this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2026
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SMTP is about as simple as it can get. There’s no good reason for mail delivery to be affected. It should still be moving emails around even if you can’t access them.
But MS has extended SMTP so hard they have no idea how it works anymore or how to properly troubleshoot it.
Tell that to the "senior network engineer" I am trying to get to unblock SMTP for the server running our software on their network. Its coming up to 2 weeks now.
The problem with SMTP is that it is too simple. There is a complete lack of security, so different implementations have had layers added on top to harden them, which adds to the complexity. Not all layers are standardised or compatible, which means that what should be relatively simple becomes an untenable mess.
It isn’t something that can be proprietarised easily so companies need to also add their own proprietary layers in order to monetise their product, which adds more untenable.
If your “senior network engineer” is more concerned about your SMTP server becoming a SPAM relay than your product being usable for its intended purpose, which is why it is still down.
A spam relay quickly becomes unusable.
The app server isn't running the SMTP server, it can't connect to one. We would also be happy for them to run their own SMTP server and point it at that instead if they wish.
“Blame the network”
I would assume they've broken their DNS servers or some other similarly low-level infrastructure to the point where something just isn't resolving behind the scenes anymore.