows us to submit spam as much as 72 hours old, e-mail submission has a problem with anything more than <some yet-to-be-deterimined number less than 72>.

Edit: Update -- the one report I sent this morning for which I did not receive a response exceeded the (IIRC) 100K limit. All other reports I e-mailed today, save one, have had replies.

[trisha506]

Since Spamcop still owes me 50 acks, I see no reason to forward the stack I have in my inbox.

Does anyone know of any other anti-spam site?

[darkmoebius]

Does anyone know of any other anti-spam site?

Well Trisha,

I've been using SpamCop for 2+ years and have submitted probably 20,000+ spam (50 a day) reports. This is the first time that I have ever had any problem whatsoever, service has been flawless.

So, one week of problems is really a blip on a perfect record for me. If I was you, I'd wait a while before jumping ship.

On another odd note. recently I normally receive 70+ spam mails a day. For some reason, I have only gotten 11 since midnight last night. Out of those 11, I've received 2 SpamCop reports.

[turetzsr]

Since Spamcop still owes me 50 acks, I see no reason to forward the stack I have in my inbox.

Does anyone know of any other anti-spam site?

...SpamCop's website-based submission process: My earlier reply Even though the e-mail based submission process owes me replies but web-based submission process seems to work just fine.

[turetzsr]

<snip>

I've been using SpamCop for 2+ years and have submitted probably 20,000+ spam (50 a day) reports. This is the first time that I have ever had any problem whatsoever, service has been flawless.

So, one week of problems is really a blip on a perfect record for me. If I was you, I'd wait a while before jumping ship.

<snip>

...Okay, okay, I admit it -- it's my fault. I've been using the web-based spam reporting submission process since I joined SpamCop several months ago and only just discovered last week that the e-mail attachment based spam reporting submission process would work for me. Natch, the e-mail based process immediately became unreliable. It's all my fault. Please, can you all find it in your hearts to forgive me?

[tpe64]

I'm observing another slowdown in the email reporting system this morning. Not so sure yet how slow, but I waiting close to 30 minutes now for a notification response.

Update: I received the reponse after 30 minutes. Not as good as in previous days, so I wonder if there is a current problem.

[trisha506]

Since I STILL have not received the 50 acks I have been waiting for (and refuse to send anymore until I do), I would safely assume there is another problem.

Is it necessary to send the acual spam, or is the header enough? I'm totally screwed if it has to be the actual message because there is no way for me to EASILY do that. I must have an older version of Outlook Express because "source" is not an option when I right click on an open message. The only option I do have it clicking on the closed message, where I can get the properties of the header. Copy and paste obviously only works when there is not am image. Most of the spams I now get are predominantly image oriented.

And could someone tell me what a "decoded" email body is?

[trisha506]

I of course am referring to using the internal spamcop method and not forwarding the emails, something Steve has suggested as the best way to go. To date I have only forwarded my emails.

[StevenUnderwood]

Is it necessary to send the acual spam, or is the header enough?

To get spamcop to generate and send a report, it needs the body of the spam as well. If you insert just the headers into the web parser, it will tell you where the reports should go, but you will need to send the reports manually.

I must have an older version of Outlook Express because "source" is not an option when I right click on an open message.

I am assuming you tried following the directions posted in the FAQ which are for OE 4,5, and 6. http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/119.html

[tpe64]

Hi Trisha. If I understand you correctly, you are forwarding your spam via email. What you should actually do is to send the spam as attachments (you can attach many spam in one report email.) Are you sending the spam as forwards or attachments? Forwards will not work, and I am sure that spamcop will not respond to forwarded spam. It's easy to send spam as attachments in outlook. Just select all the spam from your inbox, do a CTRL-C, compose a new email addressed to your spamcop account, and CTRL-V onto the new email body. This will copy all spam selected and send them as attachments. If this is what you are really doing and not forwarding, then this should work fine and you should get notifications back. For spam images you really just have to right-click on the spam body, select 'view source', and copy this into the spamcop form as the body (as Steve has said.)

[trisha506]

Sometimes it takes me quite a while to get it! I just used the "forward as attachments" method. If that works, what a breeze!

Thanks!!!

(We'll see if it works. But boy that's a whole lot easier than fowarding the emails the way I had been doing, and then having to copy the headers one by one!

[darkmoebius]

Hey Trisha,

You might want to try the free version of SpamSource. It places a simple "SpamSource" button on your Outlook standard toolbar and all you have to do is highlight all the spam emails, then press the button. It automatically places all the header and body info in an email and addresses it to SpamCop. Then all you have to do is press "Send". Actually, the paid version does the sending and deleting for you, it's a one-button move.

I'm not sure if it works with Outlook Express, but you should check it out. Reporting takes one second and one button.

[Farelf]

Sometimes it takes me quite a while to get it!  I just used the "forward as attachments" method.  If that works, what a breeze!

You're doing well. Took me 3 months to get there. The journey was quite informative though.

[turetzsr]

...Latest update: in some cases SpamCop seems to be processing my e-mail reports and in others, not. Sometimes I send an e-mail submission containing several spams all of which SpamCop processes and other times not; sometimes when I submit them separately some of them will be processed and others will not. In all cases that I have tried, those that were not processed when I sent them via e-mail processed fine when using the two-part web-based submission form.

...On a couple of occasions, I have sent copies of the ones that were not processed to Deputies <at> .... Since I have received no reply, I have ceased sending copies to Deputies but I am saving them (both the successes and the failures) in case I am asked for them at a future date.

...What I'm hoping is that this problem will rise to the top of the Deputies' to-resolve list and they will want to see all the spam so that they can determine what the differences are between the ones that fail and the ones that work -- I haven't been able to do that, yet.

[turetzsr]

...Latest update: a lot of spam went unreported before it got 72 hours old. Latest experience suggests that the fresher the spam being reported via e-mail, the more likely SpamCop.net will parse and reply. No word yet from the deputies on trying to determine a cause of the "lost" submissions.

[StevenUnderwood]

Steve T. said:

Latest experience suggests that the fresher the spam being reported via e-mail, the more likely SpamCop.net will parse and reply.

That is one possibility, though I can not understand how it would come into play.

Since this thread was started, I have been tracking all of my emailed spam reports (all messages that slip by the spamcop filters, only a few each day) and have not lost one of them. My messages are all reported within 9 hours of receipt with most within about 1 hour of receipt (I drive my wife crazy ).

To keep track, after I forward the mesage to my submit address, I move it to a submitted spam folder until I get the confirmation and report it. I also have webmail holding my sent mail, so I have a double check of what has been sent. I then delete the messages from submitted and sent folders after sending the reports.

In this time, I have received a couple of spamcop could not locate the spam in this submission errors and when I went back and looked at the sent message, there were no attachements. I simply forwarded them again and they went through fine.

Are you sending the email messages from your home ISP to spamcop or using webmail (spamcop or someone elses). Are these direct emails you are sending (that you should get bounces for if they failed) or are you using an application (like MailWasher) to format and submit them and the reply address amy not be your own? All of my reports have been sent via the spamcop webmail application. Perhaps your ISP is having trouble communicating with spamcop's servers.

These are all just some random thoughts I had on your problem. Hope something here helps someone solve the problem.

[darkmoebius]

In the end, my problem turned out to be solely with Cox Cable's new spam filtering software on their servers. I can submit reports with 100% response from a different ISP's webmail, but anything sent out on Cox is 75%+ dropped.

I've sent several emails to Cox's techs, but have received no responses. So, now I do all my reports via SpamCop's web submission page. It is slow and tedious, but at least it works.

[turetzsr]

Hi, Steven,

...Thanks for the thoughts!

Steve T. said:

Latest experience suggests that the fresher the spam being reported via e-mail, the more likely SpamCop.net will parse and reply.

That is one possibility, though I can not understand how it would come into play.

...Me, either.

To keep track, after I forward the mesage to my submit address, I move it to a submitted spam folder until I get the confirmation and report it.  I also have webmail holding my sent mail, so I have a double check of what has been sent.  I then delete the messages from submitted and sent folders after sending the reports.

...Yep, I do something similar.

<snip>

Are you sending the email messages from your home ISP to spamcop or using webmail (spamcop or someone elses).  Are these direct emails you are sending (that you should get bounces for if they failed) or are you using an application (like MailWasher) to format and submit them and the reply address amy not be your own?  All of my reports have been sent via the spamcop webmail application.  Perhaps your ISP is having trouble communicating with spamcop's servers.

...My employer's MS Exchange. I do get "failed to deliver" messages when e-mails do not get to their recipients but, of course, I do not know whether I get them for every failure; I've never received such a message that I can remember when submitting to SpamCop.