email forwarding from 123Reg/Host Europe

[#1]

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@atb48 wrote:

I've just taken a look at PN's main Service | Status | Email and found nothing about this issue is listed.  However one that is listed and marked as "resolved" appears to highlight a roll-back 4 days ago to outgoing PN email, which may have caused such mail being bounced as being detected as spam.  This morning I happened to have have one remotely bounced as "sender" not known.  

It may be useful to have more detail about the "upgrade" made and why it was then rolled-back. I realise that 123-reg/PN forwarding may be entirely different from  bounced sent emails, however there may be a link relating to DNS Records of the affected Domains

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Agreed. I think I mentioned that on one of the other threads on this issue. The info about the change being rolled back was posted on Friday lunchtime but doesn't actually say when the change was rolled back. Knowing that would help rule it in or out as a possible root cause. I know that for me the problem started sometime between 12:30 and 18:11 GMT on Thursday 14th March.

[#2]

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@Timnewbo wrote:

@daveh1 

I have been an internet junkie for over 22 years, and have often over the years referred to independent forums to seek help from likeminded junkies. In contrast, the advent of company sponsored forums seems to be a simple way for those companies to avoid having to  respond themselves to their customer questions in the hope that other customers might be able to do the job for them. I have therefore strived to avoid such sponsored forums, and arrived here only because I was referred here in response to my raising a support ticket.  Having arrived, I have found my ticket has now been closed, despite no resolution, explanation, or agreement.

I first registered my domain with a company that eventually became part of the PlusNet group, but that company was closed down a few years ago and PlusNet recommended transferring my domain to 123Reg.  At that time, relationships between PlusNet and 123Reg must have been close, but unfortunately it seems that there now are no lines of communication between them.  Whoever’s fault it eventually transpires to be, PlusNet must take a good proportion of blame not least for the way they have handled all this.

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My sentiments exactly.

Service status - says everything is ok unless something's broken for everyone

Chat - never available when I've tried to use it (or says blocked by ad-blockers even when the blocker is switched off)

Phone - at least a 20 min wait and then people are told there's no issue or referred here

Logging an issue - only a possibility if you manage to find the wizard page and then choose from a very limited list of categories just to get a question raised - & email isn't one of them!

As a last resort came on here but initially couldn't register as I couldn't receive the verification email due to the email problem! Luckily my boss gve me the ok to use my (non-Plus) work email address so I could get an account on here in the meantime. At least then I could get a workround from a 2 year old forum...

5 days later there's still no update on what's being done by Plus support....

[#3]

I've just noticed another Thread "We're making changes to your email" dated 17/12/18 stating items such as (quote):

 - "Good news: We’re improving the way our emails work in the New Year by adding SPF records."

 - "Related news: This means you’ll no longer be able to send your emails through your own server if it isn't configured to send via relay.plus.net or other email providers may reject them."

So, clearly PN have decided that SPF does now need to be dealt with (previously they stated they didn't support its creation), so not only are they claiming to be creating SPF DNS Records for PN handled Domains (I had to use Reg123 to create SPFs) BUT an implication that PN intend to do something about SPFs in the mail flows (outbound/inbound?)

First, it seems that PN handled Domains would HAVE to send mail only via relay.plus.net!!   BUT,

Did PN plan to do anything about handling SPFs on inbound emails? If so, was it implemented correctly?

Clearly PN are trying to catch up with regards to tighter email handling but I can find no information as what/when PN are doing with regards to SPF checking!

[#4]

Has anyone had any update on this today? All I've had is a question from Plus support (yesterday afternoon) asking if it's my webmail or a mail client that is rejecting the email. Doh! Somebody has missed the point altogether....

[#5]

I have raised the same question on another thread  at

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Undelivered-mail-I-believe-this-is-the-only-way-to-raise-a/m-p/1...

entitled "Undelivered mail - I believe this is the only way to raise a ticket"

I have just discovered that this thread has been running in parallel and so decided to join it as well.

I have now received the following totally unsatisfactory email from Plusnet :

"

Question #188460389 

I have now passed this information to the relevant team for further investigation and I will close this ticket. The purpose of this ticket was to obtain the information that you have provided and now that it's been added to the issue it's no longer required but I assure you that the problem is being investigated to come to a resolution as soon as possible."

I am really getting very fed up because nothing is happening, there is no feedback, the problem is worse than ever and I am not receiving emails, but Plusnet is just shrugging its shoulders and doing nothing at all about it.  I have absolutely no update of any sort, but more importantly, I am unable to add further information because the ticket has been closed without reference to me.

Please would someone from Plusnet respond to me and tell me what is going on and when I may expect to have my email service re-instated ?

The information which I want to add to the ticket is that I now discover that it is not just my INCOMING emails that are effected by this but also my OUTGOING emails which are not being received by others because they are evidently tagged as SPAM.  This situation has become intolerable.

I have discovered that I am not alone in this.  Hundreds of other customers are suffering and there is a parallel thread at :

email forwarding from 123Reg/Host Europe : 

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/email-forwarding-from-123Reg-Host-Europe/td-p/1621943

where you can see what a real mess this is.

In the meantime, I have disabled my Plusnet SPAM filter because it has been recommended to do so, but of course that will end up with me receiving a whole lot of spam.  But it has still not fixed my baility to SEND emails ebcause they all get marked as SPAM !  But no-one from Plusnet is listening and there is no way to add this additional information to the Question.

So, no update to the issue.  No possibility to add further information.  For heaven's sake, Plusnet Team, have some sympathy with your customers' difficulties and talk to us !

Can someone from Plusnet please have a little consideration and give us an update and tell us how we can report further developments in respect of our own Questions ?  You would not be very happy if you found your own email was being compromised like this, so why do you think it is acceptable for your customers to suffer ?

Thank you.

[#6]

@balvack2 

It seems that this problem has not yet disseminated into the PlusNet Support team, despite the number of customers reporting the issue. It does occur to me that although quite a few customers have caught on to the issue, there must be many more who have not yet realised that the absence of emails since Thursday is due to a fault, and have therefore not reported their problem. Its about time PlusNet made some general announcement.  Emails lost are gone forever. Who will know ?

Hopefully, my email has returned to normal, but I think others are still suffering. 

[#7]

Hi @shermans 

Thanks for getting back in touch. 

This thread is being monitored for any information which may be helpful for a full fix to be achieved sooner, and I have made the people ring-fencing this aware of your further contact.

At the moment, a work around is to disable the spam filter on webmail or redirect to a non plusnet email until the issue is resolved - I know that this is not the answer/update which you were hoping for but it is, unfortunately, the best we can offer as of yet.

Kind Regards, 

MoR

[#8]

Hi All.

There should be no need to make changes to your spam filtering. Forwarding, at least as far as we can see, looks to be working normally again after the issues encountered at the weekend.

I have one of my domains on 123-Reg that is set up to forward into a mailbox on my .plus.com email address and this is working as expected again. I've just double checked and sent a number of emails through the redirect and they have all been received.

If anyone is still seeing issues, and has a rejection message dated after midday on the 18th, then please get in touch via the usual methods so that someone can take a look.

[#9]

Thank you for your reply.  I am grateful.

Disabling the spam filter does not work.  I disabled mine last night and emails are still not being received by addressees.  I can only imagine that my Plusnet email address is tagged with recent recipients automatically as spam because of the historic problem.

Whilst I have re-directed my main email address to another system, you do not seem to understand the enormity of the problem.  I have individual email addresses for anyone with whom I deal regularly which then forward automatically to Plusnet.

For example : Plusnet@mydomain.co.uk, InlandRevenue@mydomain.co.uk, water@mydomain.co.uk, electricity@mydomain.co.uk, counciltax@mydomain.co.uk, bbc@mydomain.co.uk, ebay@mydomain.co.uk, paypal@mydomain.co.uk.  The list is endless - I have more than two hundred forwarded addresses on 123-reg.  It would be impractical to have to add a separate forwarder to each of those email addresses (and then subsequently remove them all when the issue is resolved).

So while my principal email address now has an additional forwarder - since last week - due to the problem, I can receive none of the other 198 email addresses and anything sent to me just disappears down the black hole.  Some of those 198 send me an email once a year (or less), others much more regularly.  I have no way of knowing whether one of them has tried to contact me therefore.

1. Please may we therefore have a REGULAR UPDATE on progress resolving this issue

2. Please will you add a topic about this email outage on the SERVICE INFORMATION page of the Forum.  It is affecting hundreds of people.  Why is this issue not being drawn to the attention of every unsuspecting customer ?

Just remember that we have to endure those irritating advertisements on the radio for Plusnet's customer service, and just live up to the claims.

[#10]

Just tried it. Definitely not working for me.

Do I really have to get back in touch using “the normal methods”; ie a 50 minute wait to speak to someone who I have to explain it to all over again! Grrrrrr!

[#11]

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@JW wrote:

Hi All.

There should be no need to make changes to your spam filtering. Forwarding, at least as far as we can see, looks to be working normally again after the issues encountered at the weekend.

I have one of my domains on 123-Reg that is set up to forward into a mailbox on my .plus.com email address and this is working as expected again. I've just double checked and sent a number of emails through the redirect and they have all been received.

If anyone is still seeing issues, and has a rejection message dated after midday on the 18th, then please get in touch via the usual methods so that someone can take a look.

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Yes of course we shouldn't have to change Spam filtering but that was one of the only ways to get mail to come through over the weekend and as of less than an hour ago that's still the advice being given by Plus support (see post above from @MasterOfReality ).

Until someone from Plus Support actually confirms they've identified AND RESOLVED the issue I'm not switching Spam filtering back on. I seem to be getting emails through, but ironically not actually receiving any that Plus claim to have sent me (i.e. updates to my open question). We've already lost 2 days of email (could have been worse without help of other CUSTOMERS providing info) so not taking the chance on losing any more until there's a credible response from Plus.

[#12]

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@MasterOfReality wrote:

Hi @shermans 

Thanks for getting back in touch. 

This thread is being monitored for any information which may be helpful for a full fix to be achieved sooner, and I have made the people ring-fencing this aware of your further contact.

At the moment, a work around is to disable the spam filter on webmail or redirect to a non plusnet email until the issue is resolved - I know that this is not the answer/update which you were hoping for but it is, unfortunately, the best we can offer as of yet.

Kind Regards, 

MoR

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And are you also monitoring these threads that refer to the same issue (and there may be others too?)

Email/Undelivered-mail-I-believe-this-is-the-only-way-to-raise-a

Email/Email-Error-550-Urgent

[#13]

@shermans It sounds as if you have all your individual addresses forward directly to your @plusnet mailbox. If so, might I suggest introducing an extra level of indirection? For example, forward [whatever]@yourdomain.co.uk to shermans@yourdomain.co.uk, then forward shermans@yourdomain.co.uk to your @plusnet mailbox. 

Granted it's not much help now wrt the current issue but it might be a task worth tackling anyway, bit by bit, as it will make things massively simpler if something similar happens again because you only have to change the terminal forwarder (i.e. yourshermans@yourdomain.co.uk) on 123-reg. It would also make it far less painful to switch from PlusNet to another mail provider (perish the thought that anyone might ever be tempted, I know, but...)

Apologies if I've misunderstood and/or I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs.

[#14]

Reading @shermans  post it he appears to be using the ''catch-all' forwarding facility provided by 123-reg,  rather than forwarding individual email addresses. Am I correct ?

Are other people who are still not receiving forwarded mail using the same method ?

[#15]

I am forwarding 3 emails from my domain at 123-reg to PlusNet. ( I am using a force9 account )

One of them is the 'catch all' that sends all other messages to a singles Plusnet email address. Note that the original "to email" address still shows correctly in Thunderbird.

I have added an extra email address to all the redirects so I get the message in 2 inboxes.

I took the Plusnet spam filters off 2 days ago and emails are now coming through to the Plusnet accounts.

I also added an SPF record into my DNS configuration at 123-reg, as suggested by 123 support

( the text of which is 'v=spf1 mx a ip4:94.136.40.163 a:mailex.mailcore.me -all' )

Not sure what is allowing the emails to work but I'm not putting spam filtering on until the issue has been resolved - maybe not even then as I was getting a number of correct emails marked as [SPAM]

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Post released from Spam Filter.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Font size adjusted.