missing incoming emails

[#1]

Messages addressed to  me at roy@[myusername].plus.com sent from certain senders (two identified so far) don’t get to me.

The remaining messages from many other senders arrive normally.

The identical messages were addressed at the same times to my wife ruby@[myusername].plus.com did get to her.

I know mine was missing because both our email addresses appeared in each message’s ‘To’ box.

 In both cases the senders kindly re-sent the messages with the same result: I didn’t receive the messages but my wife did.

No other messages addressed to other valid aliases on my domain appear to be missing.

The two senders are newmembership@cu3a.org.uk in September, and info@dementiaadventure.co.uk in April this year.
Neither sender reported any problem - such as the email being bounced/rejected.

Can you throw any light on what going on?
And what can be done about it?

I’m using Thunderbird for both my and my wife’s emails; running in Windows 11 on my PC.

[#2]

@mrlong 

Hi Roy,

A warm welcome to the forums.

Just to be clear about a few details - you say that a single email addressed to both accounts is delivered to one but not the other?

I need to be clear that one is not looking at identical emails sent separately to each address.

Are both Roy & Ruby both secondary email boxes, indeed are they both mailboxes and not redirect addresses to somewhere else?

Has the junk folder been checked on Roy?

[#3]

Thank you. In each case it was a single email addressed to both alias addresses (my wife's and mine) that are in the same mailbox. And I checked the junk, spam etc folders and everywhere else I could think of. 

I hope that answers your questions...?

PS I've just realised that I've had my (with my wife's) PlusNet email setup since 2006! And in all the time since, this is the only significant problem I can remember encountering. Not bad, eh..?

[#4 · Accepted solution]

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@mrlong wrote:

Thank you. In each case it was a single email addressed to both alias addresses (my wife's and mine) that are in the same mailbox.

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Hmm, in matters such as this, terminology, precision, indeed pedantry are essential, for folks frequently misuse email terms which have specific and precise meaning resulting in deep confusion.

An email ADDRESS is effectively a routing tag, consisting of who / what and where: the who / what is that to the left of the '@' and the where is that to the right.  The who / what can be...

• A mailbox
• An alias (another name to be associated with a mailbox)
• A redirection

Consider this scenario which might describe the Long family who have their own domain name (the where) of the-longs.co.uk having the following email ADDRESSES

• family@the-longs.co.uk - as a MAILBOX
• roy@the-longs.co.uk as an ALIAS of family
• ruby@the-longs.co.uk (also) as an ALIAS of family
• daughter@the-longs.co.uk as a REDIRECTION to wife@the-newfamily.co.uk

If an email is addressed to both alias addresses (as defined above) it would only be delivered ONCE into the (same) family mailbox.  You can check how this is all set up for you in the user portal here - https://www.plus.net/manage_my_mail

In the above illustration, the daughter has got married, moved away and now has a new where and her old / previous (routing) address now points to a new who / what at another where.

You might not have meant things quite as you write them, but if things are indeed configured as above, there is a clear explanation for what you have seen happening.

[#5]

Your explanation "If an email is addressed to both alias addresses (as defined above) it would only be delivered ONCE into the (same) family mailbox.  You can check how this is all set up for you in the user portal here - https://www.plus.net/manage_my_mail" does indeed match my situation.

The only remaining puzzle for me is why haven't I seen this situation before...? And the answer is probably coincidence. My wife also has another alias address - which she uses far more frequently -  that just so happens to be in a different (family) mailbox.

Thank you very much: you’ve given me exactly what I was looking for.