Oliver Thylmann’s Thoughts

Greetings everyone. On and off I seem to be having problems with my POP access to Gmail and I now seem to have found the reason for all of this, just if some others also have the problem. The problem itself is that the pop request just times out. The problem seems to be with Google or something on the route to some of the server pools.

It was working fine and I ran a traceroute to pop.gmail.com and ended up going over:

11 po13-0.chicr2.chicago.opentransit.net (193.251.240.137) 154.259 ms * *

12 66.249.95.253 (66.249.95.253) 158.005 ms 158.562 ms *

[...]

15 64.233.175.97 (64.233.175.97) 244.343 ms 239.228 ms 243.426 ms

[...]

17 72.14.205.109 (72.14.205.109) 240.442 ms 72.14.236.142 (72.14.236.142) 251.769 ms 66.249.94.73 (66.249.94.73) 237.330 ms

It worked just fine. I seem to be somewhere in Chicago there.

Next it stops working again and where am I?

7 br1.frankfurt1.iphh.net (80.231.66.38) 56.323 ms 56.652 ms 56.785 ms

8 216.239.46.48 (216.239.46.48) 66.315 ms 57.540 ms 56.848 ms

9 64.233.175.248 (64.233.175.248) 63.733 ms 63.763 ms 64.019 ms

10 216.239.43.84 (216.239.43.84) 66.259 ms 75.122 ms 216.239.43.89 (216.239.43.89) 64.718 ms

11 216.239.43.88 (216.239.43.88) 64.565 ms 64.047 ms 63.464 ms

12 216.239.43.84 (216.239.43.84) 66.127 ms 67.032 ms 64.233.175.246 (64.233.175.246) 66.150 ms

13 216.239.43.42 (216.239.43.42) 67.479 ms 72.14.236.150 (72.14.236.150) 78.471 ms 216.239.43.34 (216.239.43.34) 79.919 ms

14 64.233.183.109 (64.233.183.109) 67.929 ms 66.769 ms 216.239.43.30 (216.239.43.30) 72.721 ms

The hop back and forth seems a bit weird there. At the next try when it is not working I am in Frankfurt again.

7 br1.frankfurt1.iphh.net (80.231.66.38) 56.530 ms 58.030 ms 56.345 ms

8 216.239.46.48 (216.239.46.48) 57.547 ms 57.390 ms 56.825 ms

9 64.233.175.248 (64.233.175.248) 63.578 ms 64.133 ms 63.929 ms

10 216.239.43.80 (216.239.43.80) 79.355 ms 67.291 ms 216.239.43.89 (216.239.43.89) 63.445 ms

11 216.239.43.88 (216.239.43.88) 63.757 ms 83.265 ms 63.496 ms

12 64.233.175.246 (64.233.175.246) 66.718 ms 70.648 ms 66.321 ms

13 216.239.43.26 (216.239.43.26) 68.140 ms 216.239.43.30 (216.239.43.30) 66.530 ms 72.14.236.146 (72.14.236.146) 66.717 ms

14 216.239.43.30 (216.239.43.30) 66.663 ms 72.14.236.146 (72.14.236.146) 66.918 ms 64.233.183.109 (64.233.183.109) 66.586 ms

If anyone from Google is listening, please look into it, and I am always happy to provide more answers to any questions. The problems are both on a Mac with Mail and on an XP machine with Outlook.

Greetings from Germany, where I wish I get my mail from Chicago again.