Hotmail/MSN/Outlook/Live has blocked our email server

Shannon Smith

New Email
Hello,

I'm not sure why they have blocked our server. All we do is send out customer emails such as order processed, shipping, proof emails, etc. We don't send out any marketing emails ever really. Once or twice. We also send out an email when a customer signs up on our website.

When we first started we had issues with Microsoft then and I jumped through some hoops. I signed up for
These show that our server is blocked, but don't tell us anything else.

I've filled out the form to see if they can unblock us, but I have no idea why they do this to us. Our email reputation is good. Our ReturnPath SenderScore is good. We do not pay for ReturnPath though so we don't show as having Return Path Certified or Return Path Safe. But they used to accept our emails without these.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Shannon,

That all sounds like a good start. Have your checked the outbound mail logs from your servers for signs of compromise including hacked accounts and hacked web sites?

Sometimes you can get caught up if you are in a bad network and surrounded by bad senders.

By now you should have received an initial response from Microsoft. Did you fill out the form that has all sorts of questions about your emails, examples, outgoing error messages, etc?
 

Shannon Smith

New Email
I did finally get a reply from Microsoft and they have unblocked our IP address now. I've asked them for more information on why it was blocked to begin with. I have signed up for that junk mail program of their's and I've never received even one email from them indicating our emails were flagged for spam.

How do I check my outbound mail logs? Is that something I can do in CPanel? I did check with my host and all they have done so far is send the same form in to Microsoft. So they've not been much help. I want to prevent it ever happening again, so I'd like to get more details about the problem if at all possible. I just replied to Microsoft this morning, so hopefully they will come back with more information for me.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Do you have SSH / shell access to your server? The mail logs are typically located in /var/log
 

Shannon Smith

New Email
I don't think I have that access... there is no "log" directory under var. I checked under my "log" directory and there was nothing that looked email related there either. I think this stuff would be in a different section on my server actually... that I don't have access to.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Any mentions of sendmail, exim, or postfix? Check with your host again too. They should at least be able to provide specific guidance on a specific question for your environment.
 

Shannon Smith

New Email
I checked with my host and they provided me with some logs and said they looked through them and couldn't see anything unusual at all. The logs I looked at from our no-reply account just showed regular ordering processing and delivery emails that we need to send. Also responds to customer questions through the website. I could get them to show send me all the logs, but I don't think there is a problem because if it was a hack, I think something unusual would have shown up for them... like a volume increase in messages or something like that.
 
Top