Deliverability issues: Notification emails not received, Cloud email blacklisted, DMARC unknown

[David N.]

One of the challenges when managing an online forum is to make sure people get properly notified when their question receives an answer. Too often, notification emails are considered as spam and blocked before the recipient has a chance to see them. 

It's frustrating to keep hearing that some members had no idea someone had answered a question they'd posted on my site, which unfortunately happens on a regular basis. 

I believe this can be improved upon.

I've experienced two types of issues with invision notification emails. 

1. The notifications emails are sent by my community in the cloud, but they go in the recipient's spam box. 
2. The notifications emails are sent by my community in the cloud, but they are never received by the recipient, not even in their spam box. 

In the past I've reported that DMARC wasn't set up properly for invisioncloudcommunity.com - I just checked now, and unfortunately this has not been fixed. Here are the raw headers from an email received from invisioncloudcommunity.com: 

Received: from 10.197.33.205

 by atlas207.free.mail.bf1.yahoo.com pod-id NONE with HTTPS; Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:31:56 +0000

Return-Path: <0100018e4218f711-b5741dc8-0a84-426c-945a-680f23dcb952-000000@amazonses.com>

X-Originating-Ip: [54.240.11.73]

Received-SPF: pass (domain of amazonses.com designates 54.240.11.73 as permitted sender)

Authentication-Results: atlas207.free.mail.bf1.yahoo.com;

 dkim=pass header.i=@invisioncloudcommunity.com header.s=2ogrodggx62me37libidezq44j6wnyop;

 dkim=pass header.i=@amazonses.com header.s=ug7nbtf4gccmlpwj322ax3p6ow6yfsug;

 spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=amazonses.com;

 dmarc=unknown header.from=invisioncloudcommunity.com;

I've also reported that invisioncloudcommunity.com is blacklisted by multiple servers, and unfortunately that is still the case today (I used https://valli.org/ to test the mail servers): 

I am hoping that invision community email deliverability can be improved so that all our members can receive their notification emails as expected.

Edited March 15 by David N.

[Marc]

I will bring this up internally for someone to look into

[Lindy]

DMARC has been enabled on that domain, which should resolve your concern. There are only a couple of DNSSBLs that major email providers such as Yahoo and Google reference for deliverability: spamhaus is one. Other sbl's have minimal, if any impact. 

Please keep in mind that the cloud email service offered by your package is shared among thousands of clients. While both we and AWS take every necessary step to be responsible stewards, minimize spam and auto remove from DNSSBLs that have impact, no provider can guarantee 100% deliverability 100% of the time on a shared platform. If email is mission critical to your community, you may wish to consider using our SendGrid integration and obtain an account with a dedicated IP add-on from them. This ensures that you are the only one using the sending IP. 

Hopefully the above will help alleviate your concern. 

[David N.]

Ok thanks a lot Lindy for your answer. 

Now regarding DKIM, I see in the raw headers that both DKIM and SPF pass, but DMARC is equal to 'unknown'. I assume that means there's no DMARC record for that email. Wouldn't setting up a DMARC record possibly help with deliverability? I see a lot of talk around DMARC being now required by Google and Yahoo in 2024. 

Here are a couple of sources where I saw that info: 

https://sendgrid.com/en-us/blog/gmail-yahoo-sender-requirements

https://powerdmarc.com/google-and-yahoo-email-authentication-requirements/

[Lindy]

I'm not sure what you're seeing, David -- but there's a valid DMARC record. 

[David N.]

3 hours ago, Lindy said:

I'm not sure what you're seeing, David

In my original post in this thread, I posted the raw headers of an email received from invisioncloudcommunity.com, and you can see dmarc=unknown. When DMARC is properly aligned, the raw header should state dmarc=pass.

4 hours ago, Lindy said:

here's a valid DMARC record. 

There's indeed a DMARC record for invisioncloudcommunity.com - however the domain name in that record is not aligned with the DKIM and SPF identifiers because of the domain name mismatch. My understanding is that for the DMARC to pass, the 3 domain names should be one and the same, and that misalignment results in DMARC failing: 

dkim=pass header.i=@amazonses.com header.s=ug7nbtf4gccmlpwj322ax3p6ow6yfsug;

spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=amazonses.com;

dmarc=unknown header.from=invisioncloudcommunity.com;

 

Here are the full raw headers of a notification email sent by invisioncloudcommunity: 

 

Received: from 10.197.33.205
 by atlas207.free.mail.bf1.yahoo.com pod-id NONE with HTTPS; Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:31:56 +0000
Return-Path: <0100018e4218f711-b5741dc8-0a84-426c-945a-680f23dcb952-000000@amazonses.com>
X-Originating-Ip: [54.240.11.73]
Received-SPF: pass (domain of amazonses.com designates 54.240.11.73 as permitted sender)
Authentication-Results: atlas207.free.mail.bf1.yahoo.com;
 dkim=pass header.i=@invisioncloudcommunity.com header.s=2ogrodggx62me37libidezq44j6wnyop;
 dkim=pass header.i=@amazonses.com header.s=ug7nbtf4gccmlpwj322ax3p6ow6yfsug;
 spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=amazonses.com;
 dmarc=unknown header.from=invisioncloudcommunity.com;
X-Apparently-To: taly_in_us@yahoo.com; Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:31:56 +0000
X-YMailISG: FEQTT9MWLDt8NKBNtOQnmKw1lN.aUwWCY0L3fLMy3CnPQhEE
 39Of_KDTuWK9Bk8lvaWowluMEznVPyA3wS3vwUsYnfj5w.uhpwPjHLVZS5ds
 03euqiUKSdZk.z1yBEo67yf8Y77d1LobOiCcfmo7U3KNiFQL9SSug69aJLKp
 ecQRKMaB67q_nkKlAHut38tRH6FFObFFTR4wmPHjBVQQkdrPmeD1rhY97n8N
 NzDh3vEI0khR6n8c43skNbaab_Jv1DxH9vumLVS8rWpk9hrNLMBphzuLrgbe
 TvM.KlaI11tsz8fWAgXJb6YZ.KBZksvp9_t9W.0dlV4rK5XIm7c7GNrkDvws
 1qgxijDFjVhzW1.Iq_IY.QuU.6.CXwHyynxvdz5S7fTE2tE9wXKpngIAhSMS
 HkcDCR8Nvl_qlBvuv23NX_wSQFQeoJFLKyKqV52pW87hWK4jwkEci5RDlRtK
 jXnks535KSLjU8nzoWHMezssS.gCaSO9mNCy7qzPbTb76EnHr4uzf1pfnnq5
 9Zg1BnS1Q9iXqA46SYS1o.J_atu_MGD59tj0yWe1vLxv6frdYGYq0PeeGpiS
 kafp_eXoaCm62pD573awCA6MrLuPJjyXnVKZIxo2CnCiWhZqs7RW8E.hVhAM
 daJnLof0jqSKAq82pR5jG0YE5gJWJKouHnFZdI8VV_6X98ct4R6tOyNlOicP
 18zJw_n_TqD8aa0C8JOpQ5m1oZZHiQEikBbWjBPonRV84awMoIvQXPCc8cIG
 Lb2nZVsj7gnoTJxlm6676_izuTm5BKGCKzifxLy3wDl55J_VmG3hvxjCjuK5
 h3KzH0us9tq8UKLMj_pJ1mexeTJ_vDvxOA9O6rW0WoLG4XcQrSr7IRX.CMLp
 2HzokFk__zNvqQ3yS_REN4CJcts88wb6OfzS1V5t581ILoQ9vQiaLOjfI9cr
 .uj7DX0TrXexc4JKJgVvYONnttDKB8qIBl.w2qFMznMzEOMLl4H4Ziwh0.vV
 4d9ys0eFmXaJrRqUa7q4RAANzsGvjniYXrrZ7qcsZuTatKtdCwNgPDvhPsZD
 2KX6GIhU4Z6tj49.O.9AS3M61Yj6SmIgUGMdYVY1SknueTOlTIQga1_a_3RH
 D2tYpY0sN4ZZ.YrRECK5YlYIYPE.mhGD5UxgPcvUldhjq6gA.8qnRsAtUoeK
 aouU53iRyPG1Y1Nrw88ugAFW6g6rbOYdgJkXiwQjBozxRlTWF1KLZRMXb.Wh
 Vxb0c_w0bemR88ARPT5j83KxzuydSKtZD0wrgwWCoIGQ6YzOj77d6OY-
Received: from 54.240.11.73 (EHLO a11-73.smtp-out.amazonses.com)
 by 10.197.33.205 with SMTPs
 (version=TLS1_2 cipher=TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256);
 Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:31:56 +0000
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/simple;
s=2ogrodggx62me37libidezq44j6wnyop; d=invisioncloudcommunity.com;
t=1710505916;
h=MIME-Version:To:From:Subject:Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID:Date;
bh=TU+2JWig1tWaT8WDqGkqssdOBeyupgnH5ZU1BwaQfYs=;
b=U6VG2vfkTTb8jIUCx0Q/uGhhjFk/fpkfrW9SmPC9tciPlQZYvph4idI6hO2jkEX+
w7K2lG114AKzoMzGsO7DC/4oA66jfM7NxWd5zfIM2VllGTDHPQvsDAfE15wcW4kPENk
8kAU9YQ25pTspOrkk3R4H8AbJkj9Hlw9rvI4bwzg=
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/simple;
s=ug7nbtf4gccmlpwj322ax3p6ow6yfsug; d=amazonses.com; t=1710505916;
h=MIME-Version:To:From:Subject:Reply-To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID:Date:Feedback-ID;
bh=TU+2JWig1tWaT8WDqGkqssdOBeyupgnH5ZU1BwaQfYs=;
b=HdXFxt8IQSu3IiFIKhykwrbf2Nxa+MpMBBEZq1M4wFzq3WSVyV+PHyENYyTgI0DQ
K/a2P1r9giFiy+8yyLn47I3+vMx0tHJWQhBBblF5dBCXqLzS3pSO9qAaTlmZh0bVtT3
g76ZMmoJ8nt9awYRFqiEkqqBkoeDtiBU2OBoCozc=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
To: taly_in_us@yahoo.com
From: =?UTF-8?B?TG9naWMgUHJvIEhlbHA=?= <noreply@invisioncloudcommunity.com>
Subject: =?UTF-8?B?RGF2aWQgTmFobWFuaSBoYXMgc2VudCB5b3UgYSBtZXNzYWdl?=
Reply-To: info@logicprohelp.com
X-IPS-SiteId: u324175
Precedence: list
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="--==_mimepart_f20f276b128e6b838b45973703fc87ae"; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <0100018e4218f711-b5741dc8-0a84-426c-945a-680f23dcb952-000000@email.amazonses.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 12:31:56 +0000
Feedback-ID: 1.us-east-1.I2JlSyhT18CFbEMgAlnICEdhRZQ5PC4Fq6d2wz2Mj6I=:AmazonSES
X-SES-Outgoing: 2024.03.15-54.240.11.73
Content-Length: 15423

 

 

 

 

 

[My Sharona]

I had IPS add the DMARC record not long ago and it passes for my websites. They also added SPF and DKIM records and they pass as well.

[David N.]

1 hour ago, My Sharona said:

I had IPS add the DMARC record not long ago and it passes for my websites. They also added SPF and DKIM records and they pass as well.

Are you on the Cloud? And is this concerning the notification emails received from invisioncloudcommunity.com?

Edited March 21 by David N.

[My Sharona]

9 hours ago, David N. said:

Are you on the Cloud? And is this concerning the notification emails received from invisioncloudcommunity.com?

I am on the Cloud. However, I misunderstood, please ignore.

[David N.]

So any chance we can get DMARC aligned for Invision Cloud email? 

[Marc]

58 minutes ago, David N. said:

So any chance we can get DMARC aligned for Invision Cloud email? 

I've given Lindy a shout on this to see if he can take a look at your last message.

[David N.]

8 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

I've given Lindy a shout on this to see if he can take a look at your last message.

Thank you Marc! 🙂 

[David N.]

I wanted to update this thread as I just had a look again and it looks like this has been fixed! Thanks guys ( @Lindy ?)!!

Here's what I'm seeing now in the raw headers:

 dkim=pass header.i=@ab.mtasv.net header.s=ab20231108;
 dkim=pass header.i=@invisioncloudcommunity.com header.s=20240731110543pm;
 spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=pm-bounces.invisioncloudcommunity.com;
 dmarc=pass(p=REJECT) header.from=invisioncloudcommunity.com;