Quirks of Gmail SMTP quota

[sunflower2772]

My vi logs serial data and sends the data by email 1mb every hour. The vi is on a tanker ship, it should run continuously.

At first I tested the program with Gmail smtp in our workshop and the program runs fine for a few days continuously. 

I gave the program to the customer and they want to use their own server smtp. But after their server mailbox quota reached the maximum limit, their smtp shut down communication to our vi and our vi cannot send emails with the customer smtp anymore. Their not so competent local network administrator is not so sure about their oversea email smtp and is blaming our vi. 

So I recommended to customer using Gmail as the vi smtp. I ran the vi using Gmail smtp to send data emails to a gmail mailbox and the customer's own mailbox. But then I noticed that the customer's mailbox is not receiving all the data emails whereas gmail is receiving. I look up the internet and noticed rule 3 here:

http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/gmail-daily-limit-sending-bulk-email/2191/

"Rule 3. Always double check email addresses of recipients before hitting the Send button in Gmail. That’s because your account will get disabled if the email message contains a large number of non-existent or broken addresses (<25 ?) that bounce back on failed delivery."

Fearing the customer server mailbox may be rejecting our vi data emails and then causing Gmail smtp to shut down, I cut out the customer mailbox address from the vi and told the customer that their email server sucks and their IT guy dont know what he is doing 🙂 , just use Gmail smtp and mailbox for god sakes :)) .

Then I set the vi to use Gmail smtp and sends to only one gmail mailbox. But then after running for 6 six hours, the vi cannot connect to Gmail smtp anymore. 😮  . I felt like I have slapped my own face. 

So the vi is sending email of 1mb attachment every hour to one gmail box, it is not breaking any gmail rules, but how come the gmail smtp dont work anymore?

Do you guys have any quirky experience with Gmail? Would you recommend another email server to send email data? What would you do in my situation, push the customer to get their own email smtp fixed?

Advance thanks

Message Edited by sunflower2772 on 10-16-2009 07:42 PM

[altenbach]

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sunflower2772 wrote:

Do you guys have any quirky experience with Gmail? Would you recommend another email server to send email data? What would you do in my situation, push the customer to get their own email smtp fixed?

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I use a special gmail account to handle e-mails of my security DVR (it send a picture whenever a motion is detected). It took a while until the sensitivity settings and active regions were all dialed in correctly. In the first few days, gmail temporarily disabled the account. (For example, in the late afternoon in high wind the shadow of a nearby tree constanty triggered and event, leading to hundreds of e-mails in a short time. They have quite a few sensors for unusual traffic patterns in order to suppress spammers. I guess newly created accounts are set especially sensitive.

What you should do is try log into the gmail account. It will tell you if it has been disabled. In my case, it enabled itself after a short time later without any intervention on my part.

[sunflower2772]

1.  Using internet browser I am able to log into the gmail account, and send and receive emails. But however my vi on the ship is unable to do it.

I suspect Gmail can detect that my vi is actually some kind of external device or bot or non ordinary internet browser and blacklist my vi IP or something in its smtp?

My vi is using SSL enabled and port 587 for gmail (which has work for a few weeks before it shut down maybe because the customer mailbox kept bouncing back?).

2. The other thing i just thought about is the vi is on a oil tanker ship and the satelite internet on the ship sometimes break down for a few hours. Thus the vi will load the unsent data emails into memory and kept on redialing gmail smtp. Maybe this could be a reason that triggers Gmail security system? 

[sunflower2772]

I have gathered some more info on this issue, and wrote a more accurate description on the problem here:

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?p=489448#post489448

Any further comments on using Gmail smtp would be helpful. Thanks. 

[Ray.R]

You are not writing this so that someone sends out spam, right?

[sunflower2772]

The vi attached collects data from a motion sensor, gps, gyrocompass, and a couple of draft tanks on a ship. And sends the 1mb data by email every one hour.

[RavensFan]

Are your loop timings set up the way you want in the VI you attached.

Your data collecting loop runs 1000 times with a 100 millisecond interval.  So basically 100 seconds of data is collected and popped into the notifier.  That is much more frequently than once per hour.  Actually 36 e-mails per hour.  That could explain why the account is shutting down. 

[sunflower2772]

No, the ship is using different setting on the vi, set to 1 data log per 1 second, and transmission by email every one hour, so every hour the email attachment size sent is around 650kb more precisely.

Sorry about that.

[RavensFan]

I figured they might just be some test settings to help speed up the test process.

I just realized something looking at your subVI.  You create references in building up the mail message, but you never close them.  I wonder if by failing to close all the references you are running into problems after so many iterations of that subVI.

[sunflower2772]

Thanks for the angle, will examine it. Also I just thought of this: The ship is using satelite internet which breaks down frequently for a few hours. The vi thus put the unsent email into memory for sending when the ship internet revives again. I notices a couple of duplicate data emails in the Gmail box, maybe there was too many data emails in the PC memory to send and Gmail smtp detected this and it freaked out? But however after resetting the PC housing the vi, Gmail never returned smtp service again to the vi on ship.