Mail delivery to recipients taking 5hrs plus

[#1]

This is an issue in which Gmail is deferring receipt of emails sent to FREE gmail accounts from email addresses of the form *.plus.com. It seems to matter not if it is sent via PlusNET’s SMTP server or any other SMTP server.

When you use the Plusnet network to access your Gmail account and send emails via that service all email communication is within Gmail’s servers ... clearly they are not black balling their own email services.

[#2]

I'm not sure if I understand the above answer from Townman.  Is it only *plus.com emails that are delayed to gmail?  Not very satisfactory.  All I know is that my son is with BT and uses gmail exclusively, emails from Amazon, which are frequent, are not delayed into his free gmail inbox.

He is currently thinking of changing to Plusnet as it is cheaper than BT, I have told him to be careful.

[#3]

I was not aware of delays to email sent from PN email addresses to gmail.com until today when I got a reply from my son to an email sent to him on 11 Jan at 13.23 and received by him at 07.30 today 13 Jan. I sent a test message to my own gmail account copied to my PN email address. Lo and behold it was received by PN within seconds but after several hours nothing in the gmail inbox. I have a second PN email address which I have set to use athe 1and1 smtp server (I have websites and email addresses hosted by 1and1) Emails sent from this account to gmail addresses arrive as they should withing a very short time frame. The solution for me will be to change the smtp server for all my PN email addreses to the 1and1 smtp server.

[#4]

Plusnet may be cheaper than BT, buckley45, I don't know the figures. I have been with Plusnet for nearly 11 years and have found their broadband to be quite satisfactory during that time, which is what your son would be paying for.

However, it is their email service which has become the problem – they just don't seem to care about it. Not only is there this thread's issue with Gmail, but since I have researched trying to find a personal solution for it I have also discovered that the security applied to the Plusnet email system is lacking.

So by all means let him sign up to Plusnet for broadband but tell him not to bother with their email service and to stick with using Gmail. If ISP email provision is important to him he should also factor this lack into the cost.

[#5]

Hi JHA1E, Thank you for your note about setting the reply address to other than the sending address. I had not thought of doing so - obvious with hindsight. gmail is now my default account, but with the reply address set to my Plusnet address.

I now send everything from my gmail address. I know that everyone will receive my messages immediately, and any replies to me will likewise turn up in my Plusnet inbox immediately.

I have told everyone to continue to send to Plusnet, rather than gmail risking long delays.

This morning I asked a colleague to send to a gmail address from BTInternet. It arrived within the same minute. At the same time I sent a Plusnet email to the same destination. It took 43 minutes to arrive. Not conclusive proof perhaps, but it seems highly probable that BTInternet has it fixed.

I don't think this is an attempt by Google to discourage free gmail addresses. I think it makes them more attractive.

[#6]

We sent an email to a gmail address on Saturday, it was received on the Sunday (24hrs) and the request for the "read Receipt" was pressed.  On checking with the recipient today by phone, the read receipt was done, but we still not received it today - Weds.

We are using Windows live mail still, can anyone tell me if the latest Office - Outlook, is any better?

[#7]

It does not matter which email client you use. The problem is caused by Google blocking emails to free GMail addresses from the PN SMTP server. I have said previously that I have set up a free GMail account to send to GMail email addresses. I use Outlook and set the reply address to my PN address. Have a good read lower down in this thread.

[#8]

Even if you use another smtp server, but send it from an @Username.plus.com address, Google will still discriminate against it.

[#9]

I don't understand why Google would discriminate against Plusnet but not others such as BT.

[#10]

I have just started getting hit by this

Weirdly enough if I send it to the gmail alias googlemail.com, there are no issues

[#11]

After reading the post from Redtux above, I've just sent four consecutive emails to my own Gmail address, but using @googlemail.com instead of @gmail.com

All four were delivered instantaneously.

I then sent four consecutive emails to myself using @gmail.com

The first arrived immediately. The other three are delayed.

Any thoughts from our friends at PlusNet?

[#12]

Interesting. I'm not sure anyone has tried googlemail.com before

Whilst an MX lookup returns the same hostnames for both gmail.com and googlemail.com , the IP addresses are slightly different. One set ends .26 and the other .27 ...

[#13]

redtux - you're right, how bizarre! The reply comes through from gmail though, and when you reply to that it reverts to delay mode. I wonder if this will work for people who have only recently signed up to gmail and have never had a previous googlemail address?

(Un)fortunately this workaround has come just a couple of days too late for me as I have sent to all my contacts with gmail addresses asking them to use my gmx email address, preparatory to dispensing with Plusnet altogether! I must say it has been great being able to send instant emails again, just like starting up all those years ago when I got my very first email account with beeb.net! 🙂  

[#14]

@redtux,

A warm welcome to the forums.

That's a brilliant diagnostic step, which I hope will convince everyone where the issue is located - GOOGLEmail by whatever alias.  Whatever it all rather points to very bad inconsistent implementation of email platforms … approach from the right and all is OK, approach from the left and its rather broken.

It is very evident that some of their in-bound MX servers are behaving very differently; those for googlemail and the paid for gmail.com services are correctly accepting emails, whilst that for free gmail.com does not.

[#15]

Just answering my own question. Apparently all Gmail accounts also have a @googlemail address even if they set up their account after the changeover. So redtux's workaround should work for any Gmail recipient.