topic Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail in Email

My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:25:46 GMT

Reporting-MTA: dns; avasout-peh-002 [84.93.238.88]
Received-From-MTA: dns; DESKTOPPHPVRN3 [147.147.18.131]
Arrival-Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:02:40 +0000

Final-recipient: rfc822; morcott99@gmail.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.7.26 This mail has been blocked because the sender is unauthenticated.

Last-attempt-Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:02:41 +0000

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:29:30 GMT

@morcott99 Are you sending when at home i.e. on your Plusnet connection, or when away from home?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:49:17 GMT

@morcott99 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: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:53:55 GMT

I may be reading this wrong, but the OP appears to be trying to send from a gmail account via the PN mail servers?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:00:33 GMT

@jab1 Either you're reading it wrong or I am ? I thought it was sending TO a gmail account , that's what the title (and the bounce) says

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:05:46 GMT

@MisterW Second part of the rejection message:

Final-recipient: rfc822; morcott99@gmail.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.7.26 This mail has been blocked because the sender is unauthenticated.

Last-attempt-Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:02:41 +0000

Suggests they are sending from a gmail account?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:07:38 GMT

Que? Final-recipient: rfc822; morcott99@gmail.com

Surely, thats TO a gmail address ?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:10:51 GMT

OK, but the morcott99@gmail.com looks to me to be the OPs address?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:31:13 GMT

I am sending at home from outlook using my plusnet connection

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 13:39:01 GMT

Are you sending from a plusnet email address e.g something@<accountname>.plus.com or your own domain e.g something@<mydomain> ?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:07:47 GMT

I have updated my mail server settings to mapi.plus.net and smtp.plus.net and still get the same error when sending to gmail ONLY

Reporting-MTA: dns; avasout-peh-001 [212.159.14.17]
Received-From-MTA: dns; DESKTOPPHPVRN3 [147.147.18.131]
Arrival-Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:03:23 +0000

Final-recipient: rfc822; morcott99@gmail.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.7.26 This mail has been blocked because the sender is unauthenticated.

Last-attempt-Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:03:23 +0000

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:12:06 GMT

yes but what is significant is what you are using as the sending (FROM) address as I asked earlier

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:23:23 GMT

@morcott99 wrote:

I have updated my mail server settings to mapi.plus.net and smtp.plus.net and still get the same error when sending to gmail ONLY

Might be a typo, but it should be imap.plus.net and relay.plus.net - unless I've finally lost it - not impossible. 😉

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:08:09 GMT

You are correct - those are the servers I used.

Outlook verified the send and receive on them and all other mail is working

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:10:24 GMT

So, exactly what address are you sending from - as has been asked before?

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

RealAleMadrid — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:11:46 GMT

@morcott99 Please answer the question that @MisterW asked in message#10. It is important to know the format of the sending address.

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 16:25:05 GMT

The sending address is greg@mor-cott.co.uk

It's an old freenetname domain that has gone through madasafish to Plusnet as the host.

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

jab1 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 16:26:46 GMT

Thank you, @morcott99 .

@MisterW - all yours. 😉

Re: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

MisterW — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 16:38:36 GMT

It's an old freenetname domain that has gone through madasafish to Plusnet as the host

@morcott99 ok, so the problem is that your domain does not have SPF or DKIM. Google have decided that email to gmail addresses MUST be authenticated with eether SPF or DKIM ( neither of which are actually mandatory standards!!)

So if your domain is hosted on a Plusnet account, then there is a workaround to create an SPF record which will define the Plusnet mail servers ( relay.plus.net ) as authorised to send mail for your domain and so you should then be able to send to gmail addresses.

See below for an explanation and details of the workaround.

Note that it will take up to around 6 hours for any SPF record to be created.

Shout up if you have any queries

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.

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: My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

morcott99 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 17:17:16 GMT

I have tried the Mange your domains link

Says there are no domains to manage