Chris, You dismiss retry as a valid option in transmission error (Signature validation, NRR, Encryption validation, XML corruption) as if there is something which can be done to prevent such a thing. Waving your hand at a problem does not make it go away. The truth is that transmission errors happen constantly on the Internet at a much higher rate than anyone likes to admit and there is nothing which can be done to prevent it -- except try again. Retry is the normal first step for ANY delivery failure situation. The question should not be why should we support retry but rather why wouldn't we support retry . Why would retry ever be OK at the IM level but not OK from the Sender? Objectively, they are no different. The ONLY issue is whether an IM should pass a resend from the Sender. In this case, the IM is the provider and the Sender is the customer (the IM services the Sender). Under what extraordinary circumstances should the service provider tell the customer you can't do that ? You NEVER tell a customer no. If you do, the customer will go find a different service provider. Maybe I should ask why wouldn't you allow me to retry a message if that is my desire? You don't sell products by telling someone what they can't do -- someone else will do it. You sell products by being flexible, not intolerant or autocratic. I cannot conceive of a situation where someone would not, as the first fix, send a retry on a delivery failure. Chris, maybe that would not be your first action but it is most everyone else's. I had a delivery failure on an eMail this morning and the first thing I tried was to send it again -- guess what, it worked. David Fischer Drummond Group.
