About four times in the past few years I and everyone using my domain loses the ability to send email. I send panicked emails to Bluehost support (from a different account - doh!), they do something (I assume) and after a day or so, we can all send email again. Receiving mail works just fine, always. It's just the sending that breaks.
Historically, BH support has been great, they respond quickly and I get an email back that there was a problem with the box or some setting or whatever. Always prompt, always polite.
On January 2nd I reported another service failure. I helpfully included a screenshot of their server monitor status indicating a disk was nearly full (their status system put it in the "red" zone - green is good, red is not good, I assumed.) I have no idea the relationship, but it was data, so I forwarded it on.
10 days later I get this:
From: "Bluehost Support"
Date: January 12, 2009 1:13:03 AM PST
To: lee@mydomain.net
Subject: [ #1425841]: can't send mail
Reply-To: "Bluehost Support"
Hello,
Space on your server is currently not an issue. We are holding at around 92% capacity on your server meaning there is around 100 GB of space available for use. Therefore this is not affecting your email. I want you to please stop looking at the server status page and assuming it's tied to your issue.
Also, please respond with your outlook configuration. Two of our techs have already asked you for the information and both times you did not respond with the info. Your reason is that "it was working fine before" well, we hear that a lot here at bluehost, but we still have to check your settings because the server reports that there is nothing wrong with the email.
Therefore, please fill out the form with your current outlook settings and we will start troubleshooting your accounts:
REGULAR CONFIG FOR OUTLOOK
<snipping stupid questions />
When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. -- Spock