A. Abd-Allah:
> Dr. Wietse,
>
> Thank you for your valuable time, not just for this question, but
> for the entire postfix product.
>
> If I understood you correctly, increasing the hop count limit may
> help in this case. I only see 1 or 2 headers that are being added,
> but I am not sure. I can try changing the limit and then seeing
> the effect.
The hop-count limit is reached in the REMOTE mail server.
There are two possibilities:
- The failing message already has lots of Received: headers (which
is something that you may be able to fix by removing some or all).
- The REMOTE mail server has an unreasonably-low hop-count limit
(which is something that only the remote system adminstrator can
fix).
Wietse
> A. Abd-Allah:
> > Final-Recipient: rfc822;bob@gmail.comAction: failedStatus:
> > 5.0.0Remote-MTA: smtp;MAILGW1.OURDOMAIN.COMDiagnostic-Code: X-Notes;
> > Error transferring to MAILGW1.OURDOMAIN.COM; Maximum hop count
> > exceeded. Message probably in a routing loop.
>
> When a mail server receives mail via SMTP, the standard requires
> that it adds a header with:
>
> Received: ....stuff.....
>
> Many MTAs count the number of such message header lines and report
> a "Maximum hop count exceeded" error because the number exceeds
> some upper bound.
>
> With Postfix, the default is "hopcount_limit = 50".
>
> Your "telnet" message had no such header, while the "non telnet"
> message presumably had several. That's why one triggers the
> error and the other does not.
>
> Wietse
