I recently set up web mail for my website. Bravenet sent me an e-mail that essentially said "If you can read this, it works". So, I sent my website some e-mails from my personal account with aol. The subjects came through, but the message bodies were blank. I asked a non-aol friend to e-mail the website and everything came through fine.

So, being desirous of having a "full service" e-mail system for my website, I set up a support ticket. The response has been: deal with aol, it's their fault. Well, maybe and maybe not, but the concept of actually dealing with aol feels similar to flapping my arms and hoping to fly.

So, I'm asking you folks for guidance on the matter. Has anyone run into this "bodytext stripping" before? It's really kinda weird that an e-mail is "acknowledged" but stripped of content.

My ISP is Comcast. It is NOT aol. Only my e-mail is. And I get e-mails from Bravenet just fine.

Thanks for listening,

Edward

Browser: Opera

OS: XP (admin) and Leopard (design)

I know friends who constantly have issues with AOL

One reason never have gotten AOL for e-mail or anything because of constant issues with them


so talk to aol or comcast

I will add that I've had this aol e-mail account for quite awhile and cannot recall EVER having this problem until now. For me, the aol e-mail experience to date has been entirely adequate.

Also note that I cannot necessarily expect my customers who have them to drop their aol e-mail accounts simply because Bravenet can't handle aol (if that is indeed the case). Judging by my history, the world is FULL of clients who can receive my complete e-mails, so I'm having trouble seeing the problem being at aol. Or Comcast.

And simply saying that aol is screwed up and so it consequently MUST be their fault doesn't really help much.

Edward

Browser: Opera

OS: XP (admin) and Leopard (design)

Almost everybody who has had much to do with emailing to/from a site has had problems with AOL. I actually dropped all AOL addresses from my mailing list at one point and have heard of other webmasters doing the same.

The thing to remember about AOL is that it was intended to be a totally self contained and enclosed system, not part of the web.

Your first task is to determine of the problem is with your email account or with AOL generally. You need a second test from another AOL account. If it is only with you then contact whatever support AOL have. If it is with more than one AOL account then still contact AOL but raise a ticket here as well.

Browser: firefox

Rather than sweat this, why not set up another email with Yahoo, hotmail, etc.? I mean one of their free accounts?

This will give you time to go back and talk with AOL about this. Then you can go back and change to AOL if you want to do so.

PS. Like your web page so far although it downloads slow on the pages with large illustrations.

Cannot find your contact page or where people can contact you by email so what are you talking about?

I heard that AOL may be going out of business. You might ask them about this.

There's no reason for ME to get a new e-mail account because it's extremely unlikely that I would normally send mail to myself (aol personal to Bravenet business). I'm concerned about being able to hear from OTHER people who have aol accounts. And this event also sets me to wondering if there are OTHER e-mail providers that won't be able to get through to my Bravenet e-mail.

I think Bravenet should be the ones "calling" aol because:

1. I'm concerned about the GENERAL case of aol, not my particular case.

2. The problem is Bravenet specific--I haven't seen it anywhere else yet.

3. The techies at Bravenet know FAR more than I do about this e-mail stuff. Why not have someone who actually knows what they're talking about call up aol and talk to THEIR techies.

4. Bravenet is actually paid money (mine and yours) to make this stuff work. I am not.

Ed

Browser: Opera

OS: XP (admin) and Leopard (design)

Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, it might be slow; but I don't want to give up the pictures. That's partly because I'm very visually oriented (and who reads large copy on the internet, anyway). Or maybe that "partly" should be "completely"?

There's no official contact page; that's true. I'm not sure why I didn't put one in right away, and now I'm not sure if I ever will. We'll see. One of the things I've been doing since I set up the site a month or two ago is asking the folks I send there what their opinions are--especially the negatives. And yes, most everyone sees something. Until now, no one has mentioned a contact page, and few have mentioned the lack of e-mail. I sort of "collect" all these opinions. I don't necessarily act on them. Unless it's something that obviously needs fixin' (like those pesky typos), I generally have waited to hear it from TWO people. Lack of e-mail recently hit that threshold. And the reason there's STILL no e-mail contact on my site is that I like to test things out BEFORE I show them to the world. For reasons that are showing, for example, in this particular conversation.

I sure don't know what aol's future is going to be. Right now, I only use it for e-mail--I've had it forever; and, unlike others I guess, it's always worked for me. And how much fun is it to deal with dealing with a new address after years and years of spreading the old one?

Thanks much for your comments, much appreciated,

Ed

Browser: Opera

OS: XP (admin) and Leopard (design)