  Multinet SMTP "Device Timeout" Errors? 
 The Question is:
 
I realized you wanted our story, too.  It's a little unusual, and I'm not
sure the FDDI packet size is relevant, but here goes:
 
We run MX Server (5.1) over Multinet over DECnet-OSI (TCP/IP environment;
DECnet is configured, but rarely used).  I have a very large one-way mailing
list (about 48,000 subscribers).  When communicating with some mail servers
(particularly hotmail), the
smtp connection on my end records a "device timeout" and resets the
connection to retry in 30 minutes.  It doesn't always fail, however,
sometimes it works just fine and the complete message is sent.
 
Unfortunately hotmail is "hot" to deliver, and ends up delivering a blank
email to the user, anyway!
 
It looks like our data transmission is getting black-holed somewhere, and I
wanted to check to make sure that the transmit packet size on the FDDI was
less than 1536 bytes (ethernet size), so that our router (or someone else's)
doesn't inappropriately fra
gment the data.
 
Thanks!
 
 
 The Answer is:
 
  This situation is sufficiently complex -- with enough third-party
  products involved -- that resolution will likely warrant a call to
  the relevent Customer Support Centers for assistance.
 
  As a first cut at localizing the problem, the OpenVMS Wizard would
  recommend contacting the MultiNet Support organization -- that
  DECnet-Plus or FDDI is present would initially appear unrelated to the
  problem, an examination of the particular behaviour of the MultiNet
  SMTP support around these errors would appear in order.
 
