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In my own testing, I discovered that the combination of no PTR plus no SPF would reliably cause Gmail to junk any messages from my domain. When I created an SPF record, Gmail stopped junking mail and would deliver it correctly. Only after I switched ISPs was I able to get a static address and thus have a correct PTR record for my MX. I have not yet tested what Gmail would do if I removed my SPF and relied only on the PTR.
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I think "damn my colour blindness"
Having only recently learned about SPF records, I'm not one to talk, but it does seem odd that they don't have one to stop other domains from sending spam using their addresses in the headers.
Still, the lack of SPF records shouldn't affect earthlink's outgoing email because of the matching PTR records. Their DNS servers have funky names too:
Code:feathers-mcgraw@Hobbs-T440s:~$ dig -x 207.69.195.71 ; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-4.3ubuntu0.1-Ubuntu <<>> -x 207.69.195.71 ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34706 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;71.195.69.207.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ;; ANSWER SECTION: 71.195.69.207.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN PTR pop-siberian.atl.sa.earthlink.net. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 195.69.207.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN NS [B]itchy.earthlink.net.[/B] 195.69.207.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN NS [B]scratchy.earthlink.net.[/B] ;; Query time: 254 msec ;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1) ;; WHEN: Wed Feb 18 22:27:34 GMT 2015 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 145
I wasn't running my server for long before I had my PTR record changed, so I'm not certain if my email was flagged as spam back then or not. IIRC Gmail was flagging it when I had a dynamic IP address, and I fixed it by switching to static IP. I think I found out the PTR using MX Toolbox's SMTP server test, which noticed the reverse DNS mismatch - not because of a spam problem.
Do you know if they've changed something recently, or am I just imagining?
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Here are the headers in the mail you sent:
Code:Return-Path: <[I]...redacted@earthlink...[/i]> Delivered-To: <[I]...redacted@rileyz...[/I]> Received: from m92p.rileyz.net by m92p.rileyz.net (Dovecot) with LMTP id 1gmeAqfR5FQ/UgAAx4hJxQ for <[I]...redacted@rileyz...[/I]>; Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:53:43 -0800 [COLOR="#008000"]Received: from pop-siberian.atl.sa.earthlink.net (pop-siberian.atl.sa.earthlink.net [207.69.195.71]) by m92p.rileyz.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id C91A616A0586 for <[I]...redacted@rileyz...[/I]>; Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:53:40 -0800 (PST)[/COLOR] [COLOR="#B22222"]Received: from [216.73.205.119] (helo=[192.168.1.123]) by pop-siberian.atl.sa.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1) id 1YO8oc-0005MH-00 for [I]...redacted@rileyz...[/I]; Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:53:38 -0500[/COLOR] Message-ID: <54E4D1AB.9030201@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:53:47 -0800 From: [I]...redacted@earthlink...[/I] User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0 SeaMonkey/2.29.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: [I]...redacted@rileyz...[/I] Subject: Testing! Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Green section. Earthlink's server has correct A and PTR records in DNS, which is something that many receiving servers check. So that's good. It's interesting to note that Earthlink's mail servers aren't attempting to use TLS. Most ISPs have switched to using TLS so that mail is encrypted in transit. But again, I don't think Gmail would use the lack of TLS to increase a spam score.
Earthlink has no SPF record, which is rather unusual for an ISP today.
Anyway -- this is a pretty basic email exchange here. The only thing that stands out as a possible explanation is the lack of an SPF record. Feathers, what do you think?
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Hey, DYK: please send me an email (I'm PMing you my address). I'd like to take a look at the headers on your outbound email. This will help diagnosing potential problems. One immediate question it will answer is whether you're sending mail via Earthlink or if your computer is trying to make an SMTP connection directly to the recipient's mail server, as Feathers alluded to.
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Here are some additional things to check.
Check the port in the Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings of SeaMonkey. I'm not sure when Earthlink enforced this.
http://www.wonk.com/SecureAuth.html
Try sending them an email using your EarthLink Web Mail to see what happens.
Could this be a blacklist issue? Here are some links.
Email Blocked by EarthLink
Email bounces because your IP address is blacklisted
Email Whitelist Instructions
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I think something about gmail's spam filtering changed recently, based on the questions I get from people setting up email servers.
Seems like they've tightened up a bit, you now need a matching PTR or SPF record or the email goes straight to spam. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case before.
When you send email, how is it sent? Do you send it straight from your machine or is it submitted to earthlink? If it's sent directly then the records won't match, but the whole IMAP after SMTP thing would mean the email is still moved to your sent box.
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Originally posted by life0riley View PostJust a thought if you haven't done this already. Have you added your friend's email address to your contacts and has your friend done the same with your email address?
Can you tell if the email is getting trapped in the spam filter on the server?
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Just a thought if you haven't done this already. Have you added your friend's email address to your contacts and has your friend done the same with your email address?
Can you tell if the email is getting trapped in the spam filter on the server?
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Mail problems
For the last few months I've had a variety of mail issues. One in particular is driving me nuts but I have no idea why it's happening, so I can't fix it. First, here's a rundown of what's happening, just off the top of my head:
1) sending mail fails (this is the super-annoying issue)
2) two friends aren't receiving my mail
3) Google/gmail thinks my mail is spam and prohibits it from going through--sometimes
4) I don't receive mail--from the same two friends as above
Regarding #1, SeaMonkey gives this message:
An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Unexpected failure, please try later. Please check the message and try again.
Now, if I 'edit message as new' and try again, SOMETIMES it'll send on this second try and sometimes it won't. Sometimes it takes 3, 4, 5 attempts before I don't get that error message (and the mail really gets sent).
Regarding #2, there are two friends whose gmail accounts I send to and--sometimes--they never receive my mail. 99% of the time when this happens nothing bounces back to me--so as far as I know, I sent it, it went through, they received it...but they didn't. Here's what the ONE message that's bounced back to me said:
Code:This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim). A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: FRIEND'S_ADDRESS@gmail.com SMTP error from remote mailer after end of data: host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [74.125.21.27]: 550-5.7.1 [207.69.195.67 12] Our system has detected that this message is 550-5.7.1 likely unsolicited mail. To reduce the amount of spam sent to Gmail, 550-5.7.1 this message has been blocked. Please visit 550-5.7.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188131 for 550 5.7.1 more information. y189si14689115ykb.127 - gsmtp
Why has Gmail blocked my messages?
Here at Gmail, we work very hard to fight spam. While in some cases we may classify a message as spam and deliver it to the spam folder, we also try to find ways to reduce the amount of spam being sent to Gmail in general. If we detect that a message has a strong likelihood of being spam, we’ll block the message from being sent to Gmail.
A message might be blocked if it contains suspicious-looking or spammy text or if the sending IP has had a history of sending unsolicited messages.
Is all of the mail I’m sending being blocked?
It’s likely that only a subset of the messages which have a strong likelihood of being spam are being blocked and not all of your messages. However, to help improve your deliverability, we recommend reviewing our Bulk Sender Guidelines.
If you’re forwarding mail to Gmail and your domain also forwards spam, we recommend reviewing our mail forwarding best practices.
'host' yields this:
Code:$ host 207.69.195.67 67.195.69.207.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer pop-tawny.atl.sa.earthlink.net.
And, if all that isn't fun enough, SOMETIMES I fail to receive mail FROM those two same people! But they get NOTHING back at their end, so we have no idea why it didn't come through.
My outgoing SMTP server is the same across the board, mail.earthlink.net (and SeaMonkey is the client I use across the board).
Ideas?Last edited by DoYouKubuntu; Feb 14, 2015, 05:58 PM.
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