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Emails refused by server for TLS certificate error

mrasars
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎07-08-2015

Emails refused by server for TLS certificate error

All attempts to send emails to a verified username mailbox at '@futuresadvice.co.uk' are failing, and the error message reads as follows:
"A message that you sent to the following recipient could not be delivered due to a permanent error.  ** The remote server 81.144.163.130 responded with: ** <username>@futuresadvice.co.uk 550:TLS client certificate is expired or not yet valid This message was created automatically by mail delivery software on the server avasout06."
First message errored was HTML-formatted with a DOCX attachment, but even a simple 1-line text-format message with no attachment gets the same response.  The same destination account is receiving other emails from other senders without incident.  The error message is immediate, so I'm wondering if there's an internal Plusnet mail handling issue here.  A 'WhoIs' lookup for the IP shows it's owned as a range by BT, but no clue who they lease it to.  So I can't verify on my own whether the IP in question or the server name is on the Plusnet end of this mail chain, or the remote end.
Any advice?  I'd call Plusnet tech support directly, but the 'Contact us' link takes you to that ridiculous 'Ask Jess' page, and doesn't show any phone numbers.
3 REPLIES 3
spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Emails refused by server for TLS certificate error

Checking the mail-exchange server for futuresadvice.co.uk gives

C:\>nslookup -type=mx futuresadvice.co.uk
Non-authoritative answer:
futuresadvice.co.uk    MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = mail.guidelinecareers.co.uk

then looking up that server gives

C:\>nslookup mail.guidelinecareers.co.uk
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    mail.guidelinecareers.co.uk
Address:  81.144.163.130

which is the IP quoted in the failure message..
It looks to me like that server is trying to pass the email to somewhere else using a TLS (secure) connection but found problems with the certificate. So declined to accept the email from the Plusnet relays and the latter returned it to you.
David
mrasars
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎07-08-2015

Re: Emails refused by server for TLS certificate error

Many thanks for that, much more informative than the internal Plusnet chat help I finally got thru to.  Now I just have to convince the recipient to chase their mail server admins!
bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 16,887
Thanks: 4,979
Fixes: 316
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Emails refused by server for TLS certificate error

Would be interesting to know whether or not you encounter similar problems sending to futuresadvice.co.uk from a GMail account? GMail, like our outbound mail servers, use opportunistic TLS so I'd expect the same thing to happen.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
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