Difference between revisions of "Emails not delivered"
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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: | 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: | ||
>>> recipient@ | >>> recipient@ncf.ca (Undelivered): 550 5.7.23 <recipient@ncf.ca>: Recipient address rejected: Message rejected due to: SPF fail - not authorized. Please see <nowiki>http://www.openspf.net/Why?s=mfrom;id=sender@somewhere.ca;ip=12.34.56.78;r=</nowiki>;</blockquote>In this example, the problem is that the message was sent from a mail server (with IP 12.34.56.78) which is not allowed to send mail according the SPF record on the sender's domain name (i.e. the part of their address following @, "somewhere.ca" in the example). Links to "openspf.net" do not work because that tool is no longer available, but the details in that link can be checked in another SPF tool to see the issue, for example: https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=spf%3asomewhere.ca%3a12.34.56.78&run=toolpage | ||
Revision as of 14:01, 8 April 2025
If emails you are sending are not being delivered, or you are not receiving emails from a specific sender, the sender may receive a bounce-back email from their mail server explaining why the message was rejected. In this case, the bounce-back message should include details explaining why the message was rejected.
When no bounce-back message is received, the email may not have actually been sent. If the email still appears in the sender's outbox, the problem is likely that their mail client is set to "work offline" or is having an error connecting to their mail server.
When an email appears to have been sent on the sender's side but is not received and no error is reported, the message was likely detected as spam and filtered out. In this case, the recipient may find the email in their Spam/Junk folder, and the headers in that email should explain why it was detected as spam. Otherwise, the mail provider's IT support could check their email logs to track what happened to the email.
Undeliverable bounce-back messages
Bounceback messages typically have a subject starting like "Undeliverable: ", followed by the original message's subject. The message should begin with details of the reason for the bounce back, for example:
This message was created automatically by the mail system.
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:
>>> recipient@ncf.ca (Undelivered): 550 5.7.23 <recipient@ncf.ca>: Recipient address rejected: Message rejected due to: SPF fail - not authorized. Please see http://www.openspf.net/Why?s=mfrom;id=sender@somewhere.ca;ip=12.34.56.78;r=;
In this example, the problem is that the message was sent from a mail server (with IP 12.34.56.78) which is not allowed to send mail according the SPF record on the sender's domain name (i.e. the part of their address following @, "somewhere.ca" in the example). Links to "openspf.net" do not work because that tool is no longer available, but the details in that link can be checked in another SPF tool to see the issue, for example: https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=spf%3asomewhere.ca%3a12.34.56.78&run=toolpage