SMTP Server Issue?

[#1]

I've been using Thunderbird as an email client for many years  - outgoing SMTP server is set to relay.plus.net as specified in the setup guide  - until a week ago I never had any problems. Now I'm finding emails are not being delivered. Thunderbird does not flag any errors when sending but emails do not appear to be routed through. 

I've temporarilly set the outbound server to smtp.gmail.com and this works fine - so it seems iike there is an issue with relay.plus.net?

As an aside - have plusnet removed the support ticket system from their main site?

Thanks

Kev

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Are you sending from a native <account name>.plus.com address or something else ?

[#3]

Hi Kev,

It would be helpful to know if this is ALL emails are not being delivered or just emails to some email hosts, such as @gmail.com?

Which Plusnet email brand is this?

The fact that emails are arriving wherever when being sent via a third party SMTP service somewhat suggests that the from address might not be permitted (under strict SPF) to send via Plusnet's relay servers.

This might help...

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. It might take Plusnet's systems up to 6 hours to generate the SPF record.

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

As for the ticketing system - Plusnet customers have not been able to raise support tickets for several years now!

[#4]

Ok - that sorted it. Thanks for the help!

Still puzzled why it stopped working though - there was a Thunderbird update fairly recently maybe that changed a default somwehere

[#5]

"Plusnet customers have not been able to raise support tickets for several years now!"

Just shows how well things have been working if I've just noticed the this