Virgin SMTP not accepting outgoing Virgin email

[Iphse2020]

I have virgin email (blueyonder addresses) and virgin media broadband/wifi.

As of this morning, I'm unable to send any emails from my home using apps accessing home broadband - getting messages about failure to connect to outgoing smtp server. This is for all my devices - iPhones and Desktops. 

However, I can send email successfully via 4G if I turn off home wifi, so it seems a problem with Virgin SMTP server not accepting emails sent from apps on my home Wifi connection.

This is the case for 3 different user email addresses, all have checked or changed passwords and settings, so it is definitely not a problem with passwords.

Any ideas how I can correct this?

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

@Iphse2020 

1. I'm unable to send any emails from my home using apps accessing home broadband
2. I can send email successfully via 4G
3. This is the case for 3 different user email addresses,

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Those are the classic signs that VM are blocking VM emails coming from the IP address of your home network. The reason you can send when using mobile data is that in that case the IP address you use will be the one allocated by your mobile provider and so will not be blocked by VM.

The most likely reason for VM blocking your emails is that the IP  address of your home VM network is on a Spamhaus  blocklist as a sender of spam. There is no suggestion that anyone in your household is sending spam. However, Spamhaus will have detected suspicious traffic coming from your home network over a period of time and that traffic is likely to have been generated by malware on a smart device on your home network.

You can check the status of your IP address by following these steps:

• browse to https://whatismyipaddress.com/  and note or copy (Ctrl+C) the IPv4 address

• then go to https://check.spamhaus.org/ and paste (Ctrl+P) or type your IPv4 address in to the "Search single IP...." box and click "Lookup"

Your IP address may well be listed on the PBL (Policy Block List). In that case it will be flagged up as an advisory but that is to be expected and is not the reason you cannot send emails from your mail apps.

However, if Spamhaus reports that the IP address is listed on any other blocklists, such as Spamhaus' Exploits Block List (XBL) for example, than that is the problem.

You will then need to consider which of your devices has become infected by malware and take steps to remove it.

There is no point trying to get delisted from the Spamhaus blocklist because it is a realtime list so as soon as suspicious traffic is detected your IP address will go straight back onto the blocklist.

Post back with the results of your IP check.

In the meantime the workarounds are, either to switch to mobile data before sending emails from your apps, or to send using the VM webmail service on the VM website.

Coenoby

[Iphse2020]

Thank you very much for your response - my IP address appears to be on the PBL but no other one. Could this still be the reason VM are blocking it and how can I change this if so?

[Iphse2020]

Sorry, I am new to this forum - I clicked Helpful Answer as it was helpful, but it has not actually resolved the problem as I still can't send email from home wifi, but it is now showing as Accepted Solution. So any other advice would be gratefully received!

[coenoby]

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@Iphse2020 wrote:

Thank you very much for your response - my IP address appears to be on the PBL but no other one. Could this still be the reason VM are blocking it and how can I change this if so?

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Actually, all VM home broadband IP addresses should be on the PBL - it is to stop people from running their own email servers from dynamically allocated IP addresses. So that's not the problem

However, it does seem that VM may use their own blocklists in addition to the Spamhaus ones.

If you have access to a Windows 10 or 11 device you can check the exact error code that VM are reporting when you try to send an email. Sadly. mail apps don't give that level of detail.

Follow these steps:

1) Copy the following line of command text and then paste it into a MS Word document (or which ever text editor you prefer)  so that you can edit it.

curl -v smtps://smtp.virginmedia.com -u username:password

2) Once you have pasted it into Word, replace Username with your full Virgin Media email address,  and   Password  with your current email account password.  So that part should now say something like     "youremailaddy@xxxxxx.com:dead.tame.fate.tail"      It is important to keep the colon  :  and the spaces before that piece of text exactly as per the original line of text in step 1).

3 Type cmd into the Windows 10 or 11 search bar, press Enter and then open the Command Prompt app.

4) Copy the full line of text that you just amended in step 2 from the Word document and paste it where the cursor is blinking in the Command Prompt. Then press Enter.

That will generate many lines of output but all you need to look for towards the end of the output is either:

235 2.7.0 SMTP350 Authentication successful            - which means that your device can successfully access and authenticate with the VM server.

Or an error message such as

535 5.7.8 Authentication Credentials Invalid (VM300) 

Post back here to say either that authentication was successful or, if not, just post the error message line as per the example above, that is the key piece of information.

Don't post the full output from the Curl command. That output includes your password in a form that can easily be decrypted.

Coenoby

[Iphse2020]

Thank you again!  OK I did that and I got the following:

< 421 csmtp6-prd-nl1-vmo.edge.unified.services csmtp6-prd-nl1-vmo.edge.unified.services Virgin Media has blocked your connecting IP xxxx Too many bad emails have been sent. Visit https://netreport.virginmedia.com/netreport Section: Email Sending Errors to request delisting

* Got unexpected smtp-server response: 421

Since the problem first started happening I have reset passwords, and know they are correct as they are working when I use 4G. Should I visit that website as suggested, is this likely to help?

Thanks again!

[coenoby]

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@Iphse2020 wrote:

< 421 csmtp6-prd-nl1-vmo.edge.unified.services csmtp6-prd-nl1-vmo.edge.unified.services Virgin Media has blocked your connecting IP xxxx Too many bad emails have been sent. Visit https://netreport.virginmedia.com/netreport Section: Email Sending Errors to request delisting

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Thanks for coming back with that. It is pointing the fact that in this case VM are using their own blocklist rather than Spamhaus.

So you need to follow the advice in that error message and go through VM's netreport process:

Go to https://netreport.virginmedia.com/netreport/

• select abuse type of Email Sending Errors from drop down list

• select abuse form of Other from drop down list

• paste the complete error message into the Log Evidence area

• enter your name into My name field

• enter your email address into Email address field

• select Submit button

To be safe, I would make a report for each your affected email addresses although to be honest I am not sure that is necessary.  The process does seem to work.

Before you go through that Netreport process it would be worth checking that all your VM email addresses are still blocked from sending via your mail apps when using your wifi and that you can still send when using your mobile data.

Regarding the "Helpful answer" and "Accepted answer" confusion. Don't worry about that.  In an earlier version of the forum the "Accepted answer" tag did have some influence but that is no longer the case. 
However, for a long time now the "Helpful answer" tag means just that - you found the answer helpful. These days "Accepted solution" tag is ignored  😉

Coenoby

[Iphse2020]

Thank you so much - I have done that and it has now been fixed by Virgin Media.

Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it, wouldn't have known how to log that request otherwise.  Hoping it doesn't happen again but I'll remember this for if it does!

[coenoby]

@Iphse2020 

I'm pleased that you managed to resolve it.

The tip regarding using the Curl command to get the exact error code is always useful when you get a rejection form your email apps. Sadly, email apps tend to default to "Computer says No" error messages that don't give the real  reason why.

Once you have the VM error message and code you can always post it here to get some more detailed advice on how to resolve that specific issue.

Here's hoping you don't have to do that!

Coenoby

[johnrambo18]

I have a similar issue, but only with certain Email addresses.  I have run this command and get a 235 authentication successful response.  My IP seems to be on Spamhaus PBL blocklist.