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Mail delivery to recipients taking 5hrs plus

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jjlothin
Grafter
Posts: 56
Thanks: 9
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

That's my experience too: the fault is erratic. Which makes the problem even more intransigent ...

In the meantime I'm trying to remember to send from my Gmail account instead of Plusnet, whenever the receipient is Gmail ...

JHA1E
Grafter
Posts: 41
Thanks: 13
Registered: ‎11-09-2015

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

I have removed the automatic selection of the Primary email address in Outlook by a Registry change. Details lower down the following link:- https://www.slipstick.com/exchange/primary-account-removed-outlook/

JayG
Pro
Posts: 1,145
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Registered: ‎30-10-2011

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

I've just sent 3 test messages from my Plusnet email account to my free gmail account at one minute intervals:

Test 2 arrived first Roll_eyes (8 minutes)

Test 1 arrived next (45 minutes)

Test 3 has presumably been routed via Alpha Centauri and has yet to arrive one hour after sending.

(Emailing myself from my gmail account is instantaneous.)

 

Shame Google won't help - hard to imagine why they'd come up with such an erratic 'plan' even if they had business reasons for wanting to be obstructive.

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

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Hi all, let me start by saying that I absolutely understand the frustrations you're having regarding this issue. We all expect emails to be delivered almost instantaneously to any email address anywhere in the world.  It might not look like it but we are working on trying to resolve this. I

There are a number of barriers though that make this less straightforward than it may appear. Without getting too technical essentially it looks like resolving this issue will cause issues for some other customers and how they use their email service. 

We're having to assess

  • Steps needed to deploy the change
  • The number of users this change will negatively impact
  • How we contact these customers ahead of time
  • What this will do to volumes in our contact centre. 

And whilst internal testing is promising there's no guarantee that this completely resolves the issue. 

I wish I could give you more positive news, but unfortunately, for now, al I can say is we aren't ignoring it, we know it's a pain and we're looking into the best way to deploy this with minimal disruptions to existing customers

 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,920
Thanks: 9,537
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

The problem is not entirely erratic - it is though progressive.

Over the weeks I’ve run a number of structured tests typically I send a number of emails from @myaccount.plus.net each addressed to both a free and a paid for gmail account. The paid for account receives all within a short time - in other words the PlusNET email service is promptly presenting them for deliver.

The free account receives an email quite promptly, the next a few minutes later, the third a lot of minutes later, the fourth hours later, not necessarily in the order they were sent. That is Gmail is deferring acceptance of delivery attempts (known as grey listing).

Now here’s the odd bit if say 2 or so hours after I started all of this, before all of the first test emails have been received, if I repeat the test with a new batch of emails, then they are delivered (accepted) with the same deferral pattern. It is as though Gmail is taking issue with “too many” emails from a @myaccount.plus.com domain in a given time period.

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.

PeterB1
Rising Star
Posts: 64
Thanks: 36
Registered: ‎19-10-2018

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Hi JonoH,

 

Very many thanks for responding to our pleas!

I think we've all got the message that this is technically difficult - and it's both useful and interesting to know that one of the problems is that some other users might be negatively impacted by any change in your system.

It is indeed a pain, but we're all on your side and an update every week or so would do a lot to ease that pain!

Cheers,

Peter B

sirjestalot
Grafter
Posts: 37
Thanks: 26
Registered: ‎08-09-2018

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Having worked in an email service support capacity myself, I can understand Plusnet's awkward position of apparent powerlessness to resolve the problem.   My former colleagues tell me that email from their university mail domain to free Gmail addresses does not appear to suffer any significant delays, and email I send from my outlook.com account always delivers near-instantaneously to free Gmail addresses.   I can't imagine Gmail and Microsoft having an 'agreement', so there *must* be some other issue involved.  I've heard that other providers besides Plusnet are affected by Gmail's delaying tactics; do we know which ones specifically, and have they been contacted to find out what they're doing about it?

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,920
Thanks: 9,537
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Thanks @JonoH,

As you suggest there are potential mitigation measures ... but without those mitigation measures it is currently working largely OK except where Google has chosen to make it difficult. The mitigation measure in planning is not simple to implement and until proven, there is the possibility that this might not be the magic touch we crave. Would be so much easier with Google’s engagement!!

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
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Registered: ‎29-09-2011

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?


@PeterB1 wrote:

It is indeed a pain, but we're all on your side and an update every week or so would do a lot to ease that pain!

 


I'd love to update you each week, but I'm afraid the updates wouldn't be very much use. Especially as we're now in our Christmas change freeze period and so apart from high priority fixes very little changes will be released before mid-January.

 

If you would like an update though just tag me in this thread.

 

Edit

@peterB1 wrote:

I feel you're letting our friends at PlusNet off the hook a bit.

I wish Smiley 

 Jono H
 Plusnet Community Manager
Wombat77
Dabbler
Posts: 20
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Registered: ‎12-07-2017

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Hi JH,

Erratic indeed! To that I would add 'entirely unpredictable'.I raised this issue months ago after running some tests from my Pnet account to my free Gmail account. The reply times varied from minutes to 4days. After reading your post today I ran another test (Pnet to free Gmail) and the message was delivered in 1hour 3minutes. It carried the usual message from Google "Gmail couldn't verify that plus.com actually sent this message (and not a spammer)". Do I interpret that correctly if I assume that Google consider PNet to be a spamming outfit?

 I have followed all the posts on this and realistically there isn't going to be a solution to this anytime soon.  

In the meantime I use Gmail 95% of the time as I gather others do too.

ntokane
Hooked
Posts: 7
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎21-11-2018

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

I finally got time to try this. Gmail does not like the message I tried to send from Gmail setup in Outlook. Says the sending is not secure. Now I have an outbox test message that will not send and that I cannot delete despite trying all the suggestions that I found online.

JHA1E
Grafter
Posts: 41
Thanks: 13
Registered: ‎11-09-2015

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

 Email me direct with your Outlook settings. My works OK - [Removed]

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

JayG
Pro
Posts: 1,145
Thanks: 143
Fixes: 6
Registered: ‎30-10-2011

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

All three test messages sent yesterday from my PN email account to my free gmail account were tagged with a question mark on receipt:

 

If you see a question mark next to the sender's name, the message isn't authenticated. When an email isn't authenticated, that means Gmail doesn't know if the message is coming from the person who appears to be sending it. If you see this, be careful about replying or downloading any attachments. 

 

Plusnet appear to use SPF authentication, this from the received test message header:


mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 84.93.230.244 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of email_account_name.plus.com) smtp.mailfrom=email_account_name.plus.com
 

 

Result: Explanation: Intended action
Pass: The SPF record designates the host to be allowed to send: accept
Fail: The SPF record has designated the host as NOT being allowed to send: reject
SoftFail The SPF record has designated the host as NOT being allowed to send but is in transition: accept but mark
Neutral: The SPF record specifies explicitly that nothing can be said about validity: accept
None: The domain does not have an SPF record or the SPF record does not evaluate to a result: accept
PermError: A permanent error has occured (eg. badly formatted SPF record) unspecified
TempError: A transient error has occured: accept or reject

 

There appears to be more than one meaning of the word 'accept' in terms of the action taken (or how long it takes) - whether this means Gmail is treating PN mail as spam I am currently far too 'googled-out' to possibly hazard a guess! 

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,920
Thanks: 9,537
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

Jay,

You’ve hit the nail on the head.

In the absence of SPF specification the rules are “act in a neutral manner and accept the email”.

For *.plus.com email addresses to paid for Gmail accounts, Google is always following the rules, where the email is sent to a free account they break the rules. If the email comes from mydomain.co.uk via the same Plusnet email servers, Google always follows the rules.

With such ambiguity it is difficult to be sure what will fix it, rather than what might fix it, until the potential ambiguity has been mitigated. The implementation of SPF is not a simple task.

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.

Eavestile
Dabbler
Posts: 16
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎25-09-2018

Re: Plusnet to Gmail addresses - what's the problem?

So the fix is now next year.  Maybe - if new issues emerge for other users - it might be never.

What is so depressing is the pusillanimous response from the Company and the suggestion that Google won't engage. As far as I can see that means through their forums.  What should be happening is an official complaint to Google that they are not following recommended internet procedures (if that is the case).  For a subsidiary of BT to be hiding in this way is reprehensible.

 

Has the Plusnet CEO gone AWOL or is the real reason for this mess Plusnet have not invested sufficiently to keep up with best internet practice.

 

As also mentioned by others in this thread I am now using Gmail if a recipient has a Gmail address.  The solution appears to be a wholesale switch from Plusnet  to Gmail - which only works in the long run if Google don't then degrade their offering to force you on to a paid for account.  We all know switching providers is a big pain and Plusnet appear to be relying on that before the drain of customers becomes too large to ignore.