cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

grahamn
Rising Star
Posts: 242
Thanks: 21
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎12-09-2010

Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

Hi,

I'm not sure if the email from Plusnet, received in the last hour is genuine or not, but essentially it's saying make sure your outgoing server is set to relay.plus.net as changes are happening (presumably DNS resolving to new servers or some such change).

All the links in that mail go nowhere and setting my smtp plusnet server to the one proposed results in no mail being sent.

If the mail is genuine, I think someone needs to check out the content and ensure relay.plus.net works as it doesn't here, but the smtp.xxxx does. Glad I tested it first. I'm now back as I was.

 

 

38 REPLIES 38
clive_p
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎01-12-2017

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

I got the same message, and then called the phone helpline to get an explanation.  That was a waste of 15 minutes as the person who answered didn't know anything about this.  Does it mean that Plusnet are going to block access to all 3rd party SMTP services?   If so that's absolutely outrageous.  If they really do I shall take it as a unilateral change to the contract and invoke my right to cancel and find a less authoritarian supplier.

 

On a laptop where one wants to connect to email when travelling using Plusnet as the SMTP server generally does not work, which is why I use at least two others.

grahamn
Rising Star
Posts: 242
Thanks: 21
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎12-09-2010

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

I don't believe it's anything as drastic as that (SMTP authentication when not on Plusnet connection is required) but having reconstituted the broken links the help guide isn't a lot better - showing generic MS Office guides in the case of the Win 10 guide, for adding a generic email account to the mail client, rather than changing the specific entry that needs checking/changing. That's probably fine for a lot of folk here, but those who need to the help to do it, will be disappointed - I'm forecasting red-hot phone lines at plusnet for little while to come! Not overly impressed so far.

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

Plusnet are not going to block access to other SMTP servers. What they ARE doing is to implement SPF records for all *.plus.com email addresses. These records will define the Plusnet email servers as being those authorised to send emails from a *.plus.com address. If you send email from such an address not using relay.plus.net then there is a possibility that your email MAY be rejected by the destination server.

As an aside I regularly travel and use relay.plus.net to send all my email without any problems.

What problems do you encounter @clive_p ?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

JonoH
Hero
Posts: 4,346
Thanks: 1,596
Fixes: 157
Registered: ‎29-09-2011

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

The vast majority of our customers will need to take no action. 

We're adding SPF records to our outbound mail servers and this simply means that if you're using a Plusnet email address and you don't use our outbound mail servers then there is a chance that the recipient's email provider will mark the email as spam.

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

@grahamn AFAIK smtp.plus.net is just an alias for relay.plus.net. Does an nslookup return anything different for you ?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

grahamn
Rising Star
Posts: 242
Thanks: 21
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎12-09-2010

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

I get two alternate IP's back against that alias. Interesting thing is relay.plus never gets anywhere, whereas smtp.xxx has no problems. I don't use plusnet mail as a rule, so cannot really comment other than today's test when the relay.xxx sent mail has not arrived, an hr later, the other smtp.xxx arrived in 60 seconds.

clive_p
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎01-12-2017

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

Well when I tried it some years ago it simply didn't work.  And there was something in an earlier Plusnet guide which said that one had to be connected over the Plusnet Broadband line for it to work.  It may be that now they allow it if you set up authentication, I don't know.

 

But if it's really true that it only applies to *.plus.com email addresses, then why on earth didn't the email message say so, instead of worrying a lot of us unnecessarily.

 

This doesn't explain also why when I phoned up the droid knew absolutely nothing about this.  If the emails have actually been going out over a period of two weeks, than that is appallingly poor.  I asked them to phone me back when somebody competent was available - no doubt that call with never come because...

clive_p
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎01-12-2017

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

Well why the hell didn't your email say just that?

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

@grahamn interesting,  Were those emails to a Gmail address by any chance ?

So relay.plus.net accepts the mail but it doesn't appear to be delivered in a timely manner ?

The reason for implementing SPF is to overcome Google's greylisting of plus.com addresses due to lack of SPF records

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

grahamn
Rising Star
Posts: 242
Thanks: 21
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎12-09-2010

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

@MisterW Yes, to the same gmail in both cases And yes, accepted but no delivery on the relay one.

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

@clive_p

And there was something in an earlier Plusnet guide which said that one had to be connected over the Plusnet Broadband line for it to work.  It may be that now they allow it if you set up authentication, I don't know.

You do need to use authentication when not connected over .PN broadband connection but AFAIK that has always been available with a paid broadband account. The difference from now on is that users with free email accounts will also be able to use authentication. You can leave authentication on all the time, it will continue to work both from .,a PN connection and any other.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

@grahamn that just confirms that what Google are doing is confusing, but since they refuse to engage with PN we've had to infer what was happening. Lack of SPF was concluded as being attributable to the greylisting and a Trial showed that implementing SPF enabled mail to be consistently delivered, hence the change.

Bottom line is that when the change is implemented, relay.plus.net should work

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

grahamn
Rising Star
Posts: 242
Thanks: 21
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎12-09-2010

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

Interesting. Let's hope so. Will the smtp alias be maintained after these changes?

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,575
Thanks: 5,411
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Email from Plusnet re relay.plus.net

As far as I am aware , yes , but perhaps @JonoH could confirm/deny that ?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.