Plusnet emails refusing to send.

[WearingPurple]

My email seems to be ok now, thanks

[grumble]

After-action review. Bullet points.

Is this caused by a hardware failure? Was it caused by a change?  Was this caused by an unautorised change? Why was the change made? How was the change tested to assure its effectiveness? Was there a reversion process as part of the change? Who authorised the change? Who made the change? Was the change properly tested after it had been implemeted? If the testing passed and provided a false positive, why? If the testing failed, why was the reversion procedure not followed? What are the learnings?

(I think there may be a flow chart for these types of things).

[Baldrick1]

@grumble 

Or truncated to all the customer needs to know:

1 It was reported in the morning of a Bank Holiday Saturday that it was not possible to send emails.

2 A few hours later this was fixed.

[mwwagain]

You forgot ....

3 - That whatever it was (which we do not need to know, but would be nice) is not going to happen again (which we do need to know)

[jab1]

@mwwagain Who knows if a fault will develop again? Where technology is involved, no-one knows.

[Sick_of_PN]

Despite your attempts to sweep it under the carpet, the fix wasn't wide-ranging enough to include my main email address (though it did work for another user <someone_else@username.plus.com>); so I have had no way to send emails since Saturday morning.

Even more uselessly, Community pages are inaccessible from overseas meaning I have been unable find any resolution.

Very poor.

[jab1]

@Sick_of_PN The issue was a system-wide fault on the email outbound servers, which was resolved for everyone at the  same time.

If it worked for another mailbox (on your account?), then the problem is with that specific mailbox, and needs further investigation. 

[Sick_of_PN]

Since other threads have been closed and point to this one, I assumed this was where to post to state that I have an issue.

Is anyone working on this, or am I just speaking to the void?

[Townman]

The community name you have chosen is not overly likely to garner the engagement you seek.

You have not offered much in the way of detail as to what error you encounter on one of your email addresses, but not the rest of them.  If this works for some of your email addresses but not others, then this is not a system wide issue "being swept under the carpet".

Information about the client you are using, the email brand involved, which mailbox 'type' (default or secondary), how you are connected to the internet and can you log into the mailbox and send using webmail would all be very helpful.

The issue on Saturday morning was service wide, impacted all users attempting to send using anymailbox@account.plus.com - by any means.  Your issue is totally different ... even if you perceive the symptoms to be similar, your issue relates to a single mailbox, whilst your others function correctly.

If I had to guess without facts to guide me, it would be that there is a configuration issue with your outbound email server settings in your client software.  See the email server connection diagnostics (link below) to find the appropriate settings for each email brand.

Note also that all Plusnet services have elevated access restrictions from overseas locations to protect the service from abusive use, for the benefit of all users.

[jab1]

As stated, the system-wide issue was resolved. The issue with that single mail-box is a separate problem. 

EDIT: @Townman has given a more comprehensive analysis.

[Sick_of_PN]

Since PlusNet is actively trying to drive me away as a customer, the username stays.

Baldrick1 wrote:

"all the customer needs to know: [snip] A few hours later this was fixed."

As this was untrue for me, I continue to feel justified in saying the issue was swept under the carpet, particularly as there were no answers to grumble's questions.

@Townman

Thank you for your reply.

I'm back in the UK at my PC. An email sent via desktop Thunderbird seemed to go fine.

The issue is on an Android smartphone using K-9 Mail. I last sent successfully an email on Friday evening. Since Saturday morning the fault report has stated: "<name@username.plus.com> sender rejected (blacklisted by local policy)"

At the time, I was connected via a mobile network, but since returning I've tried over Wi-Fi and got the same result.

I've found a way to install and run the curl commands on the smartphone, but haven't come up with a better solution for recording the output than to take screenshots. Consequently I'd have to type in the specific lines you'd be interested in.

The output for the smtp query includes the line "235 ... authentication succeeded"

[Townman]

Is the smart phone connecting over the Plusnet WiFi or over mobile?

The SMTP cURL test ran on network is not too informative.  Have you tired sending using webmail?

[Sick_of_PN]

Using K-9 Mail on my mobile overseas, I connected with a data plan on a sim from that country. I think I tried again on returning, which would count as roaming using a UK carrier.

Now I am at home, I tested it using PlusNet Wi-Fi.

I've just now tried webmail from my PC. That immediately bounced back:

Subject

Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.      

Delivery to the following recipients failed permanently:

   * [hidden]

Reason: A message that you sent to the following recipient could not be delivered due to a permanent error. ** The remote server ?? responded with: ** [hidden] ??:?? This message was created automatically by mail delivery software on the server .

Reporting-MTA: dns; avasout-peh-002 [212.159.14.18]
Received-From-MTA: dns; mail.enmail.co [91.204.208.8]
Arrival-Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:20:28 +0100


Final-recipient: rfc822; [hidden]
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 Rejecting due to poor sender reputation: 212.159.14.18

---

[jab1]

Was the recipient on a Microsoft  'family' email address? Someone on another topic has already pointed this M$-inspired glitch out

[Sick_of_PN]

No. It was an ancient free email address: FreeUK.com

(Minor edit to previous post for clarity)