Help! Emails I'm trying to send to Gmail accounts are bouncing!

[#1]

Hi Anoush

Thanks for the time and and effort you have put in trying to find a solution at least now we know there is a work around if others have the same problem, good to talk to you and again thanks for your time and patience.

Hobo

[#2]

Hi @Hobo,

No problem at all, happy to help. It's not the ideal conclusion but at least there's some sort of way forward and a workaround.

It was good to speak to you too and let me know if there's ever anything else you'd need help with.

[#3]

Well, well, it IS Gmail aggresively blocking Plusnet/Freenetname/whatever.

I've just done some digging and found that Gmail issued a document on or about 30th May 2022 saying they were going to apply harsher spam filtering to emails to gmail accounts. Especially where the domain/sender doesn't match the email server - this obviously applies to a hell of a lot of Freenetnames.

Anyway, having explained this to the darling wife in laymans terms - as she runs the gite business and a craft group - we've made the plunge to change our primary email address to a outlook one as we've not been experiencing any issues with them from 2 other outlook accounts we have.

Its a shame really as our freenetname was easy and distinctive.

[#4]

Have you already taken that action to move to an Outlook address?

Instead, you could do what I've done: move your domain name from Plusnet to an actual hosting company and then you can set up your email addresses properly. Plusnet was clear in its email to me that it is not a hosting company and is no longer in the market of providing domains - which is fair enough, of course.

It's a very easy process to move. I went to Fasthosts, and you just have to create an account there and request to transfer a domain on. Set up your email addresses at Fasthosts before you do anything else (to ensure no mail gets lost), then give Plusnet the IPS tag for Fasthosts, which they will give to you. Plusnet will change that tag from its side, and the domain will them move over to Fasthosts.

The whole process is free of charge, and you'll only need to pay for your domain each year. For a .co.uk domain that's about £12 with Fasthosts.

[#5]

And that will stop the problems with gmail blocking emails? We don't use our barnsdall.co.ux website, we purely use it for emails. I dont want to end up moving amd paying if gmail still blocks our email address!

[#6]

And that will stop the problems with gmail blocking emails? 

It will certainly enable you to specify an SPF record for your domain which should stop gmail blocking them. However, I see no reference on the Fasthosts site to them providing DKIM signing for email. Whilst that isnt a problem at the moment, lack of it could be a downside in the future...

[#7]

Hmm, so it may be the case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.......

I'll give it some thought.

[#8]

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@martinrb wrote:

Well, well, it IS Gmail aggresively blocking Plusnet/Freenetname/whatever.

Especially where the domain/sender doesn't match the email server - this obviously applies to a hell of a lot of Freenetnames.

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It is not just the Plusnet brands and it is indeed aggressive as the behaviour is in complete disregard of the SPF specification - see RFC 7208: Sender Policy Framework (SPF) for Authorizing Use of Domains in Email, Version 1 (rfc-edit...

Publishing a SPF is OPTIONAL not mandatory.

The absence of a SPF record should evaluate to NONE not FAIL.  Section 8.1 of this RFC suggests that Gmail is treating an inconclusive result as a failure.  To me, that is exceedingly aggressive activity.

Note of clarification here - it is not the Plusnet brand email address, which is of concern here, but rather that of the personal domain name used by the customer in connection with the Plusnet hosting services.  

[#9]

I'm not sure that they're (gmail) treating lack of SPF as a failure as such, more they are now using it as a major factor in spam scoring. So lack of SPF gives any message a high spam score to start with, thus making the likelyhood of the message being marked as spam quite high.

[#10]

Well, changing over has worked for me. Emails not being bounced now (and I had other domains at Fasthosts which aren't bouncing).

The SPF is a red herring: if that were the problem, the messages would be flagged as spam, bit returned to the sender.

[#11]

Only if Gmail has implemented this properly.

Whatever it is the email client which should be inserting the message ID header.

[#12]

Well, over a month further on and I nearly LOST MY DOMAIN due to lack of communication from Plusnet.

First contact to change the IPS tag was about 4th Oct, said it would take no more than a week. No contact from Plusnet.

2nd contact mid Oct to ask why no contact and ask to change IPS tag. No contact from Plusnet.

Work had precluded me from ringing, and I thought I had found a workaround by changing outbound email to old Freenetname email with return as domain email. That seemed to work.

Tuesday 22nd Nov, 1800hrs, all emails stopped using domain. My son reported that domain didn't exist on Thursday. Rang Plusnet Tech on Friday morning, they had no idea what had happened, didnt know if IPS tag had been changed, NOTHING.

Anyway, as I was on call to Plusnet Tech, I decided to check Nominet - UK domain registry - and they had my domain slated for deletion at FastHosts!!

Apparently someone at Plusnet had changed IPS tag on or around 14th October, not bothered to tell me!

I went onto Fasthosts and grabbed my domain, which entailed a quick and easy phone call to FastHosts, less than an hour later I had my domain and emails set up and back in business.

FastHosts - 10/10 for ease of use and phone support.

Plusnet - Must do better - And I was promised a phone call or email Friday with an update - Ticket 228348480 - AND I'M STILL WAITING!

Oh, and guess what, even though the emails are sent with my domain name, the pop3/smtp boxes are LIVEHOSTS - and they're not bouncing (which is very similar to the situation at Plusnet) - so the problem lies squarely at the feet of Plusnet.

[#13]

Bit of a Postscript here:

Townman suggests the follwing:

'Note of clarification here - it is not the Plusnet brand email address, which is of concern here, but rather that of the personal domain name used by the customer in connection with the Plusnet hosting services.'

Beg to differ, mate, how come there isnt a problem using FastHosts with my domain, when there was with Plusnet?

Could it be the old 'Freenetname', you know how spam filters love that word 'free'!

[#14]

See post #81 and others. If your new provider provides SPF and DKIM for your private domain name, then that’s the key consideration.

If this were the freenet name which was causing your problem there would be 100s of users on here reporting the same issue. Bottom line is that Gmail are making SPF mandatory where it is optional and treating a soft fail as a hard fail, contrary to their own support documentation.

We have seen progressive rule breaking from Gmail over recent years.

[#15]

Why don't Plusnet provide SPF and DKIM for domain names then?