why do emails my site sends to hotmail accounts never get received?

A site I manage requires activation of new accounts via a link provided the user via email. Users who register their account with a gmail address, and many other clients, have no problem with this process. However, users who specify a hotmail address never appear to receive messages from my site (although when they email me directly to complain, and I email them back using an email address owned by my site, they receive my reply).

The mail does not end up in the spam folder (confirmed by registering using my own hotmail address). It appears to vanish. I believe this also affects other hosts than hotmail, but I have not confirmed this.

Where does the mail go? Is there some way to solve this problem? I did find that this problem (including silent mail deletion) is not uncommon:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/22/2248253

However I'm not sure what the best way is to fix it.

FWIW my site is PHP-based and I am using the mail() function.

This is what the header looks like (sent to gmail b/c hotmail eats the mail):

Delivered-To: myemail@gmail.com
Received: by 10.65.244.13 with SMTP id w13cs29486qbr;
Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:34:15 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.65.232.19 with SMTP id j19mr14885932qbr.1167950055903;
Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:34:15 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <httpd@web7.hspheredns.com>
Received: from web7.hspheredns.com (web7.hspheredns.com [72.249.34.34])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id e15si26852774qbe.2007.01.04.14.34.15;
Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:34:15 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of httpd@web7.hspheredns.com designates 72.249.34.34 as permitted sender)
Received: from web7.hspheredns.com (web7.hspheredns.com [127.0.0.1])
by web7.hspheredns.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l04MYEWB020664
for <myemail@gmail.com>; Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:34:14 -0600
Received: (from httpd@localhost)
by web7.hspheredns.com (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id l04MYErL020663;
Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:34:14 -0600
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:34:14 -0600
Message-Id: <200701042234.l04MYErL020663@web7.hspheredns.com>
To: myemail@gmail.com
Subject: Kinostat: your temporary password.
X-PHP-Script: kinostat.com/forgot_password.php for 24.147.123.54
From: admin@kinostat.com

 

you need to check with you hoster whether the ip for the mail server has got reverse DNS setup. Lacking of it can cause problem.

We have had report that even with reverse DNS setup, free email account do have problems as well.. the only one that not having much problem is gmail.

You might want to take a look at the wording of the email.. it might be some words in there they do not like..

 

A few thoughts.

Are you able to send the emails from your own domain name, not the web7.hspheredns.com as that could be a problem.

Hotmail is VERY hot on SPF records being set up correctly, and while kinostat.com is set up, hspheredns.com is not.

You should also have a return-path address for hard bounces, and clean that database reguarly.

Also, sign up for https://postmaster.live.com/snds/index.aspx which will give you a spam-score for your emails. You need to ensure it is keep low.

 

hm.. I tried signing up at the SNDS link you provided, but when I gave my IP address, the email addresses that SNDS says are associated with my IP in "an authoritative way" are all support addresses for my hosting company, because I am using a shared IP address. Is it possible that this could be part of my problem?

I could switch to a dedicated IP address.

I am in the process of changing my code to send through my SMTP server rather than localhost to see if that has any effect.

 

ok, I am making some progress. I am now using my site's SMTP server rather than localdomain, and now the messages are getting to hotmail, but being sent to the junk mail folder.

What does it mean for the ip of the mail server to have reverse DNS setup?


this is what my header looks like now (my SMTP server is mail.kinostat.com, but here the server is listed as mail2.cartikahosting.com -- not sure why that is when I specified mail.kinostat.com as the SMTP server.. but it is no longer listed as web7.hspheredns.com, which caused the mail never to be received):


Delivered-To: bitt3n@gmail.com
Received: by 10.78.56.18 with SMTP id e18cs134144hua;
Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:57:28 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.65.251.1 with SMTP id d1mr1822651qbs.1168027047911;
Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:57:27 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <admin@kinostat.com>
Received: from mail2.cartikahosting.com (mail2.hspheredns.com [207.210.215.4])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id f16si27993765qba.2007.01.05.11.57.27;
Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:57:27 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of admin@kinostat.com designates 207.210.215.4 as permitted sender)
Received: (qmail 2299 invoked by uid 399); 5 Jan 2007 19:57:25 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO kinostat.com) (admin@kinostat.com@72.249.34.34)
by mail2.hspheredns.com with SMTP; 5 Jan 2007 19:57:25 -0000
X-Originating-IP: 72.249.34.34
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 13:57:14 -0600
Return-Path: admin@kinostat.com
To: My Name <bitt3n@gmail.com>
From: MMC Kinostat <admin@kinostat.com>
Subject: This is a test
Message-ID: <75cfd73125aef9838451b97ddaed14d7@kinostat.com>
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.73]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="b1_75cfd73125aef9838451b97ddaed14d7"