Some emails not getting through either being sent or receiving

[#1]

We use 123-reg for our domain names to allow easy to remember emails which forward to our plus.net mail boxes, which then using Thunderbird take them off onto a computer.

We have noticed by some peoples comments that we are loosing emails either through us sending them or trying to receive them.

Nothing as far as we have changed by us, so just wondering if anyone has any ideas ?

we have tried doing it through webmail.plus.net and again not all the emails seem to be getting through...

This is a pain as people think we are not responding to them when we think they are not replying after we have sent them.

[#2]

I don't know if 123reg email forwarding use SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme), though if they are not, some of the emails are probably getting flagged as spam and blocked.

There are various spam mitigation methods that can be set up.  One of those is SPF, where a txt record is added to a domain which says what email servers should be sending email for that domain.  Also in that record is a flag to say what should happen if a different server is used (ie hard or soft fail for rejecting the message or marking it as spam respectively).

With email forwarding, the email is sent from a different server (123reg's in this case), so will most probably not match that in the SPF record, so could/should be treated as spam.

SRS is something that can be implemented on the forwarding service to get round that.  I can't remember exactly how that works.

So in short, if this is the case then the Plusnet servers are rejecting the emails with an SPF record for a hard fail as they are meant to because they aren't meeting the SPF record for the domain that the email originally came from.

[#3]

SRS works by making the forwarding service (rather than the original sender) appearing to be be the sender of the forwarded email.

This scenario is not something the receiving user can influence, other than...

• Use a better forwarding service
• Hosting their email elsewhere (this simplifies their email "world")

[#4]

thank you folks

I've turned off the spam filter on plus.net to see what happens if we still get complaints.

but it's also when we send emails out as well as receiving them, so 123-reg I don't think gets involved in that bit

thank you again for your replies - very much appreciated

[#5]

I don't think (and @Townman correct me if I'm wrong) that you can turn off the SPF checks.

As for outgoing emails, gmail particularly can be awkward if you don't have SPF (or another similar security) on your domain.

[#6 · Accepted solution]

I don't think (and @Townman correct me if I'm wrong) that you can turn off the SPF checks.

@pjmarsh you are correct, you cant urn them off

@ukanimal if you have the ability to create DNS records for your domain via the 123reg control panel, then you can create an SPF record that will permit you to send mail from your domain via the Plusnet servers.

Create a TXT record as below

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

[#7]

perfect thank you

[#8]

well not really! It won't help with receiving emails via 123reg forwarding if they dont implement SRS

[#9]

yeah but at least I know it's nothing I've done which is the main thing

so I can look around at other companies now knowing it's not something I've done

[#10]

“but it's also when we send emails out as well as receiving them, so 123-reg I don't think gets involved in that bit”

But it is very much involved. If your domain is hosted by 123 (even if you do not receive mail there) sending via Plusnet’s relay will be outside of your domain’s configuration. As suggested, Plusnet’s relays need to be included in your domain’s SPF configuration.

[#11]

thank you

[#12]

okay, so I got so fed up with 123-reg - I've not moved to everything to Google Domains.

Emails are getting through to us, but I cannot seem to get people to received what I've sent

I've added

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

as a spf file to the name dns thingy, but not sure if that is what I'm meant to be doing..

any ideas gratefully received

webmail.plus.net gets them through but if I send them through thunderbird it doesn't seem to reach people, I can send all emails to my domains and they get through, but not other people ( if this makes sense )

thanks in advance

[#13]

If Google is hosting your domain I would expect you to use their SMTP server to send mails. Google hosting your domain ought to eliminate Plusnet’s email services from the equation.

[#14]

sorry I reliesed I missed off

google hosts the domains, with email forwarding to my isp plus.net

so they just act as a domain host and plus.net is isp and email

hope that helps

it just seems random that some emails will get to people and others will not

I know I'm not alone as some of our customers are saying they are having issues with emails, just wondering if I need to add anything to the dns to help things happen

[#15]

Regardless of where you forward third party domain emails to, if you wish to send as from that domain you should use the the hosting service’s SMTP server, not Plusnet’s, especially where the receiving domain of your sent items is Gmail.