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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2019 9:54 pm 
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Starting recently, Google has refused to deliver many of my emails to anyone having a Gmail account (I don't have such an account). At first I thought it was only my emails containing attachments of animal photos or videos...I guess Google considers these emails to be ‘unsolicited messages’ because my distribution list is so long (44 recipients). But now Google is returning almost all Gmail email as undeliverable.

Here is the error message I am now getting:
550-5.7.1 [174.137.15.60 12] Our system has detected that this message is
550-5.7.1 likely unsolicited mail. To reduce the amount of spam sent to Gmail,
550-5.7.1 this message has been blocked. Please visit
550-5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=Unso ... ssageError
550 5.7.1 for more information. s22si10203117otp.56 - gsmtp


I have visited their website for more info, and I have even submitted one of their 'Bulk Sender Contact Forms'. But my messages are still being blocked even when sent to a single Gmail recipient.

Any recommendations on how to solve this problem? Is anyone else incurring a similar issue when sending to Gmail recipients? Thanks in advance...…..

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2019 10:49 pm 
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I can't say that I have seen this issue on a personal level but suspect it MAY have something to do with their spam filters.

Steve, I believe, still uses a Gmail account so may be better able to answer. Still, if my spam filter thought is valid, I THINK that there is an option on the Google site where you can fill out a form to 'prove' that you are not a spammer. I'm just sorry that I can't help to any large extent as to solving this.

Patty and I had this issue quite a ways back where registration confirmation emails were refused by Gmail due to being considered spam. Since, at the time, Patty owned the domain of computerhaven.com I could not do anything. I believe she had to contact directly either by phone or support email.

It is quite likely that you will have to directly contact Google to solve this. Of course, since Google has so many issues with there emails... Sigh, Google has issues with everything... it MAY be a temporary issue that MAY just go away but, once an issue is triggered with Google, I doubt this will be the case.

BB, Let us just do a little test on this. While I no longer monitor my Gmail account it still exists. I will PM you the address. Please send me an email and I will go to the Gmail web based site to see if I get. Please let me know if/when you do such an email send. If you get the same errors as to a direct send, one-on-one, I'd prefer that be stated here in public as long as my email info is not included. ;)

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:14 am 
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Jay, I sent a test email to your Gmail account....it was entitled BB's Gmail Issues.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:15 am 
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Jay, this time my post finally went thru...no 403 error.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:22 am 
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May have been a server glitch... I DID put in a ticket with the hosting as to your issue.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 10:57 am 
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I have a gmail account but have not noticed anything like this with it, mind you I don't get much in it these days just a few newsletters I'm signed up for. It is checked a few times a day, well every time I bring up my email client, Mozilla Thunderbird, so I couldn't help with your problem BB.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:19 pm 
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The link in your error message provides guidance on what steps you may need to take to prevent your messages from being blocked by Gmail. You may need to contact your mail provider in some cases. I had a problem some time back with a POP provider that I no longer use for sending mail -- Gmail was blocking it because of a setting at the provider (authentication domain) causing my messages to fail testing at Gmail.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 2:25 pm 
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I received the test email without issue BB.

As a note BB also ran into an issue where he could not post here. That is the reference to the 403 error. BB that should be fixed as indicated by you being able to post. Here is the response from my hosting.
Green Geeks wrote:
Modsecurity rule which has caused the issue was added to white list and your IP has been unblocked.

Modsecurity is a PHP (the language in which this site is written) security to help prevent spam. Had this issue before with the same fix. Don't know how it got removed from the white list, possibly during a recent server migration. Some of the word combinations that can trigger Modsecurity make no sense.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:20 pm 
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sboots wrote:
The link in your error message provides guidance on what steps you may need to take to prevent your messages from being blocked by Gmail. You may need to contact your mail provider in some cases. I had a problem some time back with a POP provider that I no longer use for sending mail -- Gmail was blocking it because of a setting at the provider (authentication domain) causing my messages to fail testing at Gmail.

Steve, that link is the first place I looked for guidance before bothering you and Jay. But thus far, no help there. In fact, Google’s one link to another link to another link approach ran me in circles. But here is a summary of Google’s sage advice:
- Don’t bcc to large groups of people. I’ve been bcc’ing to the same group of 44 people for 7 years, with no issues until this week. So what is an acceptable number and who do I drop?
- Create a Google Group if you are sending emails to a large number of recipients. I investigated this but a Google Group is sorta a membership group for discussion purposes, and you must then invite each recipient to join the group.
- Submit a ‘Block Senders Contact Form’ to Google. I did that but never heard back (they said I probably wouldn’t).
- Don’t use message text that looks suspicious. My text always only describes the animal photo/video that I am sending.
- Don’t include content, image or links that might share viruses. I never have.
- Don’t attach certain files. I perused their list and I attach none of those…I only attach JPEG, AVI or MP4 files.

In Windows Live Mail, I did separate the 13 Gmail recipients into a new category (which sorta becomes a group), and that category name is what I now use on my bcc line. I don't know yet if that is working, because I don't know if Google is still blocking by bcc list.

If I continue to have this problem, I will contact my ISP/mail provider. It is a little mom & pop operation and I doubt they have done anything to cause this problem.

Personally, I think it's just Goggle flexing their muscle because they can. :cboy1:

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:40 pm 
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I agree that it's Google. :-) They are very aggressive with their spam blocking, which is why it's easy to fall afoul of their blocking criteria. Hopefully the form submission will do the trick, though it may well take time.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:45 pm 
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From the Google URL, these are the items your ISP may be able to assist with:

"Sign messages with DKIM. We don't authenticate messages signed with keys that use fewer than 1024 bits.
Publish a SPF record.
Publish a DMARC policy.

IP guidelines
The sending IP must have a PTR record (i.e. a reverse DNS of the sending IP) and match the IP obtained via the forward DNS resolution of the hostname specified in the PTR record.
The sending domain should pass either a SPF check or DKIM check."

The one I ran into some time back was the sending IP PTR record. It didn't match, so my messages were being rejected by Gmail.
I wouldn't think that 44 names would constitute bulk mailing, though you never know with Google...

-steve

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 4:05 pm 
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Steve, since BB was able to send me an email, including a short video, to my Gmail account would that not tend to negate the possibility of it being either SPF or DKIM? Just seeing if the field can be narrowed. ;)

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 5:33 pm 
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Steve, sadly all that PTR, DMARC, DKIM & SPF stuff is Greek to me, but I guess I could show these to my ISP and see what they think.

But personally, I think it is the number of recipients. As Jay mentioned, he received my email with a video attached when I sent it only to him. I have done some things to try and resolve the problem, i.e., submitted a Block Senders Contact Form, grouped the 13 Gmail recipients into a singular WLM group, etc. But is any of that working? I don't know because I have not heard back from any of the 13 Gmail people and I have no other way of contacting them since I don't have alternate email addresses.

I will keep you posted on any progress or continued frustration, lol.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 7:02 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Steve, sadly all that PTR, DMARC, DKIM & SPF stuff is Greek to me, but I guess I could show these to my ISP and see what they think.

Don't worry BB. I had to look them up. :mrgreen:

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:07 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Steve, sadly all that PTR, DMARC, DKIM & SPF stuff is Greek to me, but I guess I could show these to my ISP and see what they think.

But personally, I think it is the number of recipients. As Jay mentioned, he received my email with a video attached when I sent it only to him. I have done some things to try and resolve the problem, i.e., submitted a Block Senders Contact Form, grouped the 13 Gmail recipients into a singular WLM group, etc. But is any of that working? I don't know because I have not heard back from any of the 13 Gmail people and I have no other way of contacting them since I don't have alternate email addresses.

I will keep you posted on any progress or continued frustration, lol.


It's a whole lot of gobbledy gook to me, too, for the most part, though I understand the reverse DNS bit pretty well. :-)
Have you tried sending a test message to your 13 Gmail recipients as a BCC with yourself in the To: field and nobody else in the BCC or CC fields?
When you send to your full list, who is in the To: field?
-steve

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:24 pm 
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I just did a dangerous thing and had a thought... :mrgreen:

What might happen if all 44 recipients were to be placed in the 'To' field? It would be tedious to set up but once all were added to the 'To' field just copy/paste the 'To' field to a text file. When ready to send to all 44 just copy/paste the text file to the 'To' field. At least it would get rid of the BCC aspect...

Sorry if this is a dumb thought but I've never sent batch emails.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 10:52 pm 
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sboots wrote:
bbarry wrote:
Steve, sadly all that PTR, DMARC, DKIM & SPF stuff is Greek to me, but I guess I could show these to my ISP and see what they think.

But personally, I think it is the number of recipients. As Jay mentioned, he received my email with a video attached when I sent it only to him. I have done some things to try and resolve the problem, i.e., submitted a Block Senders Contact Form, grouped the 13 Gmail recipients into a singular WLM group, etc. But is any of that working? I don't know because I have not heard back from any of the 13 Gmail people and I have no other way of contacting them since I don't have alternate email addresses.

I will keep you posted on any progress or continued frustration, lol.


It's a whole lot of gobbledy gook to me, too, for the most part, though I understand the reverse DNS bit pretty well. :-)
Have you tried sending a test message to your 13 Gmail recipients as a BCC with yourself in the To: field and nobody else in the BCC or CC fields?
Yes I did, sorta. I first defined a Windows Live Mail category consisting only of the 13 Gmail recipients, then I put this category name (I called it Gmail Group) in the Bcc: field, but I didn't put myself in the To: field. This seems to be working, as I have thus far received replies from 4 of the recipients that they received this test message.
When you send to your full list, who is in the To: field?
I have never put anyone in the To: field, whether it's my full list or my Gmail list. The To: and Cc: fields remain blank.
-steve

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:19 pm 
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I would strongly recommend that one simple change when send a BCC to a list of people -- make sure that there is at least one recipient in the To: field. Putting an address belonging to you (ideally not the same one you send from, but that will still work) allows you to see that the message actually sent.
-steve

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:29 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
I just did a dangerous thing and had a thought... :mrgreen:

What might happen if all 44 recipients were to be placed in the 'To' field? It would be tedious to set up but once all were added to the 'To' field just copy/paste the 'To' field to a text file. When ready to send to all 44 just copy/paste the text file to the 'To' field. At least it would get rid of the BCC aspect...

Sorry if this is a dumb thought but I've never sent batch emails.

Jay, it's not necessarily a dumb thought, but it sure would upset all 44 recipients. If I placed all 44 recipients in the To: field, then everyone would see everyone else's email address.....this is really a no-no when sending emails to a group of people.

For security and privacy reasons, it is always best to use the Bcc: feature when sending an email message to a large number of people, because this allows you to hide recipient addresses in your email messages. Addresses in the To: field and the Cc: field appear in messages, but users cannot see addresses of anyone you included in the Bcc: field.

I might also mention that WLM makes it pretty easy to set up and use a group of recipients (called categories in WLM). Using your overall WLM Contacts list, you can simply add a contact name to any category you want. For example, I have 155 people/vendors in my Contacts list. I created a Category called Photos and then added/copied the 44 contacts to whom I wanted to send my animal photos/videos. Then when I was ready to email a new animal photo, I would simply click on Photos and then Bcc: and the 44 addresses would appear on the Bcc: field, ready to send. This is the way it all worked for 7 years until Google decided to botch things up.

Now I have removed the 13 Gmail recipients from my Photos category and put them in a separate category called Gmail. I now click on both Photos & Gmail categories to add all 44 people back to my Bcc: field. For now, this appears to be working because 4 of the 13 Gmail recipients replied that they received my test email.

I didn't mean to get so long winded about batch emails...….but it is very, very seldom that I can teach you anything. :mrgreen:

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:37 pm 
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sboots wrote:
I would strongly recommend that one simple change when send a BCC to a list of people -- make sure that there is at least one recipient in the To: field. Putting an address belonging to you (ideally not the same one you send from, but that will still work) allows you to see that the message actually sent.
-steve

Steve, that is actually a good recommendation, and I sometimes do that using an alternate email address of mine. But it got to a point where, within about 10 minutes of sending a new animal photo/video, I would get a return email from several people telling me how much they enjoyed the photo (we all get kinda bored up here in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, lol).

So I sorta got away from putting my address in the To: field, but I think I will start it again. Most of my 44 recipients know two of my four email addresses anyway, so I wouldn't be providing sensitive info.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:47 pm 
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No worries about being 'long winded'. :) As I've never sent batch emails I actually find all this of interest. Well I guess that I DID send a batch email once. Used to have a forum that I closed down in 2008 or 2009. I sent an email letting people know that the site was going down but I did it through the forum software to all registered users... same software as these forums. That batch email went to over 2000 people but was 10 or 11 years ago and I have no idea as to how this software handles such things.

Just saw that you posted while I was typing BB. You might create a new email account that you could put in the 'To' field. If you get responses look at them as you please or just set up a rule to delete.

LOL! If you get responses within 10 minutes of sending a batch email when your email is in the 'To' field you should really let me help you set up a web site. :mrgreen:

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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 2:57 am 
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Jay, thanks for the offer to help me set up a website, and I just may take you up on that someday soon.

I probably didn't make myself clear when I stated that some recipients responded within 10 minutes of getting an animal photo email. They did this without me having my address in the To: field....they simply did a reply to let me know that they enjoyed the photo/video I had just sent (and I enjoyed hearing back from them). I have not been putting my alternate address in the To: field for a long time, but as Steve recommended I will probably start doing that as a quick test to see that my email was sent.

Again, thanks to you and Steve for helping me on this Google issue, and to Joan for sharing her experiences. Hopefully my problem has now been resolved by grouping the 13 Gmail recipients into a separate category and then putting this category name in the Bcc: field.

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2019 9:35 pm 
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Just a final report that my Google Gmail problem appears to have been resolved, once I grouped the 13 Gmail recipients into a separate WLM category and then put this category name in the Bcc: field.

Thanks again to all who helped. :bow7:

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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2019 11:05 pm 
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Excellent!

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