Some emails don't get forwarded, some do

[BarbM]

Hi,

I set up a forwarder in my cPanel Webmail to forward all emails from Webmail to my Yahoo mail. However, some emails don't get fowarded (and I don't receive a failed delivery or bounce notification) while most of them do.
What I've noticed so far is that emails from Gmail and Yahoo accounts don't get forwarded while all other emails do. I asked a friend to send me an email from both, Yahoo and Gmail and none of them got forwarded and all other emails from other people sent from Gmail account weren't forwared either.

Can anyone tell me what can I do to solve this?

Thank you & kind regards,
Barbara

 

[GOT]

You'll have to contact your hosting provider. The most likely scenario is that those services are blocking the IP for the server your site is on.

 

[BarbM]

If this was the case, wouldn't it also mean that when I send emails directly from Webmail to Yahoo and Gmail, the person wouldn't receive them? People do receive my emails from Webmail to Yahoo and Gmail. It's just that Webmail doesn't seem to forward the emails I receive, or if it does, they never arrive.

 

[GOT]

That is likely true. Your provider would need to search the mail logs for a couple of particular examples to see why exactly they are not getting there.

 

[BarbM]

Ok, thank you, I'll get in touch with them.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Let us know if we can be of any assistance once that is complete.

 

[BarbM]

Now it seems to be working again for some reason, after months of not working and without me or my provider changing anything. I'll ask the provider to check if it starts happening again. Thank you for all the replies and suggestions.

 

[BarbM]

It started happening again - some emails are not being forwarded. This time it's not Yahoo or Gmail emails but from a specific website. At first some emails from that website were forwarded and some not (so it seems random and hard to define the cause) and now in the past three days none out of 5 emails were forwarded.

A week ago I asked my hosting provider to check in the mail logs why a specific email hasn't arrived and they said the log is showing email was forwarded successfully. I checked spam folders, none of the emails were forwarded there either.

I use CloudFlare and while troubleshooting this issue, my host asked me to add a TXT record to CloudFlare, which I did but it looks like it doesn't help.

I also use "Wp Mail SMTP" plugin which was advised by my host 6 months ago because I wasn't receiving password reset emails (now I do).

I wonder if CloudFlare or "Wp Mail SMTP" plugin might contribute to the issue, or if it's something about server's settings? Any ideas?

Thank you.

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @BarbM

So, if mail isn't being forwarded to a specific domain, and your provider is able to access the mail logs for that domain (pending it's controlled by you), I'd ask them to send you the log entries for that email transaction and then add them here. If the domain isn't controlled by you and it's external and there's no bounceback the only suggestion I would have would be to inquire with the remote party as to what occurred on the server when the mail was received.

 

[sparek-3]

Not really a solution, but I'll vent a bit.

This is why forwarding mail like this is a bad idea.

The more entities you add to the path that an email has to take... the more surface area you have for potential issues

Sender --> Sender's outgoing mail server --> OP's server in question --> Yahoo's Servers --> Yahoo delivering the message to the user's Yahoo Account

Where is the problem?

Is the Sender's outgoing mail server sending the message to OP's server in question?

Is OP's server in question sending the message to Yahoo's Servers?

Why not just send the messsage directly to Yahoo? Cut out the "OP's server in question" server.

The more you can streamline the system... the less surface area you have for potential issues - the better off you are going to be.


A possible solution... I don't know about Yahoo, but Gmail has the option to POP mail directly from your server and add it into your Gmail Inbox that way. This avoids all of the forwarding and SMTP/spamming issues. You might want to consider something like that.

You can use intra-server forwarders if you must.

If you have [email protected] that you are wanting to check with your Outlook or other email client, but you also want those messages to arrive in your Gmail and/or Yahoo accounts, then you can setup specific email accounts - [email protected], [email protected] and then setup forwarders such that:

[email protected] -> [email protected]
[email protected] -> [email protected]

Then configure your Gmail/Yahoo account to POP these [email protected] or [email protected] account.

 

[uk01]

Hi there,
This has been an ongoing issue which is all over the internet.

We have ongoing issues with Microsoft junk filtering. A few weeks ago we had lengthly and difficult discussions with their deliverability support, which is very robotic with default replies as many of you may have experienced.

We managed to get our ip's mitigated and all the issues went away, all emails went to the inbox. Now after only a few weeks they are junking it all again and I"m getting complaints from angry users who say I should sort the email system and it's affecting their business.

I've tried explaining that it's Microsoft!

A few points:
- We are signed up for al their programs
- We have all reverse DNS, SPF etc in place
- Cpanel shows ok for deliverability for all domains
- We are on no blacklists and have a 100 senderscore
- We filter outgoing email with spam assassin and do not allow bulk email etc

After pushing Microsoft this time we just get:

"Your IP (******) was blocked by Outlook.com because Hotmail customers have reported email from this IP as unwanted. One possible explanation for this is the automatic forwarding of unfiltered inbound messages, including unwanted messages, to Outlook.com/MSN addresses.

Please confirm that your emails comply with Hotmail's technical standards. This information can be found at Outlook.com Postmaster."

After challenging them

"As previously stated, your IP(s) do not qualify for mitigation at this time. I do apologize, but I am unable to provide any details about this situation since we do not have the liberty to discuss the nature of the block.

At this point, I would suggest that you review and comply with Outlook.com's technical standards. This information can be found at Outlook.com Postmaster.

We regret that we are unable to provide any additional information or assistance at this time. "


*******

The headers which cause this are
X-Microsoft-Antispam-Mailbox-Delivery: abwl:0;wl:.......dest:J;.......RF:JunkEmail;
Last time they could not justify why even a blank email was junked.

What more can we do? We have confirmed that we have had no junk mails through their reporting scheme which were marked.
They are basically just saying, bugger off, we don't care, we just want everyone to join 365 and pay us.

Has anyone managed to get any further than this? It seems we were just lucky last time getting mitigated but it only lasted a short time.
We even got new customers moving to us because they had this issue elsewhere with many hosts, now we have it again!

Customers will not accept that this is a Microsoft issue, we can't resolve something where we don't know the issue.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[BarbM]

Hi @BarbM

So, if mail isn't being forwarded to a specific domain, and your provider is able to access the mail logs for that domain (pending it's controlled by you), I'd ask them to send you the log entries for that email transaction and then add them here. If the domain isn't controlled by you and it's external and there's no bounceback the only suggestion I would have would be to inquire with the remote party as to what occurred on the server when the mail was received.

Thank you for your reply Lauren. What do you mean if the domain is “controlled” by me? My hosting and domain are with the same provider. I have access to some settings like changing DNS nameservers and getting the EPP/transfer code, etc.

This is the log of an email which did not reach my Yahoo Mail. I don’t know how to read this log but I see the word “bounce” in there and wonder if it means the email bounced. My host said log shows that forwarding was successful.

2019-05-21 13:57:25 1hT3OW-0007ZW-Or => mail.example(at)yahoo.com (mail.example(at)example.com) <mail.example(at)example.com> SRS=<SRS0=6D/mzn=TV=posta.omisli.si=bounce-md_76337.3e77a.v1-207bcd1662f332a05f542174895(at)barbaramilavec.com> R=lookuphost T=remote_smtp H=mta7.am0.yahoodns.net [98.136.102.54] X=TLSv1.2:ECDH-RA-AE25-GCM-HA34:25 CV=no C="25 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 78F140E1"

2019-05-21 13:57:25 1hT3OW-0007ZW-Or Completed

I asked them for the log of the past 5 days when five more emails didn’t reach my Yahoo inbox and I’ll post them here as soon as they send them to me.

Edited to replace @ with "at" ... also, I wonder if it's safe to post the logs here and it doesn't make any part of my website or email vulnerable?



Thanks @sparek-3, I’m a bit techy but rather lost when it comes to this whole email thing.

Your suggestion to get email directly from the server sounds interesting but I don’t know how to do that and if I can do it in Yahoo. Yahoo has plenty of functions, so I’m guessing it should have the option you mention. I tried to find it but I’m not even sure how to look for it. I searched for “how to to POP mail directly from server in yahoo mail” without success. It seems like the results don’t give me the information I need.

Just to clarify: I don’t use Outlook, I only want my emails to be forwarded from the “original” hosting provider mailbox to Yahoo Mail. Emails DO reach webhost inbox, but not all of them reach my Yahoo Mail even though host’s log says they were forwarded successfully.

Thanks for all the help, it’s much appreciated.

 

[uk01]

To add to this, we wondered if various users who have email at outlook are entering that address into their website contact form.
Then if that form gets spammed and doesn’t have a captcha they click “junk” in outlook without realising they are tagging the server they host on?!

Just a guess, but if this does happen the junk reporting program should report it, but I don’t think it works.

Does spam assassin scan email from the root account sent by Wordpress?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @BarbM

In your previous message you specifically noted that the issue wasn't yahoo or gmail:

This time it's not Yahoo or Gmail emails but from a specific website

But now you're indicating that the issue is happening with yahoo:

I asked them for the log of the past 5 days when five more emails didn’t reach my Yahoo inbox and I’ll post them here as soon as they send them to me.

My initial assumption was that the issue was with receiving the forwarded mail on a domain which is controlled by you not by a 3rd party. In this instance, and based off the logs it the forward makes it to yahoo without error and is queued for delivery, if it's not being delivered, sent to spam or bounced back this is something you'll need to address with yahoo - we have no way to know their practices with mail handling and if there's no error there's nothing to go off of.

 

[GOT]

Your scenario is definitely possible.

The forwarder issue is also something to look at. Scan the files in /etc/valiases to see if there are any microsoft related domains that are getting forwards.

Spamassassin is only marginally effective at blocking spam.

In cases like this I often recommend a service like mailchannels.com where your outbound email gets routed to another system first. This mostly blocks your own ips from reputation checks, mitigates most blocks and puts the onus of ip reputation on someone else whose sole job it is to ensure good sending.

 

[uk01]

Thanks I’ll take a look at mail channels and another I found, Mail gun I think.

Re the clicking junk I thought, if users do that then outlook will now be junking all their good emails too, so it’s counterproductive!

The issue with searching aliases is that often if you go to junk in outlook/hotmail it seems to also affect 365 which can be any domain!
Worth a look though as it seems to be outlook where it starts as those users don’t care about consequences

Thanks again for the link, definitely take a look

 

[BarbM]

Hi @BarbM

In your previous message you specifically noted that the issue wasn't yahoo or gmail:

But now you're indicating that the issue is happening with yahoo:

Sorry about the confusion. With Yahoo and Gmail I meant emails coming from those providers while when I’m talking about Yahoo now, I mean my Yahoo inbox.

At first it seemed as if emails coming to Webmail inbox from Yahoo or Gmail (@yahoo.com or @gmail.com) were the only ones that weren’t being forwarded or that I haven’t received to my Yahoo Mailbox. However, that started working (without a known reason to me) but now I’m not receiving emails coming from another address (@omisli.si) to my Yahoo Mailbox. They do arrive to the Webmail inbox.

Hi @BarbM
My initial assumption was that the issue was with receiving the forwarded mail on a domain which is controlled by you not by a 3rd party. In this instance, and based off the logs it the forward makes it to yahoo without error and is queued for delivery, if it's not being delivered, sent to spam or bounced back this is something you'll need to address with yahoo - we have no way to know their practices with mail handling and if there's no error there's nothing to go off of.

So the problem lies with Yahoo Mail… I haven’t thought of this because emails forwarded from Gmail always arrive, never had a problem. I’ll try to contact them or find something in their support.

Thanks for your help!

 

[sparek-3]

Yahoo is notorious for "greylisting" mail. Deferring mail over a period of time until finally accepting it. I don't know if Gmail does that - not that I am aware of (at least not as bad as Yahoo).

But still... the issue persists, if you are only checking your @yahoo.com email address ... why not just give out your @yahoo.com email address? Why are you telling people to write to you at your @myhosteddomain.com email address and then only checking it at your @yahoo.com email account? Because it looks more professional?

If deliverability is a chief concern for you, then you really need to either need to check the @myhosteddomain.com email account directly (using a real email client like Outlook or Thunderbird, or using the cPanel webmail interface) or tell individuals to email you at your @yahoo.com email address.

That's my 2 cents.

 

[sparek-3]

Welcome to the "I have trouble sending to Hotmail/Outlook" club.

The short answer to all of this is that there is no answer. Microsoft believes themselves to be way too big to deal with petty small time web hosting providers. So all you'll get is canned responses.

This is why forwarding mail off of the server is a bad idea - see my post in the thread:

Some emails don't get forwarded, some do

Also having users with contact forms or any form on their website that sends an email - without being protected by some type of captcha or anti-bot system - will contribute to this - if they are sending those messages to a Hotmail/Outlook/Gmail/Yahoo email address.

The bottom line is all of the major email players (Hotmail/Outlook/Gmail/Yahoo) are going to use their own system for determining spam. What that system is... nobody knows.

At one time, Microsoft was using Symantec's IP reputation system to at least offer some weight to their filtering. I do not know if that is still the case or not. You can check your reputation at:

IP Reputation Investigation

The downside to all of these mitigation steps... none of them are going to tell you why you are listed - and I suppose I can understand that to a degree (after all, if they explain to a real spammer why they are being blacklisted, that spammer will make efforts to avoid those traps) - but at the same time, real server administrators can't be expected to resolve the issues if we don't know why they are blacklisting us to begin with.

Having SPF and DKIM will help - but to what degree I don't know. And SPF and DKIM won't help you if you are forwarding mail off of the server (in fact it will hurt... which is yet another reason why forwarding mail off of the server is a bad idea).

 

[cPanelLauren]

Deferring mail over a period of time until finally accepting it. I don't know if Gmail does that - not that I am aware of (at least not as bad as Yahoo).

I've not seen them do it either, they typically will bounce it back pretty fast if it's not going to be accepted.


Also, if you really want to get your mail in a client like Gmail (Yahoo does not do this I just confirmed in my own account) the option that @sparek-3 mentioned - to utilize the Gmail client as a pop3 client and just receive your mail there is the best option.