Do Major Providers Discard My Emails?, SMTP pretends to work, but doesn't

[mplichta]

I have a registered domain name and am running dynamic dns so I can serve from home. I can send email to myself (from Xmail to Xmail), receive email from other, major domains (hotmail to Xmail), but I cannot seem to send emails out (Xmail to Hotmail). I have tried the webmail version of Xmail and Outlook. Outlook has no trouble sending out and the server pretends it goes, but I never receive any email. Is it possible that large internet providers like hotmail, Comcast.net, and att.net just drop emails from me since I'm small? I figured I was fine sine I don't spam and my MX record points to my server and is the registered mail server for my domain. What else could it be?

My SMTP log shows nothing but "OK"s as far as sending emails go. I couldn't find any help on this topic after searching for a half hour.

Windows XP Pro server, 384MB memory, PIII 500 (I know it's old)

Windows XP Pro Client, Outlook XP (2002)

[sc4vengr]

Maybe your ISP is blocking all outgoing emails on their network that is not coming from their own smtp servers, it's a common practice.

You could try setting your ISP smtp server as xmail's default gateway.

Hope this helps

-fred

[bOOster]

You dynamic DNS server must be supported by yours internet provider. Ask him for dynamic DNS support.

[mplichta]

After researching a lot, it turns out that most home providers block smtp traffic from their network that doesn't come from their server. Various provides have a "Mail Relay" service to circumvent this problem. Sadly, the smallest package my provider has is 150 messages a day for $6/month. I send maybe 5 at most so it's a bit expensive.