The server sets a deferred recipient's next retry from its clock when the attempt defers, in whole seconds. The test subtracted its own clock taken when the loop next saw the message, after saving and reporting, so whenever that lag crossed a second boundary the 2 s retry measured 1 s and the test failed. Under load, after the other SMTP tests, that was most runs. It now measures from when the test started the attempt, which the server's deferral can only follow, by under a second: each retry is its interval or one more. Each position is still checked against its own interval, so a wrong schedule still fails.