XF 2.2 Lots (and lots) of bounces for the same user. Why?

[Stuart Wright]

So we got blocked from Amazon SES for a while and we're trying to figure out why.
We think it's because we had too many 'complaints' caused by the same user getting sent a **** ton of emails over a short period of time and them all bouncing.
This is one page of the bounce log of several similar looking pages.



Here are our settings:


I would expect their account user state to be changed to email invalid (bounced) but it hasn't been.
The user's account is valid and there are no entries in their change log for their user state changing (would there be? There should be).
Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Mouth]

Yesterday I activated the Amazon SES suppression list and this morning a member was added, so presumably an email sent to them bounced.

Have you set your account level suppression list settings to both bounces and complaints?

Also ensure under Configuration | Identities | <your sending domain> | Notifications (tab) ... you've enabled 'Email feedback forwarding' so that you get an email for each bounce or complaint. The complaint emails look like this ....



... with the recipient/complainers email address clearly shown in the header (redacted in screenshot) and the body of the email containing a forward of the exact and full email the recipient/complainer actioned.

When receiving these, I immediately edit the user account in ACP and set their User State to either 'Email Invalid' or 'Rejected'.

 

[BassMan]

When receiving these, I immediately edit the user account in ACP and set their User State to either 'Email Invalid' or 'Rejected'.

This is great. I can see complaints are not auto-set to invalid. Bounces are. Btw, do you also remove the email from SES after you set that email to invalid in XF?

I can't see a way to sort the suppression list by complaints only in SES.

Also, it is interesting, that all complaint email addresses are from hotmail, outlook, yahoo, msn or live. Literally all.

Only 12 email addresses are on the suppression list for complaint reasons (from 4 forums) and the complaint rate is already 0.06% (at 0.10% you already get a warning).

 

[Opus X]

maybe enabling this option?



since xenforo cannot handle this internally maybe by selecting this option it will block it at the SES level even though your site tries to send it?
it does look like you can use custom sets?
it is really sad that as popular as Amazon is to use that it is not supported by the script.

 

[Suzanne O]

Send them a quick PM to let them know that their email address is bouncing and they're to fix it up.
I had to do that with the other admin.

 

[Mouth]

do you also remove the email from SES after you set that email to invalid in XF?

No, actioning at the XF account level stops any more email being sent and thus no need for SES action also.

Also, it is interesting, that all complaint email addresses are from hotmail, outlook, yahoo, msn or live. Literally all.

For what ever reason, Gmail doesn't (yet?) send feedback loop (FBL) complaints to SES. It seems only Yahoo and Microsoft have FBL active with SES.

Only 12 email addresses are on the suppression list for complaint reasons (from 4 forums) and the complaint rate is already 0.06% (at 0.10% you already get a warning).

That's only your account suppression list. If you're sending to recipients that are also on the SES global suppression list, that affects your stats.
Setting up Cloudwatch for monitoring of your rate is a good idea too, https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/reputationdashboard-cloudwatch-alarm.html

By having the 'Email feedback forwarding active,you can see if the complaints are coming from a particular type of email too. Digest? Newsletter? Thread/Post/DM notifications etc. And then see if you can take some action to reduce the number of emails being sent, particularly around XF sending to accounts/members whom haven't visited for eg 2+ months.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Thanks for your help

Have you set your account level suppression list settings to both bounces and complaints?

Yes

you've enabled 'Email feedback forwarding'

Yes. I have this

I have absolutely no clue what any of this means. If I try editing Feedback Notifications I get

and if I choose SNS topic you don't own, I'm required to enter the topic's Amazon Resource Name (ARN) and again I have no clue (or, frankly, any interest in learning) what this is about. Just like the engine in a car, I, and I think most people, just want it to work without caring what happens under the hood.

It would be fantastic if there was a guide to help set up SES for Xenforo since SES is the cheapest service you can get, I think.

 

[Opus X]

Send them a quick PM to let them know that their email address is bouncing and they're to fix it up.
I had to do that with the other admin.

do you really know what you are commenting on? do you actually use SES for your email sending?
from my understanding, using SES for sending email is fairly complicated, and I have some questions on your first hand knowledge involving SES and it's complicated setup from reading numerous posts on this site. I have been involved in the tech industry for years and I find myself easily getting lost in the SES setup and have to depend on a third party for it for engagement on my site.

 

[Mouth]

SNS topic

Only important if you want more finite control over the different types of feedbacks going to different channels/people.

It would be fantastic if there was a guide to help set up SES for Xenforo since SES is the cheapest service you can get, I think.

Seems like you've already got it correct. You just need to manage/action the complaints, and look at the types of emails your users are complaining about and ensure they're highly applicable so that you don't get complaints. The OP scenario you described cannot be helped. If you're only sending transactional emails, and getting complaints on them, then that's rough.

 

[Suzanne O]

do you really know what you are commenting on? do you actually use SES for your email sending?
from my understanding, using SES for sending email is fairly complicated, and I have some questions on your first hand knowledge involving SES and it's complicated setup from reading numerous posts on this site. I have been involved in the tech industry for years and I find myself easily getting lost in the SES setup and have to depend on a third party for it for engagement on my site.

I use an email program from namecheap.
I get bounced emails often when someone has registered with a fake email address.
The reason why they bounce a lot is due to being a fake email address.
If i were to register on your forum with a valid email you wouldn't get those emails.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Only important if you want more finite control over the different types of feedbacks going to different channels/people.


Seems like you've already got it correct. You just need to manage/action the complaints, and look at the types of emails your users are complaining about and ensure they're highly applicable so that you don't get complaints. The OP scenario you described cannot be helped. If you're only sending transactional emails, and getting complaints on them, then that's rough.

I'm all about automating as many things as possible. For example, we send out a monthly news update on AVForums editorial using Sendy so we created a sync addon to update Sendy with the subscriber list.
So if complaints can be handled by Xenforo automatically, then I strongly believe that they should be.
Thanks for your input, it's very much appreciated.

 

[Mouth]

So if complaints can be handled by Xenforo automatically, then I strongly believe that they should be.

Totally agree, IMHO XF should be treating complaint emails to the bounces mailbox and processing them the same as hard bounces.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Totally agree, IMHO XF should be treating complaint emails to the bounces mailbox and processing them the same as hard bounces.

You know if someone marks an email from our organisation as spam, I don't want to send them any other emails, even system ones until they have agreed not to mark our emails as spam again. There could be a flag on their account which lets them know the situation.
And if they do it again, then short of banning them, we never ever send them any emails again.

As a matter of routine, when processing users who had marked our monthly newsletters as spam (after they have signed up, because users have to tick the box), if they didn't have any posts or hadn't visited for a long while, I would delete their accounts. Otherwise I would send them a direct message asking why they marked them as spam and if they gave a good reason, I would ask them not to do it again. Otherwise I would delete their accounts.

 

[Alpha1]

Agreed. Delete the account if it's a lurker. If the account has content then lock their account, open a support ticket asking for clarification. Only unlock the account if there is a satisfying reply.

It would be nice if XF would add some functionality for complaints to accommodate this.