Exim Rejecting email with odd header

I am not sure whether the problem lies with the customer's email program, ISP, or exim. Customer is hosted on the same server as I am. Customer can send mail to me at most of my domain names except a few.

When he sends an email to the problem domains (e.g. [email protected]) the exim log looks like this:

mainlog.0:2005-12-15 10:18:18 H=xxx-xxx-119-10.crappy-isp.com.au (customeritse
rver) [xxx.xxx.119.10] incomplete transaction (RSET) from <[email protected]> for [email protected]

mainlog.0:2005-12-15 10:18:22 1Emft8-000KYG-90 <= [email protected] H=xxx-xxx-119-10.crappy-isp.com.au (customeritserver) [xxx.xxx.119.10] P=e
smtp S=8711 id=!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAAKk1c5RGx3UqS+Y/plaK13s
KAAAAQAAAApLx/HLeR2Ee5hg9WnwJ8
[email protected] T="Some Subject" from <[email protected]> for [email protected]

mainlog.0:2005-12-15 10:18:26 1Emft8-000KYS-Vk <= [email protected] U=mail P=spam-scanned S=8840 id=!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BgAAAAAAAAAKk1c5RGx3UqS+Y/plaK13sKAAAAQA
AAApLx/[email protected] T="Some Subject" from <[email protected]> for [email protected]

mainlog.0:2005-12-15 10:18:26 1Emft8-000KYS-Vk => me <[email protected]> F=<[email protected]> R=virtual_user T=virtual_localdelivery S=9037

mainlog.0:2005-12-15 10:18:26 1Emft8-000KYG-90 => me <[email protected]> F=<[email protected]> R=spamcheck_director T=spamcheck S=8826

-------------------------------------

And the email is never delivered. What is all that garbage after "id"?

As I mentioned, this customer can use the same [email protected] account to send me an email at [email protected] and it works fine. There is no garbage in the "id" header when he sends to some of my domains.

All of these domains (customer.com,example.com, and another-domain.com are on the same server with the same exim server running.)

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Ok, I lie. The mail is being delivered, but neither Thunderbird (windows desktop) nor Evolution (linux desktop) will download the mail from the server.

I can see it thorugh webmail, but it is not downloading to my email client.

The problem is the nonstandard ID. If your client is actually sending the email, then s/he needs to find out why his/her client is using a nonstandard ID format. My past experience has been that the nonstandard ID format is more likely from spammers, though why they'd use it is beyond me.

If the client doesn't send an ID then exim will add one, but it adds a standard format ID that your client's mail program won't choke on. At least that's been my experience.

Many older clients choke when trying to read email with nonstandard headers. If so then the only way I know of to get rid of it is to open up webmail, and delete the email by sender or subject.

I've heard it said that some pop clients can still deliver the email to even older clients, but everything I've read blames the clients.

Good luck.

Jeff