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PlusNet rejecting some email

wisty
Pro
Posts: 591
Thanks: 112
Fixes: 8
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email


@SilverE wrote:
But a bit odd as 123 have been rewriting mine for the last week.

I have just tripped over this issue - not knowing it was a problem. However I have looked back through the e-mails received by one of my domains that is hosted by 123-reg and forwarded to Plusnet. I only have a basic hosting package - but I have had it for a while.

Mails received before the 5th Sept all have Return paths that look like the From Address.

Mails received since the 24th Sept have return paths of the form SRS0=fYf5nwVK4a=VO=5CmCTW6PQKVDJ5sT@[sending domain]

Nothing was received between the two dates - odd, but not impossible.

That supports SilverE's that 123-reg have implemented SRS recently. However I have another domain (hardly used) hosted by them which is forwarded to Outlook.com, and looking at a test  message to that domain I can't see any evidence of SRS in the return path.

Is it possible that 123-reg have only implemented SRS for destinations from which they get SPF bounce messages? Or are they simply rolling out the implementation on a  phased basis?

 

So now I am one very confused user.

 How do I tell if I have a problem unless some kind sender who has other means of communication with me tells me?

SilverE
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 7
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎22-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email


@wisty wrote:

@SilverE wrote:
But a bit odd as 123 have been rewriting mine for the last week.

I have just tripped over this issue - not knowing it was a problem. However I have looked back through the e-mails received by one of my domains that is hosted by 123-reg and forwarded to Plusnet. I only have a basic hosting package - but I have had it for a while.

Mails received before the 5th Sept all have Return paths that look like the From Address.

Mails received since the 24th Sept have return paths of the form SRS0=fYf5nwVK4a=VO=5CmCTW6PQKVDJ5sT@[sending domain]

>> I'm glad I'm not alone, I was beginning to think there was some magic going on, especially as 123 don't seem to know anything about it

Nothing was received between the two dates - odd, but not impossible.

 

>> or perhaps (not wishing to worry you) they were all bounced....

 

That supports SilverE's that 123-reg have implemented SRS recently. However I have another domain (hardly used) hosted by them which is forwarded to Outlook.com, and looking at a test  message to that domain I can't see any evidence of SRS in the return path.

Is it possible that 123-reg have only implemented SRS for destinations from which they get SPF bounce messages? Or are they simply rolling out the implementation on a  phased basis?

[my orig comment removed as n/a]

So now I am one very confused user.

 How do I tell if I have a problem unless some kind sender who has other means of communication with me tells me?


That is exactly why PlusNet should not be rejecting on SPF.

 

 

Picnic
Grafter
Posts: 190
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎30-10-2007

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

Looks to me like 24th was the magic date for 123-reg here as well. I have 2 domains where I simply forward emails on to my PN account. Checking back, emails since the 24th have SRS1 or SRS0 as the return path.

I still have Spam Filtering OFF on my PN account, if I turn it back on will it fail unless I have suitable SPF records in the DNS for these domains, or if there is none is it accepted? Still confused by this - sorry Sad

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,584
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Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

I believe @bobpullen confirmed earlier in the thread that if there is no SPF record then it can't be failed.

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.

I'd be inclined to add one though BUT make it a soft fail i.e ending with ~all rather than -all

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.

SilverE
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 7
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Registered: ‎22-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

I don't have SPF on my domain, I have PN's spam filtering turned on, and emails from senders with a "fail" policy are arriving ok through 123 with SRS rewriting. Setting SPF would help against spoofing of email (i.e. spamming other people), but would make no difference to PlusNet.

As a separate issue, because PN does not provide secure connections (SSL/TLS) I am moving my mail to secure servers. Curiously PlusNet have stated that they are failing to do this because they are not "fully focused" on this security issue. It does make you wonder why they chose to focus (unnecessarily) on SPF instead. It's almost as if they don't want people to use their email. 

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/SSL-on-IMAP-POP3-SMTP/td-p/1165569/page/12

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/23/plusnet_packet_woes_outage/

 

 

 

 

malvernnet
Hooked
Posts: 7
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎09-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

I managed to raise a ticket with PN about this when it first started. After initially pointing me towards these forums (which I had already identified as the reason for my ticket), they put my support call on hold until yesterday. I have now had an update as follows:

"Thank you for your patience.

I have had confirmation that the SPF Spam Issue has now been resolved following a roll back of our security settings.

If you are still having issues please let me know but I am confident you shouldn't have further issues.

Thank you for your patience in this matter."

I have just turned spam filtering back on and will monitor whether regular emails continue to get through unhindered!

toggie101
Rising Star
Posts: 114
Thanks: 15
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎02-04-2008

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

That's great news.

Many thanks for pursuing this with PN, and posting your findings.

(Also thanks to everyone else who has been investigating this issue.)

While I haven't been deluged with spam since switching filtering off (2-5 a day), I have noticed spam of a flavour I've not received before!

I await any updates you (and others) may have on this issue.

Thanks again.

radman1
Hooked
Posts: 8
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎28-07-2011

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

Yes, thanks to @malvernnet for cracking the PN support system! Response from PN seems to have been singularly lacking throughout this sorry saga.

 

toggie101
Rising Star
Posts: 114
Thanks: 15
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎02-04-2008

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

@malvernnet and anyone else monitoring this problem.

Does everything appear to be working normally since switching spam filtering back on?

Many thanks.

gmorris59
Grafter
Posts: 26
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎03-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

I am not convinced that all emails are getting through. I have also found out today that some emails are now not being sent either. I sent 4 x emails this morning and non of them were received by my recipient. Some other emails were received but attachments removed. If I send the same email via my yahoo, there are no issues - so I believe that it is a PN issue.

 

trying to get PN to investigate this is a nightmare. Has anyone else experienced this problem?

malvernnet
Hooked
Posts: 7
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎09-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

Since turning the spam filter back on last week things do appear to be back to 'normal'. It seems to have been a quiet weekend for email in general for our household - so much so that I did wonder whether things were being blocked again. However, when I tried sending or initialising emails from sources that I knew were previously being blocked, they came through without any issues. However, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld - these are the known knowns - there may still be the unknown unknowns!

Uncle1
Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: ‎04-10-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

Curious.

As another longterm user of 123-Reg forwarding, I can confirm that they were rewriting Return-Path by 24th Sept.  No one emailed me on the 23rd so I cannot determine the exact moment 123-Reg caught up with good practice.

However, I had a response from a 123-reg support gonk on the 25th Sept that was clearly well-informed:

"The issue happens due to an incompatibility between the 3 servers involved, the sender server, the 123-reg mail server and the recipient server.
123-reg will try to change the server configuration to avoid this issue.
I am afraid I cannot confirm the time frame for when this will be completed."

 - That is actually slightly more lucid than today's response to my 21st Sept PN support ticket:

"We were aware of a network issue last month that we believe caused this and subsequently resulted in a huge amount of tickets being raised to this pool and so we are very sorry that we are only getting back to this now. As I am aware, this issue was resolved within a few days of it being discovered and so you should no longer be effected."

 - It would appear that Mr Pullen's knowledge has not trickled down to the CSC, just as the SPF hard-reject change on the Avasin perimeter filtering servers was not communicated to his team at the time, any more than it was notified to PN customers.

We get what we pay for....

bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email


@gmorris59 wrote:

I am not convinced that all emails are getting through. I have also found out today that some emails are now not being sent either. I sent 4 x emails this morning and non of them were received by my recipient. Some other emails were received but attachments removed. If I send the same email via my yahoo, there are no issues - so I believe that it is a PN issue.


I'm not aware of any issues sending emails. If you continue to have problems then it would be useful to know where the emails are being sent from/to, via what server, what email application and what Internet connection?


Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

gmorris59
Grafter
Posts: 26
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎03-09-2016

Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

The emails are being sent to corimetal at corimetal.it, two were sent toda and not receivedy, the sending server is PN. I don't know the recipient's server. Being sent using Thunderbird. Internet connection - PN. Other emails being sent using the same client-side solution to fcagroup are being marked as [Sender auth failure][

bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
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Re: PlusNet rejecting some email

Thanks. I can send email directly to that domain from my machine:

~$ telnet mail1.postaebasta.it 25
Trying 193.26.128.31...
Connected to mail1.postaebasta.it.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail1.postaebasta.it ESMTP Baruwa Mon, 10 Oct 2016 11:25:34 +0200
ehlo plus.com
250-mail1.postaebasta.it Hello plus.com [84.93.219.165]
250-SIZE 41943040
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 HELP
mail from:<postmaster@********9.plus.com>
250 OK
rcpt to:<postmaster@corimetal.it>
250 Accepted
data
354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
subject:test
this is a test from plusnet support, please ignore.
.
250 OK id=1btWqb-0000gL-Te
quit
221 mail1.postaebasta.it closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

 


@gmorris59 wrote:

Other emails being sent using the same client-side solution to fcagroup are being marked as [Sender auth failure]


I don't really understand how 'fcagroup' fits in here, but it reads to me that it's an external email account you also have access to? If so, the clue is in the [Sender auth failure] header, therefore...

@bobpullen wrote:

I'm not aware of any issues sending emails. If you continue to have problems then it would be useful to know where the emails are being sent from...


That information ^ would be very helpful i.e. the email address/domain your messages are being sent from. Based on the evidence, I've a suspicion it's not going to be a plus.com address? Feel free to private message me if you're uncomfortable posting the address/domain in public.

Edit: As discussed over PM, the domain you are sending from has an SPF record as follows:

v=spf1 mx a ptr include:_spf.zen.co.uk -all 

The two destinations you're trying to send to are checking this SPF record and rejecting/dropping your messages because you're sending them via a Plusnet mail server (rather than Zen's).

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵