Audience: EDI developers, AS2 administrators, trading partner technical contacts
When to use this article: Use this when Orderful sends an AS2 transaction but the delivery fails with a timeout error or a "No MDN has been received" message.
What's Happening
AS2 transmissions require a Message Disposition Notification (MDN) from the receiving system as a delivery confirmation. When Orderful sends an AS2 transaction but doesn't receive an MDN within the timeout window, the transmission fails.
This error only occurs when Orderful is sending a transaction to your trading partner. When the direction is reversed — your trading partner sending to Orderful — Orderful always sends an MDN delivery confirmation back, so this timeout scenario cannot happen in that direction.
This happens when the trading partner's AS2 server isn't responding properly, has connectivity issues, or is misconfigured.
Orderful uses synchronous MDNs only — the MDN delivery confirmation is expected back immediately as part of the same connection. Orderful does not support asynchronous MDNs, where the confirmation is sent separately after the connection closes.
How to Diagnose and Fix It
Step 1 — Check the error message
The delivery status on the transaction in Orderful becomes Failed.
In the transaction audit trail, you will see errors like:
Failed to be sent to communication channel: [NAS2]_PartnerName_Prod. No MDN has been received.
Step 2 — Confirm whether your trading partner received the transmission
Contact your trading partner's technical team and ask them to check their AS2 server logs for the transmission time. There are two possible outcomes:
Partner received the message but didn't send an MDN — the issue is on their side, likely an MDN configuration problem or an asynchronous MDN setup
Partner's system received the transmission but an internal issue prevented the MDN from being generated — this could be an internal routing or processing issue within their AS2 software. Ask them to check their AS2 server logs specifically for MDN generation errors around the transmission time.
Step 3 — Wait for your partner to fix it
Ask your partner to update their AS2 configuration to send a synchronous MDN for transmissions to Orderful or to fix their internal processing issue.
Step 4 — Resend transactions
Once they've made the change, resend a test transaction to confirm the delivery status becomes Delivered.
What to Send Orderful Support
If you're struggling to resolve this issue, you can contact Orderful support, and include:
Transaction ID(s) from the failed deliveries in Orderful
Orderful AS2 ID and trading partner AS2 ID used on this connection
Confirmation from your trading partner on whether they received the transmission
Whether the partner is configured for synchronous or asynchronous MDN
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Orderful support asynchronous MDNs?
No. Orderful only supports synchronous MDNs. If your trading partner's AS2 system is configured to send an asynchronous MDN delivery confirmation, they will need to change their configuration to synchronous before transmissions to Orderful will succeed.
How do I resend transactions after the issue is fixed? In Orderful, filter transactions by Failed Delivery status for the affected trading partner and use the bulk resend action to resent them.
The issue started suddenly after working fine for months. What changed?
Sudden failures after a stable connection usually point to a recent change on the partner AS2 server. Start by asking your trading partner what changed recently on their end.