Old zone file preventing mail delivery?[newbie-long msg]

[Liz S.]

Hi,

I am looking for some information/explanation as to why aliased email does
not get to the correct
mailbox after switching webhosters. The latest reason given is that there is
a zone file that needs to
be deleted from someone's server. I don't know anything about how this
works.

I am not a mail administrator and consider myself a raw newbie here; I'm the
one with the most computer knowledge in our small business who is stuck with
resolving this problem. I apologize in advance if this isn't the correct
newsgroup, but I found it after looking for information about zone files.

Here is the problem...

We are a small business with one ISP dialup connection [ex.
soandso at isp.com]. This ISP was also our webhoster and we received all our
business mail through one alias [info at ourdomain.com] for the account email
address. Earlier this year we changed webhosters for our site, but retained
the dialup account.

With that switch to a new webhosting company, we went from the one email
address with one 'alias' to one main mailbox [ex. soandso at webhost.net] with
9 pop boxes [ex. 1to9 at webhost.net] each with its own forward/alias [ex.
sosandso at ourdomain.com] One of these forwards is info at ourdomain.com which we
wanted to retain since we have used it for some time for most of our
business mail.

We did not have any problem a few years ago when we switched ISPs and took
the info alias with us to the current ISP.

However, this address does not work correctly now on a consistent basis.
Some of the other forwards also do not work on a consistent basis. When
sending employee to employee mail using the aliased address [ex.
nancy at ourdomain.com to lizz at ourdomain.com] through the business dialup
account, mail loops back and ends up in the dialup account [isp.com] instead
of going out to the intended recipient through the webhost POP server. This
does not happen when I test it through another ISP.

Also other mail sent to us using that particular ISP ends up being put in
the isp.com mail account instead of the webhoster's mail service. It doesn't
route thorugh the webhost's servers at all.

Another thing that is happening is that some mail that does go through the
webhost mail routing ends up in the isp.com account. I have spoken with the
webhoster tech folks [who has been very helpful] and they say there is a
zone file somewhere on our ISP's server that is causing the mail delivery to
fail. The ISP, though, has been very unhelpful and says its all the fault of
the new webhoster or our Eudora mail client.

When I test all these pop accounts from my home office using an ISP
connection other than the business one, nothing fails. I have a web-based
app that accesses the webhosts mail server and I can see all that gets there
in all our accounts, before downloading it.

Can someone help me tell who is telling the correct story? If the new hoster
with our nine mailboxes is correct how do I get the former
webhoster/unhelpful ISP to fix this? Also, if we go to a new ISP will this
trouble continue if the old ISP doesn't find/fix the described problem?

I'm sorry if I am not clear; I tried the best I could with the little
knowledge I have about email to
explain this complicated problem. If someone who answers would like see a
sample mail header I have some saved and could post it/them.

Thanks for your help,

Liz S.