Yahoo.com Mail Woes
-I have absolutely no problem with anyone else accepting my mail.
-I have correct DKIM and SPF records
-I I have a correct PTR record
-There are only two domains; one for me and one for my wife. I know exactly what is happening with mail sent from this server.
-The server is and has never been an open relay. I have never had a problem with vulnerable web apps creating a spam relay problem.
Despite all this, they (seemingly randomly) send 4.16.50 codes to my server (deferred due to user complaints) and people don't get our mail.
Contacting them to resolve the situation has been an exercise in frustration. I have sent detailed reports several times (including logs) and I only get form responses back. I have asked to not receive a canned response so we can have a human conversation and get to the bottom of this. It doesn't work.
I'm out of options. What can I do?
10 Replies
@mstarks01:
Does anyone else have a problem with yahoo.com flagging mail as spam?
Yeah. I even set myself up a test account and sent it a message; went straight to the spambox. No explanation in the headers. The only externally visible IP address is my linode one, which isn't on any blacklist (beyond the b0rken ones that lists whole companies).
Yahoo is crap.
@sweh:
Yeah. I even set myself up a test account and sent it a message; went straight to the spambox. No explanation in the headers. The only externally visible IP address is my linode one, which isn't on any blacklist (beyond the b0rken ones that lists whole companies).
Yahoo is crap.
Same here.
I dealt with them back and forth for over a month trying to get off their blacklist. They most frustrating part was spending all the time doing DKIM, DomainKeys, SPF, etc etc to their specifications and, in response, getting form emails back.
They are utterly backwards. Eventually I started swearing, and then I got a real, but very short message from a human explaining that they cannot provide any more detail and to contact them when something significant changes.
I told him he worked for a sinking ship and had better try to get a job at google before yahoo's stock hits zero due to ass-backwards policies like whitelists for email domains.
Whatev. On my server I detect when an email is going to yahoo.com and smtp to gmail to send the email. It's a really nasty way of solving this problem, but I can't think of anything better. Yahoo! certainly isn't going to help.
@mstarks01:
Does anyone else have a problem with yahoo.com flagging mail as spam?
Everyone, I think.
I've noticed that a lot of registration forms require not to use a yahoo email, so I suppose I'm not the only one with problems with them
Go fill out this form:
you'll get a canned response back, asking more questions. Answer those, and hopefully the person receiving your response handles it properly will increase the trust of your sending IP enough to prevent ever message going to a Yahoo user from defaulting to their Spam folder unless they've explicitly whitelisted you for their account.
If that doesn't work, try again.
If that still doesn't work, you might try searching for the name & email address of a Yahoo Anti-Spam Postmaster or Mail Administrator. You might be able to locate the right person's name & email address to politely request assistance.
@skavoovie:
Yes, most have deliverability issues with Yahoo. They are pretty much the worst out there.
Go fill out this form:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/p … defer.html">http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/defer.html
Been there, done that 4 or 5 times. Each time I supplied enough information to be a postmaster's wet dream. The last time I specifically asked for a human response, to no avail. I only get canned responses.
The thing that bugs me the most is that I have a model mail server. I have correctly configured DKIM, DomainKeys, SPF, have never been an open relay, watch my logs, block attackers, and don't support any mail lists. There are only two domains: one for me and one for my wife.
Yahoo! has absolutely no reason to mark these as spam.
@mstarks01:
Despite all this, they (seemingly randomly) send 4.16.50 codes to my server (deferred due to user complaints) and people don't get our mail.
This is not the same as mail going straight into the spam box. I routinely send from my linode to various yahoo accounts, and I've never seen one of those deferral codes.
You might (or might not) want to sign up for their feedback loop to see if your mails really are getting marked as spam by yahoo users.
EDIT:
OK, looking back at logs, I see I routinely get 4.16.50 deferral codes from yahoo, but they don't mention user complaints and they have never resulted in non-delivery. Most of the time, the message gets through on the first pass through all the MX records that came back - only on rare occasions does the deferral force postfix to retry a few minutes later.
EDIT^2:
For example:
Mar 3 22:35:56 xxx postfix/smtp[12478]: E9A8ED1D4: host c.mx.mail.yahoo.com[206.190.54.127] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (xx.xx.xx.xx) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50\. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Mar 3 22:35:56 xxx postfix/smtp[12478]: E9A8ED1D4: host h.mx.mail.yahoo.com[66.94.236.34] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (xx.xx.xx.xx) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50\. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Mar 3 22:35:56 xxx postfix/smtp[12478]: E9A8ED1D4: host a.mx.mail.yahoo.com[67.195.168.31] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (xx.xx.xx.xx) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50\. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Mar 3 22:35:58 xxx postfix/smtp[12478]: E9A8ED1D4: to=<xxxx@yahoo.com>, relay=b.mx.mail.yahoo.com[74.6.136.65]:25, delay=2.2, delays=0.49/0.01/1.1/0.52, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 ok dirdel)
Mar 3 22:35:58 xxx postfix/qmgr[5788]: E9A8ED1D4: removed</xxxx@yahoo.com>
@Stever:
@mstarks01:You might (or might not) want to sign up for their feedback loop to see if your mails really are getting marked as spam by yahoo users.
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/p … /feedback/">http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/feedback/
That's something I haven't tried before so I just signed up. I also submitted another complaint. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the tip.
@mstarks01:
That's something I haven't tried before so I just signed up. I also submitted another complaint. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the tip.
You almost need to be a glutton for punishment to run your own mail server I think. Let us know how it goes.
About 2 weeks pass with no response and I get sent a survey asking how my problem was handled. I of course gave them very negative feedback.
I guess this level of incompetence shouldn't surprise me, but one would think that a cordial postmaster providing every bit of detail necessary would make this a smooth and easy process.
Bottom line: don't depend on Yahoo users receiving mail. They don't know how to run a reliable mail service.