Email service disappeared on renewal

[#1]

Hi, posting on behalf of my mum, whose account is <Redacted>.co.uk. She's been using PlusNet for 10+ years.

Over the weekend she renewed her PlusNet ADSL, with no changes to the service, just a simple renewal. The renewal was processed yesterday evening but at the same time, her email turned off.

Specifically, she can no longer contact PlusNet POP3/IMAP/webmail, and emails sent to her bounce with:

<Redacted>: host mx.avasin.plus.net[212.159.9.200] said: 550
   Invalid Recipient <Redacted> (in reply to RCPT TO command)

She's had no emails to suggest that her email has been migrated to greenby, and isn't able to log into the greenby account, so we suspect that the email service has just.... been turned off?

Details: she's been using PlusNet POP3/IMAP forever, but the domain is hosted externally (123-reg). As you see, its MX is set to mx.avasin.plus.net. So if she has been migrated to Greenby, perhaps all we need is to update the DNS records and fiddle with a few things like SPF record and IMAP servers. But again, there's no evidence of such a migration occurring. Help please!

Moderator's note:
Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

[#2]

@adetaylor 

whose account is aatconsultants.co.uk

That is not an account name, its a domain name. From what I can see, the domain in question is not hosted by Plusnet. If it was , then the name servers would be ns1.force9.net & ns2.force9.net. The domain seems to be hosted by Godaddy and the nameserver is ns67.domaincontrol.com.

[#3]

@adetaylor 

Ah! further checking seems to indicate that the domain was moved (to Godaddy) in Oct 2023. The nameservers changed on 10 Oct. You can check the DNS history here https://completedns.com/dns-history/

I can now guess what's happened...

In order for a domain email to be handled by Plusnet, the domain must be hosted there and the nameservers MUST be the force9 ones. The email should therefore have stopped back in Oct 2023 when the domain hosting was moved. I suspect that didn't happen for some reason and the domain was still partially hosted. The recent renewal of the account has tidied things up.

Does the domain still show as hosted when you login to the Plusnet account ?

If so you might try changing the nameservers back to force9

[#4]

Thanks for the replies.

The PlusNet account is the same as the domain but without the .co.uk. Sometimes, PlusNet likes to call it <that same thing>.plusdsl.net.

I'm fairly confident that the problem here is not a DNS problem. Until yesterday, my mum could log into https://webmail.plus.net/ using her account name. Today, she can't. Obviously that doesn't involve our custom DNS at all. So we really just need confirmation from PlusNet about whether the email account has been deleted entirely, whether it can be recreated, whether it has moved to Greenby, etc.

That said, I think this is the history as far as I remember it:

- From 2016 to 2023, PlusNet offered fully hosted email with custom domains. That's what we used.

- From 2023 onwards, I think PlusNet withdrew the hosted domains, but continued to offer email hosting. So we had to switch the DNS provider to 123-reg, but continued to point it at PlusNet for the actual email hosting (via MX record etc.)

- From yesterday onwards, the email hosting seems to have stopped entirely.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

@adetaylor 

Sometimes, PlusNet likes to call it <that same thing>.plusdsl.net.

Assuming its a Plusnet account then the <accountname>@plusdsl.net is only used as the PPPoE login on the router.

You should be able to login to webmail using just <accountname> and the password used to login the the member centre www.plus.net.

That said, I think this is the history as far as I remember it:

- From 2016 to 2023, PlusNet offered fully hosted email with custom domains. That's what we used.

- From 2023 onwards, I think PlusNet withdrew the hosted domains, but continued to offer email hosting. So we had to switch the DNS provider to 123-reg, but continued to point it at PlusNet for the actual email hosting (via MX record etc.)

Plusnet did withdraw the hosted domain option for new customers (and that may have been 2023) but still provided the facility for existing domains. So a change should not have been necessary. For a Plusnet hosted domain (even if its registered elsewhere) the nameservers MUST be set to the Plusnet ones ( ns1.force9.net & ns2.force9.net ), Setting the MX alone does not provide email hosting.

As I asked previously, does the domain still show on the account ? If so then setting the nameservers back to the Plusnet ones may get the domain email back (although it may take 24hrs or so for the nameserver change to propagate.

As for any transfer to Greenby, this is being staged. Some of the smaller cohorts e.g metronet brand are being transferred first, the larger brand s e.g  Plusnet ( the .plus.com addresses) will not be transferred for a while. Any accounts with hosted domains will be the last to be transferred as they are the more complex ones. 

[#6]

OK - resolved!

Thanks for the confirmation that it's not yet a Greenby migration thing. That narrowed down the problem space enough for me to become suspicious of what my mum had been saying, and I can, in fact, log into the webmail using her credentials. Perhaps things have changed, or perhaps she was wrong all along.

Either way, remaining problems are solely with incoming email, which I will endeavour to resolve with DNS adjustments.

[#7]

Further update.

The PlusNet member centre does not show the domain as being hosted, and when I point the DNS records at ns1.force9.net & ns2.force9.net, I still get bounced emails from mx.avasin.plus.net denying knowledge of the domain.

So I think your original comment was right that this was "semi-hosted" until the account was renewed, and now it's been expunged. Boo.

So, no amount of DNS fiddling is going to fix this - unless the hosted domain can be re-created, then I think my mum will need to sign up to a third-party email hosting service. I'll give it 24 hours before taking that step.

[#8]

---

@adetaylor wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

The PlusNet account is the same as the domain but without the .co.uk. Sometimes, PlusNet likes to call it <that same thing>.plusdsl.net.

- From 2023 onwards, I think PlusNet withdrew the hosted domains, but continued to offer email hosting. So we had to switch the DNS provider to 123-reg, but continued to point it at PlusNet for the actual email hosting (via MX record etc.)

- From yesterday onwards, the email hosting seems to have stopped entirely.

---

There is something not quite adding up here...

• For account: <username>
• User Portal login is <username>
• Broadband connection username is <username>.plusdsl.net
• The naked default email address is  <username>.plus.com

If you have your own domain name and that refers to <username> then that was a choice made by the user; there is no convention which makes this mandatory.

Plusnet did indeed stop offering email services to new users - is that what you were thinking of in saying "I think PlusNet withdrew the hosted domains"?

They did stop offering email services to new customers, but continued to operate the service for the users who have it already whilst the user maintained a broadband subscription account.  They also continued to host and renew domain names - mine remains here...

With a hosted domain you@yourdomain.co.uk is delivered to you@<username>.plus.com

If yourdomain.co.uk is now hosted elsewhere, how is it hosted?  Unless there is a redirect email sent to you@yourdomain.co.uk will NOT arrive in the PlusNet email box.  However if your mum has been using mum@<username>.plus.com then it will be there.

When you configure an email client to use the Plusnet email servers, you are looking at you@<username>.plus.com IRRESPECTIVE of the email name you put into the account settings.  The mailbox accessed is predicated by the user name...

• <username> will access the default mailbox
• <username>.<mailbox> will access a secondary mailbox
• you@<username>.plus.com will access the mailbox you
• you@yourdomain.co.uk will fail as that email address / credential is not known to Plusnet and for most email clients is the user credential it will default to

On top of all of the above, there is the need to consider SPF for a domain hosted elsewhere - SPF is the means by which a receiving service determines if the sending service is permitted to send on behalf of the sending email address.  If not aligned correctly, many services will not accept delivery of the email.

[#9]

then I think my mum will need to sign up to a third-party email hosting service.

If you need a recommendation, mine would be Mythic Beasts. I moved my Plusnet hosted domain there about 2 or 3 years ago. I've now got 3 other domains hosted there for email.  The functionality is very similar to Plusnet, unlimited mailboxes & aliases and also multiple domains , just subject to storage space limits , 2GB for the basic product. Cost £2/month or £20/year if paid annually. If you need more space and/or webspace then there are a tier of products https://www.mythic-beasts.com/order/hosting?product=H-050

They support SPF, DKIM and DMARC and will accept third-party registered domains and DNS, although its easier if you switch to their nameservers.

[#10]

EDIT: The above took a lot of typing, during which you posted updates ... a more pragmatic approach might be to have reg123 forward mum@yourdomain.co.uk to mum@<username>.plus.com

This is far from ideal, but is pragmatic ... because after <username>.plus.com has been migrated to Greenby, there is the technical possibility of also migrating yourdomain.co.uk to that service too.  You'll get that service free for 2 years if you have a current broadband service at the time of migration.

Nothing has yet been revealed about what Greenby might look on the other side of migration, but given that existing hosted domain names will be moving with the mail service, it would seem logical that one should be able to add a personal domain name to a migrated account.

If you want to tale this route, you'll need to sort out SPF configuration in the third party's DNS service...

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:

1. Plusnet hosts the email service for the domain
2. 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

Note that DNS changes take time to promulgate.

Thinking about the events with the account renewal - previously hosted domains have lingered on account configurations; there has been a deal of work to clean these up over recent weeks.  It would therefore be logical that such might also happen on an account event.