topic Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses in Email

Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Brugmansia — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 09:50:33 GMT

Having discussed the issue of sending emails from my PluNet account to gmail accounts I was advised that there is a problem being resolved with Google.

Has this been resolved or does any forum member know a solution?

Every email I send to a gmail recipient ends up with an "Undeliverable" message!

Such as:

"This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed permanently:

* anyone@gmail.com

Reason: A message that you sent to the following recipient could not be delivered due to a permanent error. ** The remote server ?? responded with: ** anyone@gmail.com ??:?? This message was created automatically by mail delivery software on the server .

[I have changed the recipient to "anyone" ]

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

MisterW — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 10:58:03 GMT

@Brugmansia you might want to read this thread https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Mail-bouncing-to-gmail/td-p/1906281 and then come back with any questions

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

number6 — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 11:48:33 GMT

I have spoken to Plusnet who have the same gmail issues with all of their Freenetname/Madasafish/Plusnet mail addresses.
They advise that this has happened since they updated their servers to deal with security issues. Google/gmail servers will now not accept any mail sent from these addresses as they will fail their spam test.
Plusnet (being part of BT) feel that they are big enough not to react to, what they see as, Google's over-reaction and Google wont even discuss it with Plusnet!!!

Plusnet are actually advising customers to set up separate mail accounts with other providers!

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 21:44:12 GMT

That is a somewhat simplistic (and confused) statement seeking to cover a multitude of issues with Gmail, who are making a total hash of email delivery.

Yes there are brand to brand different issues and further different issues depending on if the email is being sent from @the-brand-default-domain for from @your-personal-domain ... and in the latter case, where your-personal-domain is hosted. This is a very complex matter for which there are a multitude of viable resolutions.

Can you cite specific evidence of informed support advising that the "fix" to this is to change email providers?

The best solution here is to tell the RECEIPITANTS to ditch Gmail - it can be argued that it is not fit for purpose. Note that if one parts with money to Gmail for the same email service, one will not encounter these issues!!!

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

number6 — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 23:02:14 GMT

"Can you cite specific evidence of informed support advising that the "fix" to this is to change email providers?"

I called Plusnet support, today, and received the explanation that I have outlined AND WAS given the advice to use a different mail address to send to gmail addresses. That is my specific evidence.

As to being 'informed', I would expect the Plusnet Customer Service to be informed.

I found your response to be quite arrogant.

Given the millions of gmail users (potential recipients) your solution of " tell the RECEIPITANTS (sic) to ditch Gmail - it can be argued that it is not fit for purpose" is, in itself, "not fit for purpose".

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Brugmansia — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 23:24:50 GMT

If PlusNet are asking that I move to a different provider, a)what happens to my webspace & domain currently kept by Plusnet as part of my contract, and, b) does plusnet's failure to fulfil its obligations in this regard nullify my two year service agreement with them?

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

greygit1 — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 23:59:29 GMT

Covering some other aspects...

These may be opinion, as there may be some esoteric stuff in contracts (or where contracts may not exist).

Plusnet no longer offer web hosting for new customers. Continued acceptance of the old web hosting solution comes with associated risk.

Plusnet no longer offer domain registrations for new customers (renewal of pre-exisiting domains registered via Plusnet may continues without problems)

Domains and webhosting are thus (IMO) part of what used to be Plusnet but is now historic.

My experience was with a legacy account which eventually ended up with no contract.

Me and Gmail and Plusnet when it comes to e-mail?

I've only one had one failure to a Gmail address. Which didn't bounce. I have a whole history of failed deliveries from one Plusnet customer to another Plusnet customer using e-mail; I've given up reporting that because it just keeps re-occuring.

And that is both with a legacy (no contract, not "out-of-contract"; there may be a legal differentiation?) account and an active (paid-for) broadband account (which has flip-flopped between "in-contract" and "out-of-contract")

Obviously this is only one person's experiences.

During my recent move I sent one e-mail using Pn's relay using a 'from' for a recently migrated domain. Simple is as simple does? (That's what the "s" in smtp is).

Given my personal experiences of bounced mails, which provider of e-mail services do you think I should ditch?

Since moving some e-mail stuff off Plusnet, any bounce errors I see are less 'opaque'/more meaningful.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

greygit1 — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 01:16:03 GMT

There's an upcoming (a week or so to go) strict enforcement of CMARK related to .bank and .insurance

How that interacts with ISPs mail servers (and other stuff) is something I'm just having to guess at.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

greygit1 — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 01:21:51 GMT

C-

D+

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 09:30:00 GMT

Gmail free accounts experience a multitude of email reception issues not seen by their paid for accounts or free email services from other providers. If there is any arrogance here, it’s they way that Gmail blocks mail to their free users.

The specifics of the issue reported here remain undisclosed, there are solutions to dealing with Gmail’s selective behaviour for most users. However there are insurmountable issues for some legacy brand users.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

number6 — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 10:13:19 GMT

"The specifics of the issue reported here remain undisclosed"

What specifics need to be 'disclosed', please?

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

greygit1 — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 02:31:01 GMT

"However there are insurmountable issues for some legacy brand users."

Does that extend to domains registered via the IPTAG FORCE9? (Force9 being somewhat of a legacy 'brand')

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 09:50:18 GMT

@number6

The email brand.

The nature of the sending email address - naked Plusnet brand or personal domain name.

The domain name registrar (host) - that is Plusnet or not Plusnet.

The complications and potential mitigations all relate to the unilateral imposition by Gmail in imposing non-mandatory RFCs on other email service suppliers. Essentially this all revolves around “Are Plusnet’s various outbound email servers permitted (by non mandatory RFC measures) to send email on behalf of @senders-enail-domain.whatever ?”.

@plusnet-native-donains should all be OK, the complications arise from the mix of personal domains with mail brand and where the domain is hosted. The biggest issues arise where the personal domain is NOT hosted by Plusnet, but the mail is redirected by a third party to a Plusnet mail service and the user seeks to send mail via their Plusnet account using that domain name … to avoid paying the third party’s email service charges.

Plusnet has a number of email services each different acquired through multiple acquisitions and mergers. They have different means of mitigating these issues, thus there is on one size fits all answer as has been suggested. Experience has shown clearly that the first line support folk are not as well informed on these issues as they might be … and indeed they do wish that mail users just went somewhere else. That how ever is not the official position of the business.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 09:53:53 GMT

@greygit1

It is more to do with the combination of personal domains with legacy email brand. The measures mentioned elsewhere to seed a SPF record for hosted domains (which implies a Force9 tag) where used with the core email services will mitigate Gmail’s behaviour.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

number6 — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:46:50 GMT

The email brand.
xxxxxxx@freenetname.co.uk which, I believe was linked to

xxxxxxxxxxxx@madasafish.com

The nature of the sending email address - naked Plusnet brand or personal domain name.

Personal domain name. xxxxx@xxxxxxx.co.uk

The domain name registrar (host) - that is Plusnet or not Plusnet.

Not Plusnet (suffolk.cloud/123-Reg)

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Brugmansia — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:54:23 GMT

Then I should not fall into the "biggest issue" category as PlusNet do host my domain - but I can't send emails to Gmail accounts without them responding with, "undeliverable"!

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:57:31 GMT

Mitigating email delivery failures (notably Gmail)

Many users are reporting challenging issues in sending emails to some of the big email players. Some of those providers (notably Gmail, but only in respect of their free email accounts) have mandated the SPF & DKIM non-mandatory RFCs on other email providers, such as Plusnet. This can bring about significant difficulty when attempting to send emails using the various Plusnet and vISP legacy email services.

How you mitigate Google's behaviour very much depends on how you send your emails via Plusnet's SMTP servers and which Plusnet vISP email brands you use.

A Plusnet email account or a legacy brand (for example MAAF) email account
you@youraccount.plus.com (native Plusnet email address)
you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered and hosted by Plusnet (or MAAF)
you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered elsewhere and hosted by Plusnet
you@yourdomain.co.uk which is hosted elsewhere which forwards mail to your Plusnet (or MAAF) mailbox

The vISP email brands have different level of mitigation capability - for some, the only practical solution might be to migrate your email hosting elsewhere.

Native Plusnet email address

If a user sends email using a from address of you@youraccount.plus.com then DKIM signing will be applied to the email automatically (and pass Gmail's imposed restrictions) if the SMTP server is configured to require authentication. Somewhat unhelpfully, Plusnet's email setup guide suggests that such authentication is NOT required if connecting over a Plusnet connection. Whilst technically true, operational complications can occur and it is much tidier to just enable authentication with the "use the same account settings as the incoming server" option.

Your own domain

If you send from your own domain name, then DKIM signing is not available and you will need to configure SPF instead. How to do this depends on where your domain is hosted - by Plusnet or by third party.

Plusnet fully hosted and registered domain

For Plusnet brand registered and managed domains, SPF configuration is facilitated by the addition of a TXT record in the domain's DNS settings. Plusnet's DNS configuration tool for hosted domains does not permit the creation of TXT records. However, there is an unsupported "facilitation" which will create an SPF record for a hosted domain.

On the basis that your account ALREADY has a hosted domain:

Log into the user portal
Go to Manage Account
Manage Your Domains (Manage your domains link)
Configure domain name
Create an "Additional DNS records (Advanced)" as follows...

For the avoidance of doubt leave the left side blank, exactly as shown. It might take Plusnet's systems up to 6 hours to generate the SPF record.

If your email service is provided by one of the legacy vISP brands (for example MAAF) acquired over the years by Plusnet, similar options are not available to you.

Domain name registered and managed elsewhere (third party)

There are two scenarios here:

Plusnet hosts the email service for the domain
The domain forwards email to the native Plusnet email address

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME. Ideally email forwarding should be avoided as it brings about numerous complications - you should use the DOMAIN's email servers to received and send your domain email, not Plusnet's.

To configure SPF on a domain name registered elsewhere, you must use your domain name provider's DNS configuration tools to set up the applicable SPF record:

v=spf1 a mx include:_spf-internal.plus.net include:_spf-internal2.plus.net ~all

or

v=spf1 include:_spf-internal.madasafish.com include:_spf-internal2.madasafish.com include:_spf-external.madasafish.com -all

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 18:55:30 GMT

@number6

You need to create a TXT SPF record for your domain with your domain name registrar as per the bottom of the above ... or more correctly use your domain host's SMTP server for outbound email.

@Brugmansia

You have not detailed the way you are seeking to work. If you are using a personal domain name, hosted by Plusnet NOT on one of the acquired legacy email services, then you need to set up the "spoof" MX record as described above to generate the TXT SPF record for your hosed domain.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

greygit1 — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 01:48:02 GMT

You may like to read through some of the forthcoming changes at Google (forthcoming in Feb 24 ? from what I read).

It includes some D stuff.

I've *never* had a bounce from the gmail accounts that I send mail to. I have had bounces from a plusnet registered account.

May be down to 'random' redirects? As far as I can ascertain, the bouncing PN account uses IMAP, spread across several devices.

I've been trying to get an old gmail account to work with POP3/SMTP and Tbird. So far, it has been a 'fail'. I suppose Gmail will remain a web-only based mail interface for some.

Re: Problems with emails to gmail addresses

Townman — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 08:27:25 GMT

@greygit1

That is an entirely different matter to the subject being discussed in this thread. IIRC you need to modify the Gmail settings in your Google account to allow a third party email. Liens to access the mailbox.

If you need to discuss this further, please report your post above to the moderators and request that it and this post be spilt off to its own topic.