topic Not receiving some emails in Email

Not receiving some emails

ClareB8 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 12:47:04 GMT

Someone has tried sending me an email 4 times and it still hasn’t come through! What can I do? How can I check if I’m not receiving other emails too? Thank you!

Re: Not receiving some emails

KeithFrench — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 13:05:16 GMT

Have you tried emailing yourself? Is the problem with an email client or webmail? What email domains are affected?

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 13:05:40 GMT

What's the domain for the email address - just the part of their email address after the @ symbol? e.g. the primary mail domain in TalkTalk Mail is @talktalk.net. I'll check for authentication because TalkTalk do reject unauthenticated mail messages.

You can check your mailbox for Rules that may be diverting messages from your Inbox. If there are no rules defined then nothing will stop authenticated messages from arriving in the Inbox unless the mailbox quota is exceeded i.e. the mailbox is full.

Mailbox quota is viewable bottom left of the Folder view in TalkTalk Mail via the webmail sign in. That's also where to find any Filter Rules.

Select here: Sign in to TalkTalk Mail

Enter your email address and password, select Sign in.

Check the Inbox first and then check Spam and Trash folders for mail messages that may have been diverted from the Inbox. Bear in mind the spam and trash folders normally contain mail not older than 30 days.

Select New email to compose and self-send the same mailbox a mail message. Check that the message sends without error, is copied into the Sent objects folder and arrives and stays in the Inbox.

Mail not reaching the Inbox could mean there's a Filter rule, including an Auto forward which is a special filter rule, that's diverting, discarding or blocking mail.

Select the Main settings menu cog icon  top right on the blue header
Select All settings
Select Mail in the left side of the modal that opens
Scroll down to Rules and expand that section
If there's no rule defined, that's perfect
To delete a Filter rule including any Auto forward
select the X icon to the right of the rule
The icon background will turn red
To confirm you really want to delete this Filter rule
Select the blue Delete button

Let me know what you find.

Re: Not receiving some emails

ClareB8 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:46:54 GMT

I have now checked my email account and I have no Rules and there is plenty of room in my mailbox quota.

I asked my friend to resend but it is not working from his @hotmail.co.uk email account but he's tried it from his @ntlworld.com email account and it has come through. Is this an issue with @talktalk.net or something else?

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Re: Not receiving some emails

ClareB8 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:47:41 GMT

I have emailed myself and that is not an issue.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Barney23 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 22:02:27 GMT

I also have this issue. Talk talk email won’t receive from hotmail. Error tt992. Tried to send a hotmail to two different TT email accounts to test it and both reject with error tt992.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 22:26:13 GMT

Hi ClareB8

I've seen a recent email header that originated from a Hotmail email address and that suggested that Hotmail are not using the industry standard SPF authentication.

TalkTalk will treat all unauthenticated mail as spam and that's what the TT992 bounce error indicates.

Hotmail appear to be using Authenticated Received Chain (ARC) but this new system doesn't work for all mail services including TalkTalk Mail.

Your Hotmail contact should seek advice from Microsoft for this authentication issue.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Barney23 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:19:01 GMT

This has recently happened. I’ve always been able to send from my hotmail to talk talk emails with no problem. Now TT bounces the hotmail as undelivered tt992. Hopefully it’s a temporary blip, Unless either hotmail or TT have recently changed a protocol and they’re not ‘talking’ any more. That would be bad. Hope not.

Re: Not receiving some emails

CliffW1 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 07:48:30 GMT

I have access to 3 talktalk email addresses. Whenever I send an email to any of them from an Outlook account I get an "undeliverable" message - TT992 - that says there is a problem with the Talktalk inbox - and the emails do not arrive in Talktalk. But emails sent from gmail accounts get through okay. I can also send emails between my talktalk accounts with no problems, and emails sent FROM @talktalk to @outlook get through okay too.

To be clear - I sent a test email from my @outlook account to 3 @talktalk accounts, 3 @outlook accounts and 2 @gmail accounts. I got "undeliverable" messages from all 3 @talktalk accounts, but the email was delivered to all the @outlook and @gmail accounts.

I then sent the same test email from a gmail account to the 3 @talktalk accounts, 3 @outlook accounts and 2 @gmail accounts. All of these were delivered successfully. So I conclude that @talktalk.net inbox is rejecting all emails sent from @outlook.com, but is accepting emails from @talktalk and @gmail accounts. I don't know about others, such as @hotmail as I don't have any of those accounts

Re: Not receiving some emails

Barney23 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 09:21:30 GMT

That’s a useful test. It makes sense if I read correctly that hotmail became outlook, so are from the same source. Therefore both seem equally affected.

It seems unlikely that the talk talk server is no longer able to receive from these as I assume they are widely used globally. I wonder if this is affecting everyone on TT. They wouldn’t necessarily know unless they are expecting an email that never arrives and look into it, as contributors here have done. Perhaps the talktalk tech dept can enlighten us. There may be a simple reason or just a temporary blip.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gliwmaeden2 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:11:14 GMT

I just sent myself a test and got the same error message, @Barney23.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:28:47 GMT

The issue affecting outgoing hotmail.com addresses is exactly the same as happened back in August as reported here: Bleeping Computer report on hotmail SPF fail.

Looking at the SPF records for hotmail.com shows it configured for strict SPF compliance (a hard fail) and the normally expected sender lists for spf.protection.outlook.com is absent.

I'd need to see an email header from hotmail to determine if the sender IP address is missing from the SPF record(s). Some of the IP address ranges for spf.protection.outlook.com were reportedly added in to other 'includes' for the hotmail.com servers.

Comparing the SPF records as they are today 30 Dec 2023:

Hotmail.com

v=spf1 ip4:157.55.9.128/25 include:spf-a.outlook.com include:spf-b.hotmail.com include:spf-b.outlook.com include:spf-a.hotmail.com include:_spf-ssg-b.microsoft.com include:_spf-ssg-c.microsoft.com -all

Outlook.com

v=spf1 include:spf-a.outlook.com include:spf-b.outlook.com ip4:157.55.9.128/25 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:spf-a.hotmail.com include:_spf-ssg-b.microsoft.com include:_spf-ssg-c.microsoft.com ~all

Outlook.com mail domains should work unless outgoing spam has been detected, sent mail via Outlook.com is a personal or other domain that does not have SPF configured or mail is being forwarded by an intermediary that does not rewrite the email header to provide SPF authentication by that intermediary sender.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gliwmaeden2 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:41:26 GMT

I repeated the Test message from Hotmail to Talktalk and it failed again.

But sending from Hotmail to Gmail and Hotmail to Yahoo has been received immediately.

So not fundamentally a hotmail problem?

In its efforts to reduce Spam, is Talktalk delivering false results?

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:44:06 GMT

I need an email header to determine the root cause.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gliwmaeden2 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:46:55 GMT

Do you mean the bit that just shows TLS?

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:56:11 GMT

In Gmail it's in the menu as <> show original

In Yahoo Mail it's in the menu as View raw message

Redact personal email addresses before posting. What I'm looking for is the lines that start:

ARC-Authentication-Results:
Return-Path:
Received: from

A previous header I'd seen from hotmail.com indicated in ARC that the message was not authenticated.

To check for sender compliance with SPF I need the Outlook.com sending IP address.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gliwmaeden2 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:02:05 GMT

Not seeing these options as using the Gmail and email apps on the Smartphone.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:12:41 GMT

The apps are of no help for diagnostics in issues like this.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gliwmaeden2 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 16:05:30 GMT

There is this sort of stuff in the detail of the original error message:

(Removed from public view)

It goes on for ages, @Gondola. Hope that's a help.

Re: Not receiving some emails

Gondola — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:24:57 GMT

Yes that is helpful but what I've seen so far doesn't tell me the sending IP address although it does say in the ARC authentication results that spf=none dmarc=none dkim=none and arc=none

Which tells me that either there's no authentication at all for the original hotmail email (which would be unusual) or that their new ARC system isn't operating.