MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

Well the bounces from [email protected] have started again. The Sprint server that receives inbound short emails and converts them to messages bounced the email back to me. Out of frustration I added the Message-ID to the email header. The line that was inserted in one of the emails that bounced was

Message-ID: <[email protected]>

It is unique and correctly placed in the header. So that is not the problem.

Perhaps someone at hostasaurus/miva could check with messaging.sprintpcs.com and see what the problem is. The error message I got in the bounced emails was

Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.

Does this mean hostasaurus is back on some spam list that Sprint is using?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

I haven't discussed this with our developers at all but I would be opposed to having the MvSMTP function add a message id by default; some mail servers add that themselves if it is not present and typically the value they place there can be very useful for diagnosing issues, such as tying the disposition of a given message to log entries. If Empresa added one instead, it would prevent the mail servers that support that from doing so, causing some to lose valuable information.

Perhaps someone at hostasaurus/miva could check with messaging.sprintpcs.com and see what the problem is. The error message I got in the bounced emails was

Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)
I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long.

Does this mean hostasaurus is back on some spam list that Sprint is using?

That error means sprint's mail server is not accepting connections after a few delivery attempts. I was able to connect to their server on port 25 so they appear to be working for the time being. Mail to phone text gateways are a popular thing for spammers to abuse since they can hit a lot of users quickly with easily guessed phone numbers, so it may have been they were receiving too high a volume of spam and temporarily blocked connections.

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

They have been blocking every message for the last few days. They blocked one just a little while ago. I can send it from my old Netscape mail program with essentially the exact same subject and content and Sprint converts the email to a phone message within seconds. There is a difference between what the Netscape email program is sending and what mvsmtp is sending. I thought it was the message-id as that seems to be a problem for spam blockers. But I have added a message-id in the header of the email going to the Sprint message server and it always gets blocked. The other difference is my Netscape is sending from comcast.net and Miva is sending from local host. That is why I asked about our mail server being blocked by Sprint. It wasn't that long ago that comcast was blocking our mail server.

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

David,

I just tried something else. I went to my Plesk in my hostasaurus account for my domain. I composed the same email that worked with Netscape from my PC but did it inside the webmail program in Plesk. I even BCCd the email to make sure it was going out and I could see what the header looked like. It looked fine. Anyway, it did not trigger the messaging system so the short text message never made it to my phone. That is another reason I think my domain or server is being blocked by Sprint. I don't forward any emails to that address (which was the issue with comcast). It is strictly used for order email notifications. Can we find out if they are blocking just my domain or the whole server and why?

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

David,

Could you tell me if you did something to get these working again?

They started bouncing with every order on Nov 1. Sunday night (Nov 4) they started working again. It is not related to adding the message-id because that did not help. So it was either something you guys did or it was a miracle. I'd like to know for future reference in case it happens again.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

David,

Could you tell me if you did something to get these working again?

They started bouncing with every order on Nov 1. Sunday night (Nov 4) they started working again. It is not related to adding the message-id because that did not help. So it was either something you guys did or it was a miracle. I'd like to know for future reference in case it happens again.

I sent an email to Sprint's postmaster asking if they could look into it. Their server was accepting the messages so I don't know anything beyond that. I haven't received a response yet.

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

Thanks for motivating Sprint. That must have resulted in Sprint realizing they were blocking for no reason at all. Please let me know what they say if they do reply to you.

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

Apparently Sprint is blocking again. Yesterday my domain was moved to a new server. The new localhost mail server is adding the message-id to all Miva Merchant emails now. But as indicated earlier, that was not the problem. Perhaps the email from David to Sprint got them working in the past. Now the email is coming from a different mail server and Sprint may be blocking that one.

[wcw]

Re: MvSMTP emails treated as SPAM

Update: Sprint uses a spam checker that is partially based on reputation. A server has to have a ratio of a lot of good emails vs only a few spam emails. Since it is a new server, a reputation had to be built up. It actually did that very quickly and the SMS are now working again.