Gmail blocking Emails sent from Nildram, Gotadsl etc

[JeffreySmith]

Apparently, Gmail made a change very recently that causes emails to be blocked if the sending domain doesn't have an SPF record.

The error detail is:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at apm-internet.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

142.250.27.27 failed after I sent the message.
Remote host said: 550-5.7.26 This message does not have authentication information or fails to
550-5.7.26 pass authentication checks. To best protect our users from spam, the
550-5.7.26 message has been blocked. Please visit
550-5.7.26  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126#authentication for more
550 5.7.26 information. z21-20020a17090665d500b006d1ddb409bbsi6577603ejn.234 - gsmtp
STARTTLS proto=TLSv1.2; cipher=ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256; subject=/CN=mx.google.com; issuer=/C=US/O=Google Trust Services LLC/CN=GTS CA 1C3;

[JeffreySmith]

And we also have a completely new Case number in Calum N (SME) email!  The 4th Case number on the problem ths far!

[JeffreySmith]

"I'm just getting in touch as we're still investigating this with our higher department and awaiting their response on resolving this issue, as we have had to escalate this."

Well the excuses and platitudes continue from a new TTB person ... Callum N , SME (???) Customer Services, TTB to join the long line ...Kit, Stewart, Hazron in never actually saying or doing anything productive that gives you any confidence that they are even adressing the problem seriously!

[JeffreySmith]

Of course nothing useful back from Mondays engineer meeting - although not surprising since it subsequently turns out that Stewart had not understood that the Emails were being bounced with a return 'Message authentication fail...etc' and just thought they were not being delivered!!!

I get the impression that TTB as an organisation, and particularly Stewart Anderson and Kit etc are deliberately trying to annoy us by not doing anything that they promise to do  -  phone calls not made as and when promised, no information as to what is happening to resolve our case etc.

Our first personal complaint was in an email to Kit Rodrigo of 12 May and, despite further requests, have still not had a personal acknowledgement.  These requests include numerous emails FAO Tristia Harrison, who needs to take proper ownership of this matter.

To remind you of what TTB customer complaints code says in 5.3:

‘The CEO’s office try to respond to every complaint received within 5 working days of receipt.  You will be assigned a dedicated person who will own your complaint and keep you fully updated.’  This hasn’t happened in any shape or form and we have insisted that they now follow their own code, which they have completely ignored.

Finally, we have asked them to do what they should have done weeks ago and treat this matter seriously and professionally.

[JeffreySmith]

Todays Bulletins:

Kit Rodrigo -

"I talk with our IT specialist earlier and I can confirm they are working it. Since there are over 97,000 sub domains for f2s.com they are unable to add an SPF record for every one of them. However they are looking for better resolution to fix this as soon as possible."

Stewart Anderson -

"David (presumably one of the expert engineers?) advised that the main issue is getting access to edit the SPF records and the PTR needing to be edited which we are already aware of"

[JeffreySmith]

For a professional organisation, TTB seem an absolute disgrace! Despite repeated prompts to Stewart, Kit, Hazron, Tristia etc and the others they have not even had the courtesy to report after the Monday meeting on their plan of action. Clearly, they dont understand that when they give an undertaking to contact a customer on a particular day, they keep that promise and make the call. We were told by Stewat that an important meeting was to take place on Monday morning and he should have been in contact immediately after that meeting. We are still to receive an acknowledgement to our complaint under Talk Talk's official disputes procedure.

 which provides for a specific period for TT to contact us on how they propose to deal with the complaint. I guess are next step will be contacting CISAS. And otherwise a personal visit to the Salford office to try to speak to someone who will take this matter seriously!

[cookp1]

A REQ is likely to be a ‘request’ , in service management terms it’s a request from a user for something to be provided. In this case it’s probably something they need to have in place to justify the change they want to make, i.e. the SPF TXT record they need to create.

[JeffreySmith]

They have raised a new ticket (or jobsheet) indexed by REQ (which I assume means Required) and two supposedly highly ranked senior engineers of Network Systems Mail Group will be meeting Stewart at 11am on Monday. The purpose seems to be something around looking at the problem although recent Emails only refer to looking at a plan of action or agreeing a timeframe in getting this matter resolved. This is the first time in 4 months, that anyone appears to be prepared to do something, although the only TTB guy who supported the legacy TTB email domain has left, so I have no great confidence in them achieving anything. Certainly seems that Trivia Harrison has tried to raise some urgency on this matter...

[Berkoboy]

To All for info.  Hazron is also looking at my (re)opened case , this time TTB say it won't be closed unless a satisfactory resolution has been reached . Incidentally I have been unable to create a login with TTB support as my account number ( 500xxxxxxxx etc ) is not recognised. 

[JeffreySmith]

Yes - I just checked the account  - the number is still that same number...so I have no idea to what he refers!

[cookp1]

@JeffreySmith

just checking whether you are aware that you can view your cases via the supportcentre at https://supportcentre.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/home if you have a login? That will enable you to check whether a case has been closed. In this instance I suspect Hazron has made a typo and should have been quoting two different references. The system won’t have generated two cases with the same number because the number is almost certainly the primary key for the case record in their system management database. 

[JeffreySmith]

Stop Press:

Tristia Harrison (CEO) has just written an Email on a chain several deep to the Manager of the Network team Michael Waugh asking for a Resolution Date for this problem.  Meantime,  I am told that the one person who had access to the legacy domain has left the company so nobody knows hw to logon to the legacy system to do the SPF change or whatever!!

Don't hold your breath!

[JeffreySmith]

Todays Email from a new player Hazron of Domain Admin team:

I hope you're doing well. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused and we are making every effort to resolve this issue for you. Also, I can see that you still have an on going case 08960949 I will close this case as duplicate and please refer to this case number 08960949 for any updates regarding with your issue.

Words fail me as to how any system can generate two cases with the same number?????

[cookp1]

I must admit I’ve made the assumption that TTB adhere to ITIL service management standards, which I think are pretty much industry standards. 

…but nothing would surprise me… 😕

[cookp1]

Quite agree. From my recollection of ITIL service management processes they may well have raised an internal problem record to address the issue for everyone and that should probably reference all the individual incident records (cases from our perspective), but that does not mean they should be closing all those incidents. The incident records are a means for the customer to track progress through to resolution so must be held open until the customer is satisfied that the remedial action has actually solved the problem.

[Gondola]

I guess the 'Dear customer' bit is simply because you're not an account holding customer with TTB so the process doesn't link to any active TTB account to pick up the customer name. Just a process thing for generating the letter/email.

As for "closing the case" my recommendation would be to reject this proposal and ask that the case remain open until fixed. If all active cases are closed and someone new looks at the issue it might be seen that there are no complaints so nothing to fix.

[Berkoboy]

Just to add : The ticket I raised with TTB has now been closed - the message I got said  "I do apologise for the inconvenience that you have been experience regarding the email issue. We are now currently working on it as well. We will update you once this issue has been fixed. For now, I will closed this case while we are fixing the system. " . It was addressed to Dear Customer -  so all the hallmarks of a computer generated reply and close down.

The Gmail problem still exists ( as at 20th )  - with the  error "This message does not have authentication information or fails to

550-5.7.26 pass authentication checks (SPF or DKIM). "

[JeffreySmith]

Yes - I am dealing with TTB...but there is no TTB Forum so just looking to keep Phil, Berkeboy etc aware of progress (or lack of). Today's missive from Stuart was:

"I apologise for the delay in response, I have been put into contact with our Network systems general mail group and have been escalating this with my manager and the manager of the domains team. I am actively chasing this for you and the moment I hear an update on this I will contact you. I would like to apologise again for the delay in getting this matter resolved for you."

[Gondola]

You should be prosecuting your case via Stewart to push your case up the TalkTalk Business (TTB) tree.

This Community is for TalkTalk Consumer only and the TalkTalk Support team cannot intercede with the resolution of formal complaints; even less so for TTB that has its own complaints handling.

[cookp1]

@JeffreySmith yes, agree with all of that, except, to be fair to Stewart, I never expected him to be technically proficient in this area; he is handling customer complaints and should be coordinating efforts within TTB in order to a) resolve the underlying problem and b) satisfy our complaint about the (lack of) response we have received. Unfortunately there’s no evidence that he has made any progress with a) and we’ve had no sensible communication as to why there has been such a delay. So he seems to have failed on both counts!

[JeffreySmith]

It’s now almost a month since we wrote to TT domain as a last resort, following which we received a telephone call from Stewart Anderson who gave me the distinct impression that he was a technician who had just at that time dealt with a similar problem and therefore knew exactly what our problem was and would be able to fix it in a matter of days.  It is now clear that he has no technical knowledge and, just like Kit before him, has been stringing us along and, despite repeated requests, has provided nothing more than platitudes and has told us absolutely nothing about the problem itself or how it is progressing.

The only positive note from Stewart (and that was as a result of our repeated requests) is that he has escalated our complaint higher up in I presume TTB, but yet again whoever this person is hasn’t even had the courtesy to get in touch to provide an apology or progress report.

As it is nearly 4 months since the Gmail problem arose, we are aware for other people around the country, and we have received nil information as to the problem and how it can be resolved, we will be looking to please pass this matter on to the highest-ranked individual in TTB and ask them to provide us with a full report by return.