New User Password Emails Won't Go Through to MSN / Hotmail

Did you setup SPF records for all of your servers? Are you using DMARC?

Thanks for getting back to me, I’m honestly not sure but am looking into it.

[Link redacted] me offline or post your domain here if you want and I can take a look at your dns and give you some ideas. I can also fix it for you if you need.

@eric please don’t directly people off-site for support like that: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Forum_Welcome#The_Bad_Stuff

@tim Would you please ask them to check their spam folders? I’m guessing that someone else on your shared server is using it to send spam, so your server’s IP and other records may have been blocked by some anti-spam blacklists.

You may be able to fix that by using your email’s outgoing server instead with this plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/postman-smtp/

James, as you will notice I said post the domain here or send it to me offline. Not everyone wants to post their domain here.

BTW, the plugin will probably not help, but let’s SPAM the post with a useless answer anyway. I believe that is the exact text you continue to cut and paste into numerous threads.

No, you said “Contact me offline” with a link to the contact page on your site. We don’t allow that because these forums are a publicly searchable database of answers, and we have no proof that you won’t just sell this person the same premium plugin you went on a spam spree with here just 2 days ago.

I’ve been very generous with you since you spammed our forums 19 times to sell your product 2 days ago, and I’m beginning to regret that.

Will following our forum rules continue to be a problem for you?

Obviously you have a had time reading the above post, but here it is with the part you missed in bold so that you can find it easier…..

[ Redacted ]

As you will notice both here and above I gave the option of how to give me the domain to look at. The problem here is also not related to WordPress in particular, but more to a dns and hosting issue so there is no need for a plugin most likely. It is probably an SPF issue, but if you were more focused on reading what was posted instead of reveling in your little bit of power you would have seen that already since that was what I posted 1st.

If you have something helpful to contribute to this conversation feel free, if you have a way for someone to share a domain privately without contacting someone offline I would like to know since unlike a real forum there is no private message function. If someone were to need access to my site to fix or look at a plugin issue I would not be posting a username/password combo here, I would want to send it privately.

Bolding part of what you posted doesn’t change the fact that you posted a link to contact you offsite, which is against forum rules: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Forum_Welcome#The_Bad_Stuff

Which you apparently haven’t read yet, because you’d notice that requesting a username/password for the site is also against forum rules.

The forum rules are here to protect our users, and you seem intent to violate them. First spamming, then directing support off-site.

So, allow me to once more “revel in my little bit of power” and ask for the last time, will following our forum rules continue to be a problem for you?

@timnethersgmailcom I want to apologize to you. This topic has been completely sidetracked and that’s unfortunate. In my next post I’ll address your issue with sending mail via MSN/Hotmail. I promise.

Please excuse me for a moment longer.

@eleuthardt Let’s review your actions.

1. You spammed these forums and when caught you gave a moderator attitude about it.
   You could have gone with an apologetic reply but you chose belligerence. OK, you were caught and asked not to spam. We don’t expect everyone who spams to happy about that.
2. You tried to get someone to contact you away from these forums. That was explained to you that that’s not permitted here. Your reply was more attitude to the moderator and more argument.
3. You were explained to again and outright asked “Will following our forum rules continue to be a problem for you?” and rather blatantly tried to repeat what you were told not to do.

The support team gets it. We do. You don’t have to agree with the Forum Welcome but you do have to observe it. You don’t want to do that so your account is now blocked.

@timnethersgmailcom Back to your problem. Once again, I apologize for this whole topic. Give this a read and let us know here what you think and if you have any questions.

The short version: install and configure this plugin with your Google App for Education account.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/postman-smtp/

Your mail delivery will be handled by Google after that. Even MSN/Hotmail trust Google for mail delivery. ?? Also you get to see a log of all mail delivered via Google. It’s a great easy way to solve mail problems.

The Really Long Version? that may put you to sleep:

After converting our new hire process to utilizing WordPress, we’ve a significant number of new users from MSN and Hotmail (at least one a day). The email that sends them their password does not make it to their inbox.

There are a few options here for you and I’ll explain. What is almost certainly happening is that your WordPress installation is sending mail as it should but when the MSN/Hotmail mail relays receive that mail they make the decision to discard or not deliver that mail coming from your server. At that stage it doesn’t matter that the sender email is valid or not, the mail system for MSN/Hotmail has already made up it’s mind.

Not sure if its relevant, but we use Google Apps for Education as our mail provider, and all of the mail goes through fine to Gmail and Google Apps email accounts.

That actually helps a great deal. ??

You can create DNS SPF record to identify that your server is authorized by your domain to send email for your domain.

SPF stands for”Sender Policy Framework” but you can also read it “Sender Permitted From” which is easier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework

That DNS SPF record is an attempt to tell mail systems “My server at this IP is allowed to send mail on my domain’s behalf.”

You can look at how to configure SPF records via this article.

https://www.mail-tester.com/spf/godaddy

There are other articles but that one is alright. There are other methods too such as DMARC and DKIM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail

They are a little more complicated to setup. These are not bad methods but they are a little cumbersome if you are not sure what you are doing or don’t have the appropriate DNS access.

Also these DNS methods work on the honor system and even after you set these up you will not guarantee that those methods will mean MSN/Hotmail overcomes the reputation of your server’s host IP.

Remember when I said that the Google Apps for Education is useful? One method that is tried and true is to get Google to deliver your WordPress installation’s mail for you. That can be accomplished using a highly recommended plugin.

https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/postman-smtp/

What this plugin does with Google is to use OAuth 2.0 and authenticate your server using your Google Apps for Education account. It does not store your password, it uses OAuth 2.0 to setup a secure token that can only be used for that purpose of delivering mail from your server.

I liked the plugin so much that I wrote a review for it. I don’t write many (and I should write more) but this one is very well supported and works very well. It’s fire and forget.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/so-easy-to-configure-and-use?replies=4

The author of that plugin is constantly improving it, has very simple videos to walk you through what could be a complicated mess. The author’s support is top-notch and very good.

Give this a read and if you need help or have questions please reply. We’ll all see if we can sort out your mail delivery problems to MSN/Hotmail.

I welcome the discussions, I’m tempted to go the SMTP route, except our host’s provider recently implemented a firewall that makes SMTP mail a bit difficult so I was trying to do the SPF records.

I’m just wondering how to handle the SPF record because… we handle our mail through Gaggle (as our mail filter) and Google as the direct provider, so our Domain Registrar’s DNS already has an SPF record for that. If I add one to the web server, I’m worried about the multiple SPF records as described in: https://support.google.com/a/answer/4568483?hl=en

Is that only an issue if multiple SPF records exist from the same source, i.e. it doesn’t matter that there will be one record on our web server and one on our domain’s DNS records?

Then, if I do add a record to the web server, does it need to match that of the domain’s DNS spf record?

Continuing the last question, if our current SPF record at the domain’s DNS is…
“@ (None) 3600 v=spf1 include:gaggle.net include:_spf.google.com ~all”

…would I want to add our web server to that record?
@ (None) 3600 v=spf1 include:IPaddressOfWebServerHere include:gaggle.net include:_spf.google.com ~all

Hi Tim, sorry for the delayed reply.

Adding or updating an SPF DNS record isn’t that difficult and there are a few online tools that can help you out with that. Try this one, there are others.

https://www.spfwizard.net/

…would I want to add our web server to that record?
@ (None) 3600 v=spf1 include:IPaddressOfWebServerHere include:gaggle.net include:_spf.google.com ~all

Yes. Adding the IP address of the web server would not hurt and if that’s part of why MSN/Hotmail is rejecting your mail then that will help.

The only recommendation I have is change the TTL for that record from 3600 to something even smaller such as 300. That time is in seconds and if something goes horrible wrong (it shouldn’t, most mail relays use SPF as part of a score) the you can update or delete the SPF record and in 5 minutes (the 300 TTL value) you’ll have it sorted out.