FAQs

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Composing, sending and receiving mail

Why can’t I send email?

There are a variety of reasons why email fails to send, many of them specific to the piece of software used. Occasionally a computer failure may prevent a message from being delivered immediately. The mail system will automatically try repeatedly to deliver the message; if it cannot deliver within a certain length of time it will first warn you that it is still trying, but eventually, will give up and return the message to you as 'Returned Mail'.

If you encounter a delivery problem that you cannot resolve yourself you can forward the returned message for advice to service-desk@bristol.ac.uk (the help desk), including a short explanation as to why you are forwarding the message.

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How do I stop sending winmail.dat attachments?

The winmail.dat attachment is sent by Outlook when you have configured it to send messages in Rich Text Format (RTF). Unfortunately, when Outlook sends messages as RTF it sends them in a format that only Outlook understands. Thus if your recipient(s) are using other email applications, they can not read them.

If you want to send decorated text in your emails you must also configure Outlook to send a plain format version of your message, too. This allows anyone to read your email (consider mobile/handheld users!).

To configure Outlook appropriately, set the following in the "Mail Format" configuration page:

  • Set the Compose message format to "HTML".
  • Set the "Convert to Plain Text format" option for when sending emails in HTML format.

Please note: Text style format preferences can also be sent per recipient, by setting properties in the relevant address book entry. If your recipients are still experiencing problems then check that you have not overridden your preferences by configuring a specific format for that particular recipient.

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Why is some email returned?

If your email can not be delivered to one or more of its recipients then a DSN (Delivery Status Notification) is sent back to you. These are also known as "Bounce Messages". The DSN will contain a list of recipients it could not deliver to and the reasons for it.

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Why do some messages sent to me not arrive?

This may be because the system thinks the email is junk mail and has rejected the mail. Sometimes, however, the sender is not a spammer but a legitimate user with a problem with the configuration of their equipment. In this case the person trying to send the email needs to contact their own email administrator, (it is not something we can initiate).

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Why is it that when I send messages they are not get delivered, nor do I get error reports notifying me of the failure to deliver?

Most likely because the mail program you are using has not been configured properly. If you have set your 'From' address incorrectly, then this will be detected by the central mail hub. It will reject the message and will attempt to return the message to the sender. This will fail, however, as the address it will use for the return is the incorrect 'From' address. This failure will be detected and as a last resort, the message will be returned to 'postmaster'.

Unfortunately, because of the volume of messages which are 'bounced' to postmaster in this way, it is not possible for the postmaster to try to work out who the real sender was, and forward on the message.

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How do I run/ use a mailing list/ contact lots of people?

If you and your colleagues need to email the same group of people, the best way to do this is to set up a mailing list.

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If you are still experiencing problems after reading the relevant FAQ, please contact the IT Service Desk:

email: service-desk@bristol.ac.uk
phone: (0117) 928 7870 (internal 7870)