PlusNet rejecting some email

[#1]

I have raised a plus.net ticket to see if they can get to the bottom of this issue as it would appear that Zen is saying it is a plus.net issue but lets see what plus.net say

I'm sorry but I've got to agree with Bob, it's not a PlusNet issue. I'm quite prepared to call PlusNet to account when it's their fault but in this case it's Zen's. In a nutshell they are sending out email from their servers, which in your case purports to be from volvocars (who are not authorised to use their servers), why should that not be rejected ?

Now it may be that this has started because PlusNet has tightened up their SPF policy and hopefully Bob will be able to find out what has happened?. Other mail providers have already tightened up and eventually they'll all get to this stage in their attempt to reduce spam, Any who provide a forwarding service need to be able to cope with it, something they seem not to want to do at the moment (if they even understand the problem!)

[#2]

I did ask PN earlier for Spam filtering to be removed but this seems to have changed nothing

[#3]

In my case I disabled it myself via the web management interface for e-mail, via the Spam tab.

However it does take up to 24 48 hrs to take effect for switching Spam checking ON or OFF (not the 30mins reported for applying other Spam setting changes) and for mail services return to normal.

That's certainly my experience.

This was one of many things carried out when trying to find a solution along with the creation of SPF records.

When mail finally did start working, I wrongly attributed 'the solution' to adding the SPF and subsequently reverted my PN Spam setting back to ON.

Within a few hours the SPF 550 re-appeared.

After a few hours backtracking over previous steps, I switched PN SPAM off completely again and went to bed.

Next morning mail was working again, no SPF 550.

[#4]

I have spam filtering disabled but only from this morning. PN says it takes 30 mins to work. However, emails are still being rejected

[#5]

Apologies, I said 24 hours... having re-read the line above the e-mail option tabs it is actually up to 48hrs... that is to switch ON or OFF

Changes to your Spam settings will take 30 minutes. Switching Spam Protection ON or OFF will take up to 48 hours.

[#6]

It's a DNS change that occurs early hours of the morning. It will then take some time for DNS to propagate. Switch it off now, and most of the email will be bypassing the spam filters by tomorrow when you wake up.

@Work4Cunard wrote:

Would you agree that if PN don't opt for your option 3 and revert from SPF, those individuals affected will have to disable Spam checking completely on their own profile?

That's one option. Another would be to host the domain on the Plusnet account. Another would be to transfer the domain to another registrar.

@gmorris59 wrote:

What I would like to know is what and when did PN make these changes. As others have commented they are a bit draconian and untested

September 5th I think. It's not untested, this is expected behaviour.

[#7]

I could not wait any longer for a resolution and so had to move the email away from PN.

There is much mention of turning spam option off to bypass SPF checking. Bob, I think it would be a great help to others if you or a member of your team could confirm for definite that this is indeed the case as a member of your support team (MW) said that it would NOT. I mentioned this earlier but here it is again: .. disabling the spam option won't do anything in regards to SPF checking as it's done on the server side.

[#8]

It would appear that a few of us have this problem. What and when did PN make a change? and when will someone from PN comment with accuracy and certainty as to what is the solution. Can some from PN please comment?

[#9]

I've disabled Spam Filtering for now and emails are getting through.  Took around 6 hours for the changes to filter through.

My biggest frustration with this is the apparent lack of notification to users that this change was occuring and the resultant impact.  My daughter has been waiting for some important emails regard urgent training for a new job and we have no idea if they have been bounced.  We only found out because another sender actually resorted to snail mail and mentioned the bounces in the letter!

One last point.  My own domain is the only email address I generally use, along with my family.  All of my emails are therefore forwarded from 'hosts.co.uk'.  However *some* were getting through, so it cannot be simply down to Plusnet rejecting emails fowarded via hosts.co.uk because of non-SRS otherwise I wouldn't have received *anything*.  There must be something else at work here.

From Tuesday 6th, an email from 'britishgas.co.uk' got through, but an email from 'envitia.com' didn't.  An email from my wife (ie. my domain) got through, but emails from 'cieem.net' didn't.  All went through hosts.co.uk email forwarding to plusnet.

[#10]

---

@eeiltd wrote:

I mentioned this earlier but here it is again: .. disabling the spam option won't do anything in regards to SPF checking as it's done on the server side.

I don't think that's true TBH. The SPF checking is done by the mail MTAs at mx.avasin.plus.net. When you disable spam filtering your MX records start pointing to the MTAs at mx.core.plus.net instead. Disabling is not immediate though because it's a DNS change. You'll need to wait 24 hours or so.

@gmorris59 wrote:

What and when did PN make a change? and when will someone from PN comment with accuracy and certainty as to what is the solution. Can some from PN please comment?

I've answered both these questions already, here and here

To reiterate though, on the 5th September the inbound policy was changed to reject emails from domains that have an SPF record but are sent via a server that is not part of this SPF record. Mail forwarders should rewrite email headers to avoid any complications with this. Some don't, and that's where you're seeing problems.

Our servers are basically doing something like this:

"Oh look, an email from an email address that has an SPF record, lets take a look and see what it says.
"Ah, it says emails from this address should only be sent using server a, server b or server c.
"That's odd, this email isn't coming from any of those servers, it's coming from server d instead.
"That makes me suspicious, so I'm not going to accept it!"

@DaveVint wrote:
My biggest frustration with this is the apparent lack of notification to users that this change was occuring and the resultant impact.  My daughter has been waiting for some important emails regard urgent training for a new job and we have no idea if they have been bounced.  We only found out because another sender actually resorted to snail mail and mentioned the bounces in the letter!

The lack of notification is poor, so sorry about that. I didn't even know this was happening to be honest. It's not particularly unusual though, and we certainly wouldn't be the first email host to do it. Even if the change gets reverted, we're likely to fall back to putting a pretty heavy spam score on the email instead (meaning it would end up in your junk folder rather than being rejected). I'd urge anyone using forwarders that fall foul of this issue to consider a different domain forwarding service.

One last point.  My own domain is the only email address I generally use, along with my family.  All of my emails are therefore forwarded from 'hosts.co.uk'.  However *some* were getting through, so it cannot be simply down to Plusnet rejecting emails fowarded via hosts.co.uk because of non-SRS otherwise I wouldn't have received *anything*.  There must be something else at work here.

You misunderstand how this works. Whether the problem manifests itself or not depends on whether or not the email address of the person *sending you a message* has an SPF record or not. If they don't (and it's not a requisite) then we have nothing to check and therefore no chance of it failing validation.

From Tuesday 6th, an email from 'britishgas.co.uk' got through, but an email from 'envitia.com' didn't.  An email from my wife (ie. my domain) got through, but emails from 'cieem.net' didn't.  All went through hosts.co.uk email forwarding to plusnet.

britishgas.co.uk has no SPF record:

No valid SPF record found of either type TXT or type SPF.

envitia.com does:

Found v=spf1 record for envitia.com:
v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all 

---

[#11]

Just to confirm

a) Disabling SPAM filter should remove the problem - thereby passing throug all emails

b) What should the email forwarder (zen.co.uk) do when forwarding email. There is the ability to add TXT but nobody seems to know what should be in this TXT field?

c) Is the definitive solution to have PN host my domain, so that there is no forwarding?

Much appreciated

[#12]

a) Disabling SPAM filter should remove the problem - thereby passing throug all emails

Bob has confirmed that.

b) What should the email forwarder (zen.co.uk) do when forwarding email. There is the ability to add TXT but nobody seems to know what should be in this TXT field?

They should implement SRS. That means they rewrite the RETURN-PATH so that the mail is shown as coming from your hosted domain (which it is!). Then you can add TXT records to define the SPF policy for your domain. PN will then check that and it will pass.

c) Is the definitive solution to have PN host my domain, so that there is no forwarding?

That is a solution albeit quite expensive unless you have the ability from a legacy account to transfer the domain for 'Hosting only'.

[#13]

I have been experiencing these issues with Fasthosts for about a week and whilst the 'proper' solution is for them to implement SRS, the last reply I had to my open ticket was:

"I understand your concern, however, we no longer have any control on this. The SPF records has already been added but they are unable to verify it. SRS is not supported, I am afraid."

Given this situation and the fact that PlusNet have changed their policy without notice, wouldn't it be simpler for PlusNet to reverse these changes for now and work with Fasthosts, Zen , etc. to  implement the solution in a managed way?

[#14]

Whilst I agree that it would have been nice to be informed of the PN change I'm not sure I would have realised the problem with forwarding until it actually happened! although I seem to recall that google & yahoo implemented a similar policy to PlusNet some while ago. I'm surprised that FastHosts & Zen etc don't seem at all concerned about it, in fact (as you can see from their reply to you) I don't believe their CSC staff understand the problem!. I suspect that with more and more adoption of SPF checking, the next step will be that servers sending out invalid mail (like zen & fasthosts) will have their Senderbase reputation reduced as a consequence. Then they'll have difficulty sending valid mail as well...

Yes , PN could maybe reduce the (rather drakonian) 550 bounce to something less but I'm not sure there's anything they can do to work with the forwarders on other solutions. Basically the forwarding servers are lying! they claim to be sending mail from the original sender when in fact they really are sending from the original recipient.

[#15]

Managed to speak to someone knowledge at Zen and they suggested to add the TXT field which should be sufficient for PN. Obviously it is difficult to test for how does one know the emails that have been rejected (unless you ring every possible sender of an email to me)