I need to know how likely it is that an email doesnt get through without sending an error report?
Someone who is supposed to have sent an email with some work to me (for a deadline on saturday) says he has sent it yet none of us have received it and he says he hasnt had an error notice?

Have you checked your junk mail, or wherever your spam mail goes? It could be that your friend's email addy is being filtered as spam/junk mail.

I've sent emails before that haven't been received at the other end, and there hasn't been an error report. When I checked, I'd made an error in the email address. Send your friend an email, and ask your friend to reply to it directly with the work. That way, there shouldn't be an error in the email address.

Its entirely possible. Because spammers forge 'From' addresses and send to guessed email addresses the "Mail Delivery Failure" type notifications are sent to completely innocent people, and really just compound the problem, so some servers have them turned off.

So how can email not arrive? Well, the destination server is contacted and asked to deliver an email. It could say no, because the recipients inbox is full, or because it suspects spam, or because it does not know the user. The server will explain to the sending server why and the sending server will either stop trying, or try later.

It is rare not to get a Mail Delivery Failure when that has happened though, because the sending server will usually ask for credentials from the sender and trust that they are genuine, so will send the message.

yep ive already checked that - i think im being spun a line but just want to check my facts!! Hes been promising bits of work for ages and fails to deliver but now its causing real problems as I have deadline looming!

Thanks Richard - this is someone who regularly mails us and ive checked our inbox quota and its nowhere near at maximum

It's quite possible to not get an error report. You could mail to a wrong address that still exists, or you could mail to a wrong address that doesn't generate error reports, or you could mail a wrong address that does produce an error, and that error message could be discarded somewhere along the route back.

If the bloke has been promising something for ages then he probably hasn't done it. If he had then it would be a simple matter for him to send the email "again". Even if there was something wrong with his email, Royal Mail could have delivered it by now.

Tell him to use this instead http://megaupload.com/

Thanks for all that - my gut instinct was indeed right when I pushed for the work he had done around half an hour on it max and the rest was a pack of lies! Did just want to check my facts tho before I did rant!