XF 2.2 Email Hosts Partially Working?

[KensonPlays]

Ok so we have pretty much all the template errors figured out, the last issue we're experiencing right now seems to be emails.

Proton.me accounts seem to get emails fine, but Outlook doesn't work, and gmail only seems to partially work (worked for a friends gmail addr but not my Google Workspace ACC).

We're using the built-in PHP mailer to try this. We've also tried SMTP with both TLS/SSL, and 465/587 ports. We are no longer on DigitalOcean, but are on OVH now. We've tested, and tested, and tested for a couple days now, and the email settings seem to be valid according to cPanel. This seems to be somewhat confirmed with Proton.me emails receiving my tests just fine. But @Outlook or @gmail (personal or google workspace both) seem to not accept the emails. I tested on mail-tester.com and we get a 9.5/10 score (just one, SORBS, seems to not like it. Score)

There are zero email related errors in the XenForo server error log. Nothing. Zilch. Both of us are at a loss at this point (friend who owns the server and manages it from the backend with 20 yr experience)

 

[TPerry]

OVH now.

First notice of bad news... OVH is in MANY ways worse the Digital Ocean on crappy IP "history" when it comes to setting up a mail server. They are on many ISP blocks due to spam from their VPS and SYS systems..
Your admin friend should be well aware of IP history and how hard it is for a "new" mail server to send mail to many major ISP's.
Hotmail/Outlook/Live is one of the worst to try to get even a clean IP (if new) to deliver reliably due to their proprietary blocking/checking software they have set up.
Personally... even if I was hosting it all on one server, I would not be using the PHP mail process to send email.

 

[KensonPlays]

First notice of bad news... OVH is in MANY ways worse the Digital Ocean on crappy IP "history" when it comes to setting up a mail server. They are on many ISP blocks due to spam from their VPS and SYS systems..
Your admin friend should be well aware of IP history and how hard it is for a "new" mail server to send mail to many major ISP's.
Hotmail/Outlook/Live is one of the worst to try to get even a clean IP (if new) to deliver reliably due to their proprietary blocking/checking software they have set up.
Personally... even if I was hosting it all on one server, I would not be using the PHP mail process to send email.

We tried that, it seems to be the only partially working option. SMTP did not work at all, neither does Google oAuth (even thru my G Workspace account, which I do budget out cause I use it to send community-related contacts to other game devs 'n such).

And again, like I've mentioned in other threads, I cannot afford even the cheap paid options for email sending (even if it was just 5-10/mo, that's too much at the moment). I'm limited to free options. This means I cannot afford my own hosting either.

I dunno how many times I have to say this before ya'll finally get it into your heads . . . I have no income (and haven't in 8 months) so I am stuck with free options, in this case, the hosting provided by a generous friend for free.

 

[TPerry]

I dunno how many times I have to say this before ya'll finally get it into your heads . . . I have no income (and haven't in 8 months) so I am stuck with free options, in this case, the hosting provided by a generous friend for free.

And I don't know how many times i have to say this... if your server (and panel) are set up CORRECTLY, you should be having NO issues with actually sending mail by using SMTP instead of PHP. What you are having issues with MAY be the actual delivery to the recipient... and that's another ball-game you have to deal with. You need to make sure your IP has a "clean" history, that your domain has a clean sending history and several other things. Unless you are using something like SES for sending your mail (or similar) it's not simply "turn the spigot on and all my mail goes through".
Now, if you are trying to send your email as XXXX.com and you are sending it is originating from AAABB.ORG then you are going to have additional issues that you have to address. Email (setting up the server, and configuring your site to send reliably) is not the easiest thing to do, especially if you are not that familiar with it.
If SORBS is the only one you are listed on... you can submit to be removed from it.

Best place to check your mail server is here. Since you are using CF, you will need to check with the MTA server IP.

Email Blacklist Check - IP Blacklist Check - See if your server is blacklisted

mxtoolbox.com