Custom MX DNS Glitches

[Theoddity]

I have a new customer who switched over to our services 1 week ago, last Wednesday. Since they have their own Microsoft Exchange Server for mail, we disabled Hsphere mail access and created a new MX DNS setting to point to their server. There is now only one MX setting set up and that one MX setting points to their IP address with data set as 10.

They say that they are able to receive most emails, but have been getting calls this week that people are reporting bounced back emails. Sometimes email gets through, other times they don't. They didn't have this problem on their last server.

Has anybody else had this problem. It seems that the MX settings may be flaky? Is it possible that the servers are having glitches forwarding mail?

When we have a customer that has this problem its usually a dns problem like they are only pointing at one nameserver or something. Try changing the mx to have a prioroty of 5 instead of 10. This may help. Also check the nameserver and the dns zones. I find http://ww.dnsreport.com to be very helpful in this.

[Theoddity]

I went to that site and it gave me several mail errors. Can you go there and perhaps tell me what they mean in regards to our server settings?

[admin]

We need the domain to be able to tell you want the problem is..

It was great talking with you on the phone theoddity. I am glad changing the mx record to point to a hostname instead of an ip solved your problem.

[Theoddity]

Thanks guys for such immediate response to solving the problem. It's great being able to go back to my customer immediately and tell them things have been solved! Perhaps this would be a good FAQ for others who might be trying to do the same?