XF 2.2 Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.1.1 (gmail only)

Sal Collaziano

Well-known member
Curious to see if anyone else is having issues with sending email to GMAIL users over the past couple of days. I started getting a lot of bounces yesterday.

Action: failed
Final-Recipient: rfc822; email@email.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try
550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or
550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 https://support.google.com/mail/?p=NoSuchUser j125si95569qkf.369 - gsmtp
Status: 5.1.1

I was on the fence as to whether or not there was a problem or whether the accounts actually didn't exist - but today I received a bounce for MY OWN Gmail address.

Anyone else?
 
Google had a major worldwide outage at 5am (EST) yesterday, for about 2 hours. (gmail, youtube, chrome remote desktop, doc, drive, etc) It had something to do with their authentication engine.
Yes, I remember that being an issue yesterday morning. This particular email that bounced - of MY gmail address - was from after 7pm. I wonder if there were any residual affects that may have caused this. But that's why I posted this - to see if anyone else is having a similar problem.
 
This is a known issue and has something to do with an upgrade they were working on. I have a feeling the same issues as yesterday morning were also related. In any event, in case anyone else actually monitors their email bounces - because I certainly wasn't the only one with a XenForo installation receiving them - this issue should either be resolved now - or will be resolved shortly...
 
I have a standard Gmail address and I'm unable to receive email from either my website or my work email. Hope they get this fixed soon. My email bounce log is filling up!

I did disable the automated bounce handler, temporarily, until it's fixed though.

Glad to see it wasn't just me having issues. I thought my server had been banned there for a bit.
 
So, now is there a way to change all those accounts back to valid or is it best to just let the members sort that out themselves? I certainly don't want to do them one at a time, but I'd hate for members to be burdened too.
 
I disabled our automated bounce processor here, though note that you may need to manually clear messages from it before running it again or you'll end up picking up errors triggered between disabling and re-enabling it.

I can't say I recommend doing this and if you are going to do it, definitely take a backup first, but I devised a query to undo the bounce handler actions caused by this:

Code:
UPDATE xf_user AS u
INNER JOIN xf_email_bounce_log AS b ON (
    b.user_id = u.user_id AND b.recipient = u.email
)
SET u.user_state = 'valid'
WHERE b.log_date > 1608065000
AND b.log_date < 1608080000
AND b.message_type = 'bounce'
AND b.action_taken = 'hard'
AND b.user_id > 0
AND b.status_code = '5.1.1'
AND u.user_state = 'email_bounce';

Note that the log_date values are based roughly on when this issue started here (with an approximate end in case someone runs this well into the future). You may need to adjust them for your specific situation: https://www.unixtimestamp.com/index.php

(It fixed the issue for about 50 users here, though a handful had already resolved it on their own.)
 
"The problem with Gmail should be resolved. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better. If you are still experiencing an issue, please contact us via the Google Help Centre."
 
I've created a quick email script which finds users who have been bounced by google in the last few days (since there have been repeated reliability issues). This will create a user change log entry.

PHP:
<?php

ignore_user_abort(true);

$dir = __DIR__ ;
//$dir = __DIR__ . '/html';
require($dir . '/src/XF.php');

XF::start($dir);
$app = XF::setupApp('XF\Pub\App');
$db = \XF::db();

$userIds = $db->fetchAllColumn("select u.user_id from xf_user as u
INNER JOIN xf_email_bounce_log AS b ON (
    b.user_id = u.user_id AND b.recipient = u.email
)
WHERE b.log_date >= unix_timestamp() - 2*86400
AND b.message_type = 'bounce'
AND b.action_taken = 'hard'
AND b.user_id > 0
AND b.status_code = '5.1.1'
AND u.user_state = 'email_bounce'
AND b.diagnostic_info like '%google%'");


$users = \XF::app()->finder('XF:User')->whereId($userIds)->fetch();
foreach($users as $user)
{
  $user->user_state = 'valid';
  $user->saveIfChanged();
}
 
Searching for users active in the past week who now are invalid email bounced, Im seeing over a hundred. All gmail addresses. Logged in members way down. Only some contacting via contact form. Do you have advice on how to run the script @Xon? Or any dangers in doing so?
 
Google claimed the problem was resolved this morning (Dec 15, 2020, ET). Clearly that announcement was premature.

Google seems to be running into more and more problems lately. Have they expanded beyond even their available resources? Or is this a COVID thing where remote workers are not as efficient as teams in an office at anticipating problems and fixing them promptly?
 
Google claimed the problem was resolved this morning (Dec 15, 2020, ET). Clearly that announcement was premature.

Which problem?

There have been multiple problems affecting different subsets of users.

None of my users were affected by this issue yesterday - https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en-GB&v=issue&sid=1&iid=109f5878e60fdfb3c0f64fc9b81752e1

But I got quite a few affected by this new issue today: https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en-GB&v=issue&sid=1&iid=fb8d75414a47ec5d83d0ae0157083efe

But yes, there does seem to be some instability creeping into Google's systems, which they will need to address as a priority to avoid further damage to their reputation.
 
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