Closed Error 550 not in bounce log

[Chris D]

How many of these are you even getting? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, let alone enough to bother creating a python script to handle it.

 

[Chris D]

I would go as far as to say I have never seen an email be rejected on send. This smacks of a very specific email configuration. Perhaps cPanel or Exim. It may be configured to check the recipient before handing the email over. Turn it off, whatever it is, and they’ll be passed off to the relay as the sheer majority of servers do, and let the bounce come in as normal. It’ll then be logged and handled automatically.

I thought you were maybe getting 1 per year or something. If it’s so common you’re considering addressing it with a python script then you’ve got a problem somewhere that isn’t XF.

 

[beerForo]

My Activity Summary goes back further than the default and probably further than you would think productive, but that's by choice, and what triggers these. So then each time it resends I get them again since the member was not marked invalid. However I have also had success with old members coming back.

 

[Chris D]

I don’t think that’s it. I think you’ve got an overzealous email configuration. How is your mail configured? Exim? cPanel? Managed yourself on postfix / send mail? Some remotely hosted provider?

 

[beerForo]

SMTP connection, WHM, the 550 errors are from email addresses that no longer exist, and the server errors can happen often (and repeatedly) when using Activity Summary that dates back many years.

Right now, marking invalid manually.

 

[Jeremy P]

The issue isn’t so much that these don’t represent genuine bounces, it’s that they’re being handled synchronously when the email is sent instead of asynchronously by accepting the message and reporting the bounce to the bounce inbox later which is what our bounce handling mechanisms have always depended on.

As far as I can see WHM/cPanel don’t have an easy way to configure it the way we’d expect but I’m still investigating.

 

[beerForo]

As far as I can see WHM/cPanel don’t have an easy way to configure it the way we’d expect but I’m still investigating.

Thank you

 

[Jeremy P]

I looked into this further, but the original assessment was correct. Even if we tried to handle synchronous errors, we can't reliably classify this error as a bounce because the response code and message are too ambiguous and list several possible causes.

The message appears to come from Exim, which is used by cPanel/WHM. You may want to ask your hosting provider or server administrator to check the Exim logs and DNS/routing for an affected address, and see whether the server can accept the message and send a more specific bounce to the bounce inbox instead.

 

[beerForo]

Thanks for the research and reply.