Mail delivery to recipients taking 5hrs plus

[#1]

Yes, gmail delivery times are very variable. A message I sent using webmail last night took 1 hour, 2 minutes and 27 seconds.

[#2]

Still waiting for PN to reply to my ticket or to acknowledge that there is a problem. This has been going for two weeks now and the only people showing interest have been some members of this forum.

[#3]

We're continuing to investigate this and we'll update you when we know more.

FYI the internal ref number is IMT-2206

Apologies for the inconvenience this is causing.

[#4]

I've just found this topic. I've been havuing exactly the same problem for at least a few days when sending messages to a Gmail address. I've been sending many messages to same address for over a year with no problem. We've only noticed the problem in the last week but may have missed before, especially if the delay was slight or intermittent. But now, delays of a few hours occur regularly. It even looks like a message might never get to its destination without any information being sent back to inform me the transmission had failed.

So I am now wondering if the same problem might affect messages sent to certain non-Gmail addresses. i.e. could it explain why some companies have taken a long time to respond to a message, or not responded at all?

Regards  Mike

[#5]

Based on my own tests every message I sent from a Plusnet/Force9 address to a gmail one was eventually delivered, though one was delayed over 24 hours.

I haven't spotted any posts about similar delays occurring with messages sent to non-gmail addresses. In fact for my testing I sent a copy of gmail messages to a non-gmail address and the latter arrived instantly whilst the originals to gmail were delayed. This suggests the gmails servers are deliberately delaying messages.

If you suspect delays are occurring with messages sent to non-gmail addresses could you contact the recipient and ask?

[#6]

Hi Spraxyt

I agree with you, the problem only occurs with messages to gmail addresses, which, unfortunately, are most of my friends and family. Any other non-gmail address does not appear to have the problem

The delay ranges from 3 minutes on the first message sent, to up to 36 hrs for subsequent ones. Eventually all are delivered. I am very seriously thinking of leaving PN because if I am forced to change my email address and notify all my recipients, with the inconvenience that this represent, as my as well search for an isp without this problem.

PN has registered the problem however I do not know if they are working on the issue, or have any estimated time to come with a fix. It is, obviously, the new validity checks that Gmail has introduced, that username.plus.com does not comply

[#7]

In fact for my testing I sent a copy of gmail messages to a non-gmail address and the latter arrived instantly whilst the originals to gmail were delayed. This suggests the gmails servers are deliberately delaying messages

I am very seriously thinking of leaving PN because if I am forced to change my email address and notify all my recipients, with the inconvenience that this represent, as my as well search for an isp without this problem

Seems that you might have missed David's observations - this is NOT a Plusnet problem - it is entirely caused by Gmail.  If this were a Plusnet issue, then the copy emails will not have arrived "instantly".  This does not appear to be a sender caused issue, but one caused by the receiver.

[#8]

Townman

Somebody has already contacted gmail see reply

Having contacted Gmail they have referred it back to Plusnet.

1

13 hours

avasout08.plus.net.

→

[Google]

mx.google.com

ESMTPS

7/2/2018, 7:19:35 AM GMT+1

They say the issue lies at avasout08.plus.net

[#9]

They might well do that but the visible evidence says otherwise.

Outbound to not gmail using account.plus.com is ok

Outbound to gmail using owndomain.co.uk is ok

There’s only one failing scenario - to gmail using account.plus.com

[#10]

A friend who uses Gmail regularly has had no problems receiving messages from people using various other e.mail providers - the only problem is from my Plusnet account.

Two things concern me. Firstly, unless one can test every single e.mail system in existence, how do we know that only messages to Gmail are affected. Secondly, if the issue is caused by Gmail introducing more careful anti-spam precautions, is it not possible that other providers will do the same (or are doing so already)?

I gather the way that PN structures the e.mail address/domain name is very unusual and is the cause of the incompatiblity. Is that correct? If so I look forward to hearing a definite diagnosis from the PN tech guys.

Regards

Mike

[#11]

I suggest that plusnet’s is different in that unlike many email providers they allow unlimited mailboxes on sub-divisions of the plus.com address space. There is nothing wrong with this, it is simply different to having a personal domain name or a single mailbox configuration.

If Gmail was doing anything half sensible then any domain not having a SPF record ought to see the same behaviours - the fact that this is not the case shows that gmail is doing something way beyond the norm.

If you want to defend gmails oddities because from the Plusnet end every target has not been tested, then similarly not every source to gmail has been tested either.

If you wish to look at this as being a problem at the PlusNET end ... please explain why we do not see this when the target account is a paid for gmail account? In short GMAIL is being selective here, not Plusnet.

[#12]

Hi Townman

From what you say it certainly does seem like it is a problem caused by Gmail. But I hope PN can find a work-around because if it is only a problem for a very small number of e.mail providers then I would think that Google will not have much incentive to do anything about it. 

Are there many (any) other providers that use a similar e.mail address structure to PN?

I seem to recall on one or two occassions I have encountered a web site that has refused to accept my PN address as a valid e.mail address.

Mike

[#13]

Hi all, 

We're still in communication with Google about this issue. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated as we get any movement on that. 

Adam

[#14]

So, do I understand correctly that if I have my own domain name attached to my PlusNet email, Gmail will see that domain address and will not be held up.

(Small problem I know but I have sent an information email to my wife's gmail account (4 hours ago) and she's still waiting. Still, not as bad a 36 hours.

[#15]

---

@barcud wrote:

So, do I understand correctly that if I have my own domain name attached to my PlusNet email, Gmail will see that domain address and will not be held up.

---

My experience, and that of others, has been that emails sent to a gmail.com address using the Plusnet/Force9 relays are not delayed if the sender address is a domain one, ie local-part@mydomain.co.uk; however they are delayed if the sender address is a username one, ie local-part@username.plus.com. Here mydomain.co.uk is hosted by Plusnet and overlaid onto the username.plus.com mailboxes.

I've just done several tests that confirm this behaviour remains the case for me.

If you have evidence to the contrary, once the delayed message arrives I'm sure Plusnet would like to see the headers.