Emails to one recipient no longer working

[#1]

I realized after about a month that all my emails to a regularly contacted friend xxx@cruzio.com were not being received. But her emails to me were arriving okay. The problem seems to have started in mid-November. I don't receive any indication that the messages to her have failed - I use Thunderbird as my mail agent on Linux. Plusnet host my own domain.

I have not changed anything at my end.

She has looked in her spam folder and all other reasonable sanity checks.

I sent her a test email from my emergency alternative account (gmail), which did arrive, but landed in her spam folder.

Now my question is whether this is cruzio.com ditching anything from me, or plusnet ditching anything to cruzio.com?

Advice much appreciated.

[#2]

Hi @breslaw 

Are you able to ask your friend to add your email address as a "safe sender" on their cruzio.com email account, and then re-test sending an email? 

Ali 

[#3]

I've been in contact with cruzio.com technical support. Apparently I am already on my friend's whitelist. However, when I tried sending a email to their test address demo@cruzio.com, that failed to arrive. Whilst messages to their support address customertickets@ticket.cruzio.com work fine.

So it seems that PN are blocking anything to @cruzio.com. The cruzio support people told me to raise this with PN. I rather dread doing this because email problems in the past have always been a rather soul destroying experience.

[#4]

@breslaw if Plusnet were blocking mail to cruzio.com then you would almost certainly get an NDR (non delivery report) when you tried to send.

Plusnet host my own domain.

Ah! what is much more likely is that cruzio are marking your email as spam because its not authenticated with either SPF or DKIM.

Its not possible to enable DKIM for a PLusnet hosted domain but there is a workaround below to enable SPF. Do you already have that configured ?

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.

[#5]

Thank you MisterW.

Create an "Additional DNS records (Advanced)" as follows...

I did that a few years ago, and the "additional record" exactly as you specified is showing under my breslaw.co.uk domain configuration options.

Furthermore, if cruzio were deeming xxx@breslaw.co.uk as spam, then why is it that  customertickets@ticket.cruzio.com do receive my emails even if xxx@cruzio.com don't?

[#6]

then why is it that  customertickets@ticket.cruzio.com do receive my emails even if xxx@cruzio.com don't?

A very good question...

Without access to any server logs its very difficult to determine what's happening. 

[#7]

So any idea what I should do next?

[#8]

Have you tried sending from your native <account>.plus.com address ?

[#9]

"Have you tried sending from your native <account>.plus.com address ?"

I've tried sending from the webmail portal rather than from my email client - Thunderbird.

I wouldn't know how to send from my native plus.com address. On webmail my domain address is the only identity that's visible.

[#10]

On webmail my domain address is the only identity that's visible.

When you go to compose a message, to the right of the FROM address is an 'edit identities' link , click that and add a new identify. I suggest <accountname>@<accountname>.plus.com as that is the default catch-all OR if you already have a mailbox defined then use <mailbox>@<accountname>.plus.com

Then when back in compose , you should be able to select that new identity as the FROM

[#11]

Thank you @MisterW . I've just tried that and I'll let you know what happens.

[#12]

Okay. So I sent an email from [Removed].plus.com on the webmail portal to the technical support guy at cruzio (customertickets@ticket.cruzio.com) with copy to demo@cruzio.com.  Then I notified him that I'd done this with an email from my normal email address via Thunderbird.

He let me know that he'd received the latter notification, but hadn't received anything from [Removed].plus.com. His comment was:- "so it has to be something between our mail servers. They don't like talking to each other for some reason. I'm still waiting on word from our upstream provider."

This failure to communicate started in mid-November and continues. Prior to that, it had been fine for years.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Personal information removed from a public forum.