emails to a gmail account keep bouncing back - authentication failure
 

When I send emails to a friend's gmail account it bounces back due to some sort of authentication error. The email is from my personal non gmail account, it is to a single recipient and it doesn't make any difference whether I reply to an email from the recipient or start a fresh dialogue. The first mail between the two of us was from me and it bounced back.

A link in the bounce back took me to gmail help pages but most of the info there went straight over my head.

Mails to other gmail recipients seem to go through as normal.

Anyone, thanks.

Rans6.........................

Can you post the bounce message? Feel free to mark out private email addresses, but it would be helpful to have the domain information of the sender (you).

A neighbour of mine who organises local Police liaison mentioned problems with some Gmail accounts about a year ago - I had emailed her from my BT address by way of Outlook and she never received it. She said it seemed to be quite a common problem.

I tried to post the bounce back but I find that removing most of the recipients name and replacing it with XXXXXXXX doesn't work. As soon as I click Post it undoes all of the anonymisation. I went back and edited the post and it still puts it back how it was originally sent to me!!!!!!

Rans6.........

This is the mail system at host smtp.livemail.co.uk.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The mail system

<[email protected]>: host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[108.177.119.26]
said: 550-5.7.26 This message does not pass authentication checks (SPF and
DKIM both 550-5.7.26 do not pass). SPF check for [twoplanes.co.uk] does not
pass with ip: 550-5.7.26 [213.171.216.60].To best protect our users from
spam, the message 550-5.7.26 has been blocked. Please visit 550-5.7.26
https://support.google.com/mail/answ...authentication for more 550
5.7.26 information. z23-20020a1709064e1700b008e0fcf7a31dsi8119945eju.494 -
gsmtp (in reply to end of DATA command)


Reporting-MTA: dns; smtp.livemail.co.uk
X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 58901C5A26
X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; [email protected]
Arrival-Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2023 17:53:40 +0000 (GMT)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; [email protected]
Original-Recipient: rfc822;[email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.7.26
Remote-MTA: dns; gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.7.26 This message does not pass authentication
checks (SPF and DKIM both 550-5.7.26 do not pass). SPF check for
[twoplanes.co.uk] does not pass with ip: 550-5.7.26 [213.171.216.60].To
best protect our users from spam, the message 550-5.7.26 has been blocked.
Please visit 550-5.7.26
https://support.google.com/mail/answ...authentication for more 550
5.7.26 information. z23-20020a1709064e1700b008e0fcf7a31dsi8119945eju.494 -
gsmtp

What is twoplanes.co.uk? Are you using this as your email domain and forwarding it via livemail.co.uk? If so, you will need to create an SPF record in your twoplanes.co.uk DNS specifying the 3rd party that will be forwarding the email on your behalf.

SPF is normally enough to prevent the errors you are seeing, DKIM is desirable but probably not mandatory.

SD

we had the same problem using Fasthosts - luckily they had a really good guide AND a video as to how to fix it.

Took about 10 minutes to enable SPF

Contact your provider - they've all got the same problem

I've had the same problem. I contacted my domain provider, names.co.uk, and within 24 hours they had updated my BTinternet account re SPF and DKIM.

All fixed

Due to prolific spammers (aka digital terrorists) that spoof their details and attack globally and constantly, a lot of hosts are tightening their inbound traffic options, so not having correct SPF and DKIM configuration on your end means they will be rejected.

It is a self preservation thing. They are putting up barriers to fight back.

Your host support person is the correct person to remedy that with a configuration update. If you are not a spammer, there is no reason to hide your details or leave them off your email header information used to route emails to their correct destination.