A root cause for a failed attempted delivery of a message is attempted to be determined before sending a non-delivery report (NDR) for the failed message. When a message fails without a known cause, the root cause is determined using the context of the message. For a given context, the root cause may be determined by a single failure or it may be determined by the relative number of failed messages delivery are deferred from being delivered, as is generation of the corresponding same context. While determining the root cause of the problem, any messages failing NDR(s), to allow time for corrective action to occur. If the problem is resolved within a predetermined time period, the deferred messages are delivered without having to issue NDR(s).