Try Again in 136 Years

This is a rounded figure, for the original message was "Send quota exceeded, try again in 4294967295 seconds". It popped on my screen when I tried to send you the usual e-mail announcing two new blogs.

©Deutsche Telekom

In the past, Red Baron struggled with his Internet provider Deutsche Telekom. The present problem seemed to be a recurrent one. Three years ago, a similar message appeared, although the time-lapse then given was only 46800 seconds, so the following morning, I could send e-mails again. The reason was that the Magenta Giant had allowed me to send only 200 e-mails monthly. When I complained that being a member of various associations, I frequently had to send group e-mails, Telekom technicians flipped a switch on their server and solved the problem.

What had happened this time?

On November 14, Telekom changed my telephone from ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) to VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), so I was suspicious that the troublemaker was the switch on their server again.

When I called the Telekom hotline on November 19, the guy on the other end told me that the strange message was not their problem but a problem with Microsoft's Outlook mail program. I should instead call their specialists.

When I insisted, he gave me another particular Telekom number. On the other end of the line, a girl took note, writing down the above error message promising that a specialist would soon look into the matter and call me back.

Waiting for the telephone call during the evening vain, I called back Telekom the following morning. Same scenario: they will study the problem and call me back.

During the morning, I looked as silly as those few others carrying their mobile phones from machine to machine, waiting for telephone calls while working their muscles at Kieser Training*.
*A blog about Kieser Training is in the pipeline

Luckily nobody had called me during my training session, but the telephone rang when I was at home having lunch. I was not prepared and had to switch on my PC first, but the friendly lady on the other end told me not to hurry and worry. Thanks to SSD, my PC booting only required 25 seconds, and soon the lady and Red Baron were in business. She opened my eyes, guided me to a magenta-colored bar, and showed me (Honi soit qui mal y pense) that my e-mail storage on the Telekom server had reached one GByte so rien ne va plus.

There were amazement and disbelief on my side, but in a certain sense, the first guy was right, although he did not tell me how to cure an obvious MS Outlook bug. I regularly delete very old e-mails on my PC, but they still remain on the Telekom server despite an IMAP (Interactive Mail Access Protocol) account!

The Telekom lady online showed me how to squeeze their server so that deleted e-mails are gone forever. One can set time limits ranging from 3 to 90 days to keep mail elements on the server before they are automatically deleted.

However, it was not over yet, for the next attempt to send a group mail failed with the known error message. Since most of the Telekom service technicians kept harping on MS Outlook, I eventually transported the blog address list to the Telekom mail program sending my group e-mail to you from there last night.

Sending the group e-mail again failed, but now a different message informed me that I had exceeded the allowed quota of 100 e-mail addresses in a month within my current contract. At the same time, Telekom offered me an upgrade of space and the number of e-mails on their server that I will never need. I grudgingly accepted their proposal, although being sure that during the recent month, I did not send e-mails to more than 100 addresses.

This morning my group e-mail passed using MS Outlook ... hurrah, I am back in business again.

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