Email forwarding not working for past few days

[juststeve1]

Hi,

Email forwarding of my Talktalk.net emails has not been working for the past few days.  I have logged into Webmail and it is still set up to forward, but nothing is coming thru.

[Gondola]

TalkTalk Mail is on the Open-Xchange (OX) mail platform. The imminent migration is to the Open-Xchange Cloud 8 mail platform hence why I refer to the OX Cloud 8 mail platform.

I've also received notification that two of my three mailboxes are scheduled for migration. I've just carried out a test of auto-forwarding from TalkTalk Mail from the test-mail@talktalk.net auto responder and that was auto forwarded to Yahoo Mail. So, in my case that proves auto-forwarding is working so far as TalkTalk Mail domains are concerned. I am also receiving into Yahoo Mail the Community notifications. Those do not permit sending by TalkTalk Mail senders so the SPF check at Yahoo fails because TalkTalk Mail is not a permitted sender (auto-forwarder). But because the Community notification mail message is digitally signed via DKIM so Yahoo Mail accepts the mail as genuine and it arrives in my Yahoo mailbox inbox.

So far as I can see all is working exactly as expected between TalkTalk Mail and Yahoo Mail.

I cannot tell without knowing the domain(s) that are failing for you to know whether this is an SPF and DKIM fail when the mail arrives at Yahoo Mail or an auto-forwarding fault.

Try composing a test message from your TalkTalk mailbox to test-mail@talktalk.net to see if the auto response is forwarded to and accepted by Yahoo Mail.

[juststeve1]

I've had an email entitled 'We're improving your TalkTalk Mail experience' but it didn't mention 'the new OX Cloud 8 Mail platform' (whatever that is).

It's just strange that all email forwarding has stopped as of perhaps a week ago, say 16th August.

I don't really follow what you are saying otherwise (even though I work in IT - ha!) but I've sent test emails from my Talktalk account that I use with pop3 and they've appeared in both my Webmail and in my pop3 account, but not in the account that I forward mail to.  Note, I forward mail to Yahoo and also to my work email address.

Note too, I am a Talktalk account holder, so my Webmail should be linked to a valid customer account.

Please let me know what other information you need for the mail forwarding to be fixed - thanks 🙂

[Gondola]

In the circumstances I've described mail auto forwarding is not to be relied upon.  Gmail, for example have increased their rejections of unauthenticated mail. It therefore depends on the SPF file set by the originator of the mail and whether that's set to allow any mail service to send or auto forward their mail or whether the originating mail service have also ramped up their security so that only the originating mail service is a permitted sender.

If you were auto forwarding a TalkTalk Mail domain then that would work. Let me know the originating domain and I'll look at the SPF file - assuming it's only some email that fails to auto forward. If it's all email that fails to auto forward then either that's a fault or your mailbox is limited to webmail only access. 

Webmail only access happens if your mailbox is not linked to an active customer MyAccount or a lapsed MailPlus subscription or for other security reasons. Let me know if any of those are possibilities.

Have you been notified that your mailbox is already migrated to the new OX Cloud 8 Mail platform - I ask just in case it's a fault associated with that migration.

[juststeve1]

Thanks Gondola for the reply.

So are you saying forwarding from Webmail will no longer work after it's been working fine for years?

[Gondola]

Email forwarding using the auto forward option is not to be relied upon. The recipient email service can reject mail that is not fully authenticated. So if the original sender does not allow any mail service to send on mail other than the ones it authenticates then the forwarded mail will not be fully authenticated.

If your TalkTalk Mail service is limited to webmail only access then auto forwarding will cease to work.

The workaround in both cases is to collect your TalkTalk Mail by signing in to webmail.

If your mailbox is fully functional then you can use a mail collection service like Gmail's POP3 collection or an email client to collect your mail from the TalkTalk Inbox.