Charter Communications Postmaster Services
Charter has developed various policies and procedures to protect our customers from abuse. This site has been developed to give bulk email senders, ISPs, email service providers, postmasters, and domain administrators a location from which to learn about these policies and the necessary steps required to resolve problems. If you were directed to this site because of a specific error received when trying to send an email please find the error listed below for additional information and troubleshooting tips to resolve the issue.
General Information
- Residential customers are limited to a maximum single message size of 10 megabytes.
- Webmail URL: http://webmail.charter.net
- Mail Client Server Settings (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc):
Incoming mail server = pop.charter.net
Outgoing mail server = smtp.charter.net
Webmail Error Codes
CHTR 301 Error Code – Security Alert
This is an alert that abnormal activity has been detected on your email account. To protect your privacy, access to your email account via Charter webmail has been temporarily blocked. You can continue to use your Charter email account via Outlook Express or other email client.
Your security and privacy is important to us. Your email address has been temporarily locked due to recent suspicious activity.
To ensure that only authorized users are accessing webmail with your email address:
- Click on My Account and your Member Services ID and password.
- Click on My Email Accounts. Reset your email address password using a strong password. A strong password includes a combination of numbers, uppercase/lowercase letters, and symbols and is not a word from the dictionary or something easily guessed. Please remove any email addresses on your account that you do not use or no longer use.
- Click on Update Account. Reset your Member Services password. Update your contact email address, if needed.
Your account is temporarily locked due to too many login failures. Please try again later or contact your administrator.
If you cannot remember your password, you can reset it by logging into Member Services.
SMTP Error Codes
421 Connection Refused - Customer has exceeded the maximum number of messages allowed per hour.
Refer to the FAQ section; “What is rate limiting?”
421 Service Not Available - Client IP sending email is on Charter RBL
421 Charter.net Lost - Connection was terminated
Possible network connectivity issue.
450 Unable to find: Domain not found
Please verify the recipient's domain is valid.
452 Too many recipients - The number of email recipients per message exceeded the allowable threshold.
Refer to the FAQ section; “What is rate limiting?”
503 Sender Already specified - Too many invalid email addresses
550 Message identified as SPAM
The email was flagged as spam by Charter anti-spam detection system. Charter uses several different tactics to determine if a message is spam. The primary tactic is using an industry leading anti-spam filtering application, corroborating feedback from the Internet community and Charter subscribers. A message will not be accepted by our mail servers if it is flagged as spam.
If you believe the message was mistakenly flagged as spam, please click here. (This window is a pop-up. Disable your pop-up blocker or hold CTRL key while clicking to allow.)
550 Relaying mail to - IP attempted to relay, IP not on relay list
Refer to the FAQ section; “What is mail relaying?”
552 Message size exceeds allowed maximum message size:
10 Megabytes is the maximum allowable single message size for residential customers.
If you are unable to send to Charter email addresses and you are not receiving an error message, please click here. (This window is a pop-up. Disable your pop-up blocker or hold CTRL key while clicking to allow.)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is rate limiting?
Rate limiting is an anti-abuse network protection method. To prevent spam and virus traffic, the Charter mail complex limits the number of messages and recipients per hour on inbound and outbound mail. This policy is standard industry practice. The rate limit threshold is a dynamic number configurable by system administrators and has been set in accordance with standard industry practice. Rate limiting ensures mail system stability and usability for all Charter customers.
Suggestions to work with rate limiting thresholds:
- Wait an hour to send additional emails.
- Break up the number of recipients into smaller groups.
How does Charter determine email is spam?
Charter uses several different tactics to determine if a message is spam. The primary tactic is using an industry leading anti-spam filtering application, corroborating feedback from the Internet community and Charter subscribers. A message will not be accepted by our mail servers if it is flagged as spam.
What is mail relaying and does Charter allow this practice?
Mail relaying is the practice of using Charter mail servers to send mail (SMTP) from non Charter IP space or from domains not hosted by Charter Communications. Relaying is not allowed by Charter. If a Charter customer is using their laptop outside the Charter network, they should use http://webmail.charter.net or change the outgoing mail server setting on their mail client to match the outgoing mail server of the service provider they are using.
Am I allowed to send mail from non Charter IP space using webmail.charter.net?
Yes.
How can Charter customers report spam?
Emails reported as spam are sent to our anti-spam vendor and aggregated in near real-time to improve filtering. The filtering data used in determining what email is flagged as spam by Charter's anti-spam system is constantly updated based on these reports from customers.
Webmail Users . Log into http://webmail.charter.net, check the messages in the inbox that are suspected to be spam and click the Report as Spam button located directly above the Subject header.
Mail client (Outlook, Outlook express, etc) . Attach the suspected spam message to a new email and send it to spamalert@charter.net. NOTE: the message must be sent as a MIME attachment. Your feedback is submitted to an automated system, so no reply should be expected.
How can Charter customers report a message being incorrectly treated as spam (false positive) when trying to send an email?
If you receive an error when trying to send an email that indicates the message was spam, you may submit that message as feedback to Charter. Emails reported as false positives are sent to our anti-spam vendor and aggregated in near real-time to improve filtering. The filtering data used in determining what email is flagged as spam by Charter's anti-spam system is constantly updated based on these reports from customers.
If you believe the message was mistakenly flagged as spam, please click here. (This window is a pop-up. Disable your pop-up blocker or hold CTRL key while clicking to allow.)