Emails coming from website form and same IP are being blocked.

[Domvac]

So this is something new. We've got a website with a contact form and the form was being sent to our Shaw email address at work. Today a customer contacted us because we hadn't responded to her email, we searched and couldn't find any email from her. After testing, we discovered that any emails being sent from the form were not coming through.

I contacted my hosting company because the form wasn't showing any errors, and we changed the to email address on the form and tested and it came through fine. We have several domains hosted on the same IP, and after further testing, we discovered that sending any mails from that IP (through webmail) to our work Shaw email also wouldn't come through. They're not being flagged as spam, they get sent and then just disappear.

I contacted Shaw to see if they could help me to whitelist that domain, and basically they had no idea what I was talking about. They changed a setting in the junk mail folder, but we tested and still those mails aren't coming through. There are no errors on the sending side, it's receiving them at Shaw's end that's the problem. So what the heck are we supposed to do now? I've check to see if that IP is blacklisted (it isn't) and Shaw's customer service was no help at all.

[shaw-tony]

@Domvac do you have a Shaw Business account? Generally, our business technical support team should be able to assist with these. I can certainly do a quick check on the IP to see if it is blacklisted. It may be possible the form has links/images/signatures that are being blocked out. 

[Domvac]

I called and was transferred to Shaw Business support and they changed spam settings and then we tested and there was still no mails coming through. Then they basically told me to change the email address and that was about all the help they could give me.

Anyhow the IP is 35.209.255.65 - I've currently set the form to send mails to my personal email address so that we can be sure to get mails. I don't know how many we might have missed.

[shaw-tony]

@Domvac I checked that IP and don't see it blacklisted as well. Does nothing show up via https://webmail.shaw.ca/? If you send a general test email do you receive it?

[Domvac]

Yes the email is working, we're getting other emails. When I sent a mail from another webmail hosted on the same IP as our website, it doesn't come through. When I FORWARD an email from that same webmail account, it DOES come through, but it's flagged as spam by Shaw. So that IP is somehow blacklisted, and we need it fixed.

[mdk]

> When I SEND a mail from another webmail hosted on the same IP as our website, it doesn't come through.

> When I FORWARD an email from that same webmail account, it DOES come through ...

That is strange, because both messages are sent from the same IP-address to the same mail-server.

As an "anti-spam" measure, some mail-servers use the "grey-listing" technique. The first E-mail from "X" to "Y" is tagged as "temporarily undeliverable" by the target mail-server. Because it is flagged as "temporary", the sending mail-server should re-queue the message, and "try again" a few minutes later. Then, the message from "X" to "Y" will be accepted & delivered.

What this means to you is that you should try to send one message, from "X" to "Y", and then wait a few minutes, and then send a different message (change the SUBJECT line) from "X" to "Y". You may find that the SECOND message will immediately be delivered, and soon will be followed by the FIRST message.

Also, ask the administrator of the mail-server on the "sending" end to review their log-files that are created by their mail-server, looking for all messages addressed to "Y".  Please give the administrator the date(s) that you want to be searched.

> So that IP is somehow blacklisted ...

I disagree. Obviously, there is some reason, but I don't think that "black-listing" is the correct reason.

[Domvac]

ok thanks, I'll experiment with this tomorrow and see what happens.

[Bard1313]

I'm having a similar problem. My website has been operating for many years and I have a contact service form that is set up to email through MS Office 365. When the email gets received within O365, they are forward to my Shaw Webmail. Everything has been perfect for a very long time then all of a sudden, Shaw is flagging all those emails as spam. I contact Shaw and they stat that my service IP is blacklisted. But the emails are not going through my Service IP as Microsoft servers are handling the email exchange. It a sad excuse really. I contacted the Hosting Service and they said that there are no issues on there end. I believe Shaw is giving false positives. 

[mdk]

> I contact Shaw and they stat that my service IP is blacklisted. 

That seems to be an ambiguous statement.

Is the web-site running on a computer inside your home, or is it on a web-hosting service?

Exactly what IP-address did Shaw check?

Do they mean the IP-address of your web-server, or an IP-address within the Microsoft network of servers?

Can you view the E-mail headers of the received message, within your Shaw WebMail interface?  What IP-addresses are shown in the "Received:" lines?