Gmail rejecting Plusnet mail

[#1]

Good morning,

Despite my hours of trawling trying to seek a definitive solution to the almost impossible task of sending

an email to anyone of my friends with a Gmail account. I have tried all fixes & spoken to tech support & still

I am unable to send to gmail accounts. 

I have a an account going back to 2000 here at Plusnet & never experienced this type of issue or tech support

suggesting I should use another provider to solve the issue. 

I use Thunderbird mail with a POP3 account, I have updated the DNS settings as per the instructions to resolve the

issue & waited 12 hours for it to become active. Still rejecting my emails. 

Does this mean I have to transfer out my domain to another ISP to resolve like I was advised by tech?

Thanks. 

[#2]

I have updated the DNS settings as per the instructions to resolve the

issue & waited 12 hours for it to become active. Still rejecting my emails. 

@Black_Shuck If your domain is hosted by Plusnet, does that mean you've tried the 'please-add-spf-records' workaround as described below ?

If so , have you checked that your domain now has an spf record ?

Mitigating email delivery failures (notably Gmail)

Many users are reporting challenging issues in sending emails to some of the big email players. Some of those providers (notably Gmail, but only in respect of their free email accounts) have mandated the SPF & DKIM non-mandatory RFCs on other email providers, such as Plusnet. This can bring about significant difficulty when attempting to send emails using the various Plusnet and vISP legacy email services.

How you mitigate Google's behaviour very much depends on how you send your emails via Plusnet's SMTP servers and which Plusnet vISP email brands you use.

• A Plusnet email account or a legacy brand (for example MAAF) email account
• you@youraccount.plus.com (native Plusnet email address)
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered and hosted by Plusnet (or MAAF)
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered elsewhere and hosted by Plusnet
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is hosted elsewhere which forwards  mail to your Plusnet (or MAAF) mailbox

The vISP email brands have different level of mitigation capability - for some, the only practical solution might be to migrate your email hosting elsewhere.

Native Plusnet email address

If a user sends email using a from address of you@youraccount.plus.com then DKIM signing will be applied to the email automatically (and pass Gmail's imposed restrictions) if the SMTP server is configured to require authentication. Somewhat unhelpfully, Plusnet's email setup guide suggests that such authentication is NOT required if connecting over a Plusnet connection. Whilst technically true, operational complications can occur and it is much tidier to just enable authentication with the "use the same account settings as the incoming server" option.

Your own domain

If you send from your own domain name, then DKIM signing is not available and you will need to configure SPF instead. How to do this depends on where your domain is hosted - by Plusnet or by third party.

Plusnet fully hosted and registered domain

For Plusnet brand registered and managed domains, SPF configuration is facilitated by the addition of a TXT record in the domain's DNS settings. Plusnet's DNS configuration tool for hosted domains does not permit the creation of TXT records. However, there is an unsupported "facilitation" which will create an SPF record for a hosted domain.

On the basis that your account ALREADY has a hosted domain:

• Log into the user portal
• Go to Manage Account
• Manage Your Domains (Manage your domains link)
• Configure domain name
• Create an "Additional DNS records (Advanced)" as follows...

For the avoidance of doubt leave the left side blank, exactly as shown.

If your email service is provided by one of the legacy vISP brands (for example MAAF) acquired over the years by Plusnet, similar options are not available to you.

Domain name registered and managed elsewhere (third party)

There are two scenarios here:

1. Plusnet hosts the email service for the domain
2. The domain forwards email to the native Plusnet email address

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME.  Ideally email forwarding should be avoided as it brings about numerous complications - you should use the DOMAIN's email servers to received and send your domain email, not Plusnet's.

To configure SPF on a domain name registered elsewhere, you must use your domain name provider's DNS configuration tools to set up the applicable SPF record:

v=spf1 a mx include:_spf-internal.plus.net include:_spf-internal2.plus.net ~all

or

v=spf1 include:_spf-internal.madasafish.com include:_spf-internal2.madasafish.com include:_spf-external.madasafish.com -all

[#3]

Yes, I have added the instruction to the DNS settings & it shows as active.

[#4]

How would I check to see if my domain has an active record? All I can do is add the instruction as laid out in your post.

[#5]

go to https://mxtoolbox.com/ in a browser. Enter your domain name and click the MX Lookup button. The button now has a dropdown arrow, click it and select SPF Record lookup from the menu, then click the button again. That should display the spf record.

It should show the following

v=spf1 a mx include:_spf-internal.plus.net include:_spf-internal2.plus.net ~all

[#6]

Something else that it is worth us confirming is that you are using Plusnets SMTP servers to send mail, relay.plus.net.

[#7]

It's not showing an SPF record. 

[#8]

Shows up in my Plusnet settings as active but clearly hasn't been activated or there is some other issue?

So incredibly frustrating!

[#9]

No, POP3 as mentioned in my initial post. Do I need to change to STMP mail settings?

[#10]

It is the SMTP settings that are used to send emails.  POP3 is for receiving emails.

Can you make sure that the MX record is set exactly as @MisterW has in his post.  ie the exact number of 9's in the priority, no spaces before or after the "please-add-spf-records" and such like.  I don't think we've ever seen an SPF record not being created when its been entered incorrectly.

[#11]

It's not showing an SPF record. 

Shows up in my Plusnet settings as active but clearly hasn't been activated or there is some other issue?

So incredibly frustrating!

@Black_Shuck are you sure your DNS record is EXACTLY as described ?

Left field blank, record type mx, pri 999999, right field please-add-spf-records

edit @pjmarsh beat me to it.

[#12]

It's not showing an SPF record. 

Shows up in my Plusnet settings as active but clearly hasn't been activated or there is some other issue?

So incredibly frustrating!

@Black_Shuck are you sure your DNS record is EXACTLY as described ?

Left field blank, record type mx, pri 999999, right field please-add-spf-records

edit @pjmarsh beat me to it.

[#13]

[#14]

So, your right field isn't what has been specified, which will likely be why it isn't working.

[#15]

Where, am I dylsexic?? lol

[#16]

Your right field is showing as pls-add-spf-records rather than please-add-spf-records