Problems sending PN email to Gmail addresses

[#1]

I suspect Google have s spy reading my posts on this forum so that every time I come up with a theory they can tweak something and make me look even more of a fool than I already am. Last weekend, I posted evidence I thought was quite compelling that delays in PN emails to Gmail addresses were related to time of day and email traffic load – i. e. instant delivery in the morning UK time and at weekends but extensive delays on UK weekday afternoon/evenings once the US had woken up.

Ever since I posted the results of that 4-day survey, everything has changed.

All day Wednesday and Thursday this week and so far today, every single test email I’ve sent – 20 in total- at all times of day - has been delivered instantaneously.

WEDNESDAY  5 emails between 11 am and 8 pm – all delivered instantly.

THURSDAY  10 emails between 11 am and 11.30 pm – all delivered instantly

TODAY: 5 emails between 11 .am.and 6.30  pm – all delivered instantly.

What should we make of all this, @Townman ?

[#2]

Hi Peter,

To the best of my knowledge there have been no changes on the Plusnet end of things.  One therefore wonders what has changed and where.  Given the variance in performance one wonders if Google has done some optimisation?

[#3]

Thanks @Townman 

Are the PN techies doing some monitoring themselves? If not, shouldn't they be doing so?

And if they are, what are they finding?

Surely, as Plusnet is still the email operator, they should be checking their system status - including the PN-Gmail issue - rather than relying on random users like me?

If they don't, how will they ever be able to inform us, as the people responsible, whether the service is back to normal?

[#4]

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@Townman wrote:

...one wonders if Google has done some optimisation?

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It's tempting to read that as "Google's latest AI nonsense is slowly learning and adapting".

[#5]

URGENT REQUEST FOR HELP FROM @Townman 

No idea if this is connected with the Gmail problem or not.

When I went to bed last night, all was well with my Plusnet email (send and receive), including instant delivery to Gmail addresses.

Needless to say, nothing has  changed with my account or server settings etc overnight!

This morning, incoming emails are arriving OK, but I cannot send an email to anyone, even myself, from Outlook, webmail or iPhone Mail.

On webmail, the error message reads: "

SMTP error (550) Failed to set sender <Redacted> sender rejected (blacklisted by local policy

On Outlook, the error is: 

! Task <Redacted>l@<Redacted>.plus.com – Sending reported error Ox800CCC78: ‘Cannot send the message. Verify the email address in your account properties. The server responded 550 < <Redacted>@<Redacted>.plus.com> sender rejected (blacklisted by local policy)

On iPhone the error is: 

Cannot send mail. The sender address was invalid.

As nothing on my system has changed, I don't understand how the sender address (i.e. my usual Plusnet email address) can suddenly be invalid!  

Even when I'm sending a message to myself!

HELP!

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

[#6]

@PeterB1 See: https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Plusnet-emails-refusing-to-send/m-p/2017914#M52039

[#7]

@PeterB1 

Thank you for your confidence that I (a customer) can effect a resolution during a bank holiday weekend!

There is a focused thread for this subject, all likely to respond points of contact (other than calling the support centre) have been tagged.

[#8]

Many thanks to @jab1 and @Townman for putting me straight.

Glad to know that at least I'm not alone.

And  no, @Townman, I don't expect miracles from you as a SU/customer, but it's always very reassuring to know you're on our side!

Sounds like this is completely unconnected with the Gmail issue, doesn't it?

But it is very frustrating not to be able to test emails sent to Gmail today to see if recent progress is being maintained!

[#9]

An update on my monitoring of the Plusnet-to-Gmail problem - and a couple of quesiotns for @Townman and other PN friends.

For the past eight days I have been sending about half a dozen emails a day from my @account.plus.com address to a variety of different Gmail addresses.

With one small exception, I  have had a 100% success rate, by which I mean that all these emails have been delivered instantly at all times of day and all times of the week. A huge step forward from the dire position in recent weeks and months. But is it real?

The small exception is that yesterday and today when I've sent email sin the first half of the morning, they've arrived about 6 minutes late. But I'm not sure this was necessarily caused by Gmail. When sending from Outlook, I noticed that on these occasions the 'Sending' bar was on screen for longer than usual. And when I tried sending a test message from my Plusnet address to myself at the same Plusnet address it was also delayed by the same period of time..

 So - the two questions:

1) Am I the only one monitoring the Gmali issue? Have others noticed a radical improvement? What indicators are PN technical staff getting?  Are we anywhere near being able to declare this problem resolved? (No really - don't snigger at the back of the class!)

2) Is it reasonable to suppose that the Plusnet system might sometimes be a wee bit  slow in actually sending an email which might explain the outlier occasions when messages to Gmail are still delayed a bit - and this morning's experience when a message to my own PN account was delayed by the same amount of time?

All advice welcome, as ever!

[#10]

I will ask what the current monitoring is reporting.

Last time I asked, it was all reported to be good ... even when you were reporting some delays and I was seeing 40 minute delays.

[#11]

Thanks.

[#12]

@Townman  Any feedback on this?

Do we know what PN staff are reporting from current monitoring of the Gmail problem.

My own monitoring has been slightly less round-the-clock in the last few days, but most messages I have sent have been delivered instantly and the few that haven't have been delayed by less than a minute.

[#13]

Hi Peter,

Sorry, no new information has come in my direction.

[#14]

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@PeterB1 wrote:

... Have others noticed a radical improvement?

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I've noticed a big improvement.  For example, today I've exchanged messages with two gmail contacts in the one email conversation.  I don't know if the messages were delivered instantly / slightly delayed or not but if there was any delay it didn't interrupt the flow.

[#15]

@stuck  I've certainly noticed a big improvement and @Townman is kindly trying to get feedback from frontline PlusNet staff on their own monitoring. The problem for me is that in real life, so to speak, it's essential to know with almost 100% certainly when sending an email that it will arrive pretty much immediately. Knowing that a service works fairly well most of the time is better than nothing but it isn't really good enough because it undermines confidence. So the trouble right now is that even if we put my experience and yours together we don't have a sample size big enough to tell us whether the Google problem really has gone away or not. It would be enormously  useful to hear from any other Plusnet customers what's happening with them,  And it would be great to know from the front line what the best advice is from Plusnet staff.