WordPress MU

Hi,
I have a problem that when a user tries to sign up for a blog, if their email ends in hotmail.com, they do not receive the inital email. everything else appears to work (ie account is created in the database)

I have had a friend try to sign up, but they never received the email, it was not in their spam folder either.

anyone else got this problem ? (please test it at http://matt28.net)

Contact hotmail.

It's a problem on their end, and is effecting a lot of people across the net.

Good luck though, as getting through their "process" is a nightmare. Of course, would you expect anything less from the sloth?

Good luck as to hotmail, their servers are always right and it's the rest of the internet that has an issue.

/me eyes those now 5 year old email blocks on their San Fran servers that are still open to relaying spam.

I have similar issues with some email providers blocking the registration confirmation emails. Hotmail considers your server IP as spammers.

The best solution is to use external SMTP servers. It is a new feature in WPMU 1.1.1, but it is also achievable using a plugin.

I am about to release the mod we did on the SwiftMailer for WordPress, which supports Gmail SMTP servers with TLS. If you host your domain email using Google Apps for the Domain, this would be best solution.

I have to say I've never really had problems with this - and that's for a lot of blogs.

But I'd welcome anything that stops it from being a problem in the future!

Hmmmm...

We could terminate all business and personal transactions with microsloth. That would fix it. :D

Other than that, even without having ever been on a blacklist, hotmail can just decide to block you with a vague (read as bulls**t) 550 bounce error.

Just because they can, I guess.

Then dealing with them... I'd rather have a root canal without anesthetic. It was the absolute WORST customer service experience I've ever had. How companies can treat people like I was treated and still stay in business is a mystery to me.

Personally I don't like microsoft. However, many users in China use MSN Instant Messaging, so naturally they use hotmail as well. Oh, well. I guess i will have to live with that.

email from China is pretty much blocked for the same reason as I block email from those Hotmail servers.

Yep.
Or me and most of Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Can't do Asia. Have clients in Vietnam and Japan. Those countries aren't really issues though.

To anthonyrae, and generally speaking.

1. Check and verify that your mailserver (postfix, whatever) is configured correctly and works.
2. Check and verify that MU manages to send e-mail's.

If 1 and 2 are alright, then you're all set.

NOT.

If 1 and 2 works and some mail provider (i.e. hotmail) don't get mails then go back to step 1, and check things like is there a PTR record for the IP being used to send mail (If possible, the PTR record should match the domain the mail is coming from, but this is rarely an opiton), and on and on. There are MANY issues with mail. An example: I used to use zombie.dnsbl.sorbs.net, now I don't, because I learned that they blacklist many /24's. So someone on the same network as you spammed, now you and a dozen other customers at your ISP can't send mail to anyone using that list.

In short, there's a whole range of reasons why mail don't come through to provider X. Most of the time it's real simple, you're on X's shitlist or on the shitlist of some spam-list they subscribe to; and it's easy to get on the shitlist and very hard to get off. And by easy I mean that someone spammed from the /16 or /24 network you're on, there's even the rare case of your ex-girlfriend reporting your mail as spam when you ask her to settle the matter of her having your car, or something like that. Having your mail blocked by provider X is really something you can only solve by putting up a notice "We don't accept e-mail addresses at provider X" or something like "You can't use e-mail provider X here".

Not quite, because I've had perfectly configured mail servers, never, ever on any black lists at all, at any level, and it still was rejected by hotmail.

Why? Because they can, and no other reason.

If I'm playing by the "rules", mail from "Joe" to one of his buddies at hotmail should go through no problem. Yet, because they think they run the world, they'll block smaller ISP's just for the heck of it.

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Remember my bit about Hotmail and how they think. Ever try to send a spam complaint to Hotmail? Now there's a fun time.

hello,

thanks for your replies. I know that things are okay on my end, because I can receive activation emails to other domains, just not ones with hotmail.

what is this about using 'external SMTP servers' ? how can i fix this problem using this ? is it a plugin.. if so whre can i download it ?

thanks heaps everyone !

Why not just ban hotmail from your install? Gotta admit that I have yet to have a nonspam blog created from those folks.

A quick search for 'external SMTP servers' shows a couple of threads with suggestions.

As easy as it is to bash MS, I won't. First of all as I have been using their products (as well as Apples) for the past years with great results and secondly a simple fix seems to indicate that they are right in blocking emails.

Check your domain with http://www.dnsstuff.com and you might get some warnings, especially about a reverse DNS /PTR record missing.

I contacted my VPS host and he added one for me (and also renamed the servername/url so it is actually valid. This might not be possible to do when on a shared IP by the way.

Their quick answer:

I have also configured RDNS for the domain ----.com, following are the info. It will take few hours to propagate globally

root@apollo [~]# host 12.345.67.89
89.67.345.12.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ----.com.
root@apollo [~]#

Hostname changed to server.----.com, please do verify it from your end."

And just moments later all my emails to hotmail accounts did arrive and not even in the junk mail folder.

And no, I do not use any SMTP servers or plugins, just a standard WPMU install in this regard.

PS: Note that I had been spamlog free for 3 months, but got 3 spamlogs signed up just hours after this changed. Coincidence maybe as none had hotmail addresses.