Invoices not sending from aol.com address

Hi, I’ve been trying to send invoices by email but my clients are not receiving them. I’ve asked them to check spam etc. but not going through at all, this has only started happening recently and nothing has been changed, any ideas why? Thanks

Are you using the Quickfile service or have you entered your own SMTP server settings? If the latter then this is most probably something on your server that is affecting this.

I don’t think I have been able to use my own SMTP as it says an activation code was sent but I’ve not received a code at all.

I’m also receiving a message in my spam folder saying it has not been delivered

What’s the message saying? There should be a reason here why it’s getting blocked?

Unless you setup an SPF record or use your own SMTP server there’s always the risk it may get blocked. Unfortuantely due to the way we send emails on behalf of another domain some client servers are always going to view this suspiciously and block the mail.

Worth having a read here:

http://help.quickfile.co.uk/main/1/improving_email_reliability.htm

it says

Unfortunately, messages from (80.175.65.138) on behalf of (aol.com) could not be delivered due to domain owner policy restrictions.

Have tried to set up SMTP but always getting red error messages

Aol.com have recently introduced much stricter sender policies that will make it very difficult to use any third party application like QuickFile to send your email (similar discussion here). You’ll also encounter issues trying to setup the SMTP for an AOL email.

Unfortunately there’s no simple solution here other than to acquire your own domain through a hosting company. It should only cost a few pounds a month but will resolve all these problems when it comes to delivering email.

Thank you - does my own domain need to be in a certain format? And can I buy this from any website? Sorry very new to this!

No it doesn’t need to be in any specific format, here are a few services (in no particular order) that will allow you to acquire a domain name and host your email.


http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email-hosting/contract-types/
https://www.123-reg.co.uk/email-hosting/

Once you have setup your email service you will be provided with some SMTP details you can plug into QuickFile and any other services you’re using e.g. Outlook.

That’s great thanks so much!

Hi, I’ve bought a domain from 1and1 and still can’t get the SMTP to work! Any idea what I’m doing wrong?

It looks like there was a problem reaching your SMTP service
Error Message The operation has timed out.
More Details Your SMTP server did not reply in a timely fashion. Please ensure the port number is correct and any firewall on the SMTP server is allowing outside access.

I can’t really recommend 1&1 as a supplier due to overly complicated and excessive methods for doing simple things but this should still be reasonably simple to implement anyway.

First thing to do is ensure that the details you have are correct, set up an account in a mail client and check that you can send & receive mail first. Once this works and you have verified that all the details are correct then you can continue to troubleshoot the Quickfile issue.

If this is new domain you have registered you may find that you have to wait for 24/48 hours for the DNS to propagate before everything works, until then it may be patchy as to what works and what doesn’t.

Hopefully Glenn will be able to tell you more from the logs, but just a quick note that it can take upto 48 - 72 hours for a domain to be fully set up.

Edit
Looks like @Lurch beat me to it!

Thanks - I’ve checked mail is sending fine from the account just still coming up with this message

System.Net.WebException: The remote name could not be resolved: ‘fooring@rossybarts.co.uk’ at System.Net.ServicePoint.GetConnection(PooledStream PooledStream, Object owner, Boolean async, IPAddress& address, Socket& abortSocket, Socket& abortSocket6) at System.Net.PooledStream.Activate(Object owningObject, Boolean async, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback) at System.Net.PooledStream.Activate(Object owningObject, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback) at System.Net.ConnectionPool.GetConnection(Object owningObject, GeneralAsyncDelegate asyncCallback, Int32 creationTimeout) at System.Net.Mail.SmtpConnection.GetConnection(ServicePoint servicePoint) at System.Net.Mail.SmtpTransport.GetConnection(ServicePoint servicePoint) at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.GetConnection() at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)

I can wait another 24hours but just want to make sure it’s not something silly or I’m just entering something wrong

This would suggest that you need to wait for the DNS sort itself out completely. The site may work for you, but as Lurch said - it can take up to 48 hours to complete.

It looks like you’ve setup the new SMTP credentials but the sender address is still @aol.com.

In Account Settings >> Routine Email, scroll down to the bottom and update the email address here to your new 1&1 address.

Also your SMTP host looks wrong, you’ve entered it as an email address but it should be something like mail.yourdomain.com or smtp.yourdomain.com.

I don’t want to change the address my invoices come from though? Is this not possible? I’m not sure what I should be changing that too

The general gist of this is that sending from an AOL address is not possible.

If you are sending from your own domain then using it to send mail using an AOL address as a from: line is not going to make a difference, sending mail from quickfile.co.uk, rossybarts.co.uk or anything that is not aol.com is still going to end with the same result.

Your @aol.com address in your sender details in Quickfile should be set to whatever you are wanting to send the mail from. If you are sending from your own domain then you can pretty much just use anything ending with @rossybarts.co.uk. Just ensure you have some method of receiving mail to this address, either another account on your local machine or set up a forwarder on the server.

As @glenn mentions though, your settings are wrong. What are you using to test the account from? Webmail will work as it will eminate from a 1&1 server, sending from anything else may or may not work.

Here is some guidance on setting up your email on 3rd party services for 1&1.

https://help.1and1.com/e-mail-c37589/1and1-e-mail-c37590/using-the-product-c85088/e-mail-software-setup-credentials-a616889.html

The host name according to this should be smtp.1and1.com and the port 587. Presumably when you setup with 1&1 they gave you a new email address, you will need to use this as the sender email. The username will also be your email address.