Vivaldi webmail service blocked by Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail, Live)
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@vivalausa Microsoft accounts do employ some blocking.
Supposedly there are ways to adjust this on your particular account.
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@ayespy I will look at my Microsoft accounts regarding this (as I'm not aware of these settings). Do you know off-hand where to find these settings?
In the meantime I have posted a Microsoft Support Topic for this issue: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/email-messages-sent-to-ms-email-accounts-from/336aeb22-7e41-4b35-b051-b6a619c50e21
I don't expect much help from MS however.
Addendum: In regards to "Blocking" messages - there is a "block sender" optional setting - but this would by default not be set to any accounts (and I know I haven't set any myself). So I'm not sure where I would find anything in any of my MS email accounts that would apply - but I check it out further and get back.
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@ayespy Yep - you're entirely right. There are setting to block senders (I had presumed this would be empty be default - but MS includes a large array of accounts to be blocked).
This can be modified by: Select Settings > View all Outlook settings. Select Mail > Junk email.
However a search of all entries does not include Vivaldi.
So this would not be the cause of this issue (to bad it would have been nice to be this simple) -- but the fact that I haven't had this issue prior to 2/23/22 and have made no changes to any MS accounts - there has to be another reason for this problem.
Blocked accounts reside in the "Junk" setting above - Vivaldi is not an entry (and of course could not have been since this issue is only about 3 days old as of today) -
@vivalausa I don't know, but this article MAY shed some light...
Maybe there's a way to whitelist the vivaldi.net domain.
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@ayespy Yep - there is a way - in the screen-shot in my previous post above - toward the bottom of the embedded image -- sites can be added to the 'safe sender' list (specifically the 'safe senders and domains' list).
I can't see why this would be necessary but I added vivaldi anyway (see screen-shot below) - no help.
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@vivalausa For what it's worth, I think that should simply be vivald.net.
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@ayespy Good point - I was using the highlighted part of the URL "https://webmail.vivaldi.net/" - but your correct, I should have at least tried this - so I've now added "vivaldi.net" to the safe list as well.
Unfortunately it didn't make any difference.
I actually didn't think this would help in the first place because this "Safe Senders and Domains" list is there for the purpose to not move the senders/domains in this list to the "Junk" folder (notice the line under "Save Senders and Domains" in my screen-shot - where it states "Don't move email from these senders to my junk email folder"- so because the list is for this express purpose and because I haven't been getting any of the Microsoft account messages in my "Junk" folder at any time anyway, I didn't think this would help. But it was worth a try.
So far not much help from Microsoft (as you can see from the link I previously posted) with only a suggestion that perhaps their server "... may be blocked temporarily due to receiving too much spam" - which doesn't seem plausible to me as explained in my reply back.
I'm frankly at a loss as far as any more ideas regarding this rather strange situation.
So at this point, it appears that it would be a good idea for the Vivaldi developers or at least a representative of Vivaldi to contact a Microsoft representative regarding this issue -- what do you think?
Is there a way to elevate this issue to higher priority support? (fact is there are a very large number of Microsoft Email Service users - so the issue impacts a relatively large proportion of users with the expectation messages reach their destination)
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Just now sent another test message this morning at 8:20AM PST - the message did reach the destination Microsoft account as of 8:26AM PST this time.
So it appears messages are now reaching their destination account for the Microsoft Email Service.
It appears the former tests sent that had not reached the destination Microsoft accounts (over the past few days) do not now reside on Vivaldi servers since I have not seen any of these messages in the Inbox of the respective accounts that the test messages were sent to. (I had anticipated the former test messages, over the past few days, to populate these account Inboxes in the event this issue cleared up).
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Just sent one more test to confirm the issue is resolved.
The former test (posted above) included both Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com accounts - to observe the expectation the Yahoo account message would work as contrasted to Microsoft - as reported above both messages reach their destination accounts.
This time the test was only a Microsoft account.
The message arrived at the destination account very quickly this time (not taking 6 minutes) - Sent at 8:46AM PST and arrived the same 8:46AM PST at the destination account.
It would appear since we can apparently regard this topic as solved the topic can be closed.
It would be nice to know what the heck was happening for the past several days - but I guess it's enough to just be happy the issue is no longer as it will probably remain a mystery.
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I have only skim-read this thread, but I've had the OP's problem on and off for several years.
It tends to manifest with people who use Microsoft e-mail addresses or a use Office 365 to provide their organisation's e-mail address.
I can send a message from my vivaldi.net e-mail account, via either Vivaldi's webmail interface or Thunderbird (I haven't yet tried Vivaldi's built-in mail client), and the effect is the same.
The message never arrives at the recipient's end. It doesn't get filtered into spam/junk, it's literally just silently dropped. The strange thing is, I have also tested it with my old (pre-MSN/Microsoft) personal Hotmail account that I barely use anymore, and messages have always got through.
To make diagnosis of the problem even worse, the message-dropping has in the past not occurred until anything from 1-3 messages into a conversation. I've had to switch to my other e-mail accounts to continue dealing with someone if they're using Microshaft's rubbish. It's actually caused me to miss out on things, lose opportunities etc., because I was under the impression the recipient was receiving my messages and reminders, whilst the recipient thought I was ignoring them. And it's not the fault of Vivaldi, because I even started CCing my alternative (non-Malwaresoft) e-mail address in, and the messages were of course getting through fine to that one too.
It's almost like Microspy are deliberately trying to block smaller (or other) services to make them look unreliable or be too inconvenient to deal with, but are trying to obfuscate the fact they're doing it by not being consistent or predictable in the blocking. I suppose they learned the wrong lesson from the Opera Bork incident.
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@jamesbeardmore Hmm, after I had posted on the previous page that the problem was resolved - the problem has returned.
I'm actually sending messages to a "Hotmail.com" (that I've had for 20+ years) account that you've mentioned works better for you (as well using Outlook.com accounts) and I am now getting nothing including the initial message to start with do not reach their destination when using Vivaldi Mail (using the on-line website for Vivaldi Email) which should be the most reliable way to send Vivaldi mail since this is using Vivaldi's proprietary "Web-mail" protocol.
So finally we've got confirmation on this - we've both got the same problem. It doesn't matter if the Vivaldi on-line website or an Email Client is used to send messages - in either case messages currently do not reach the recipient accounts (using multiple Hotmail.com, Outlook.com domains).
This is not good at all -- users have the expectation that their messages reach the recipient account. If this has been going on for as long as you say it has - why don't we hear from Vivaldi software support on this?
Vivaldi Email Service isn't going to be very successful if this issue persists.... I've been using Vivaldi Email as my main Email Service for a few months now - to have to keep in mind any message sent to MS email accounts have to be avoided is something that Vivaldi should clearly address!!!
Can Vivaldi Software Support -- please get back to us regarding this random issue????
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@vivalausa I suspect the problem is a Microsoft issue not a Vivaldi one. I think Microsoft are arbitrary rejecting connections from other e-mail servers they don't like. So I think all Vivaldi staff can do is ask Microsoft why it's happening and to stop doing it. I don't think it's something Vivaldi staff can actually rectify themselves.
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I am now getting a slew of emails making up a large proportion of the "test" messages I sent from Vivaldi to MS email accounts that are getting returned as undelivered- this is the first indication of any kind that I've gotten regarding any of these formerly "missing" messages of which will hopefully shed some light on the issue - some of the details of what I got back is referenced below:
Message Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
This is the mail system at host smtp.vivaldi.net.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.The mail system[email protected]: host
hotmail-com.olc.protection.outlook.com[104.47.14.33] said: 550 5.7.1
Unfortunately, messages from [31.209.137.12] weren't sent. Please contact
your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block
list (S3150). You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
[VI1EUR04FT059.eop-eur04.prod.protection.outlook.com] (in reply to MAIL
FROM command)Personal notations below:
The first IP address referenced above: IP address 104.47.14.33 is located in Vienna, Vienna, Austria. It is assigned to the ISP Microsoft Corporation and sub-delegated to Microsoft Azure. The address belongs to ASN 8075 which is delegated to MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK.
The second IP address referenced above: A 550 5.7.1 commonly refers to the IP sending the email, currently blocked from the recipient's email service. It is normally blocked because the IP was used to send spam to the recipient's IP at one point in time. If this example is the case, the recipient's email service blocks the IP from future spam and notifies any senders with a 550 - 5.7.1kick-back somewhere in the returned email.
The third IP address referenced above: IP 31.209.137.12. | PTR record is smtp.vivaldi.net. This IP is hosted by Hringdu ehf (AS51896) and located in the country Iceland.
*Note: Vivaldi is "Hosted in Iceland" according to Vivaldi Website. -
@jamesbeardmore - have you ever at some point gotten back these "undelivered" messages in your Vivaldi Inbox for the messages sent to MS accounts that had gone "missing"?
As of today, I'm still getting more coming in -- so far now 8 messages have returned as "undelivered".
I would agree with you that the issue is most likely an MS Email Service issue and would agree as well that a high level Vivaldi Development Rep needs to expressly get in direct communication with Microsoft to solve this problem. I've got multiple accounts with 15 different Email Service Providers - and am not aware of this random issue persistently occurring with any of the other Email Service Providers other than Vivaldi. I would assume that there must be a reason of some kind why this issue is not, from my experience, impacting any other Email Services in this manner (or if I'm wrong please post). With this in mind, one has to ask the glaring question why is this issue is unique to just Vivaldi?
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@vivalausa It's not unique to Vivaldi. It's something that happens with a provider of free email service is not sufficiently successful in blocking spammers from opening up free accounts hosted by them and using them to send spam. Vivaldi has instituted mobile phone SMS verification to help stem the tide of spammers opening and using Vivaldi mail accounts, but some still get through. And when they do, this is the result.
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@ayespy Can you say that you've personally had some other Email Service Providers who have exhibited the same issue? If so, do you recall some of the others?
From my experience, all I can say is out of the 15 different Email Service Providers I've used (including Vivaldi) - I cannot personally recall any other Email Service Providers that have had this same specific issue.
If as you say the goal of MMS verification service is to restrict spamming - I'm not sure how my specific Vivaldi account would be impacted such as it is.
Taking a look at how many "Sent" messages I have in my Vivaldi account -- what I find over a period of 2+ years (from 1/31/2020 - 3/2/222) a total of only 44 "Sent" messages are in my account and virtually none of those "Sent" messages had more than one recipient in the message (let me check to be sure - okay, 3 of the 44 actually had two recipients the remaining 41 all had one recipient).
It seems to me a history of "Sent" messages such as this should not in any way be raising suspicions of sending spam (or am I missing something?) And then of course all of this begs the question as to why are only (certainly in my case) MS Email accounts impacted?
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@VivaLaUSA No I've never had any of the bounce-back e-mails you have received. My "lost" messages were always silently-dropped with no notification to either sender or recipient, and no diversion to the recipient's spam/junk folder.
@Ayespy If I interpret your response correctly, Vivaldi had (at some point in the past) an issue with spammers creating fake accounts, and it's been dealt with. Presumably, if you as a moderator are able to escalate this to someone on the Vivaldi team who can contact Microsoft, this might get resolved... But I still suspect MS are just using this as an excuse to bully smaller competitors, much like they've always done. I know that they attempted exactly this twice with Disroot, acknowledging the block but explicitly refusing to state why it was put in place. Apparently, this is a common occurrence (useful link: Microsoft hostility | Disroot)
I wonder if it would be useful for any affected users to repeatedly contact Microsoft and keep badgering them about it...
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@vivalausa @jamesbeardmore Vivaldi.net Email addresses are not being blocked. The entire domain is being blocked. In this case, by Microsoft.
Yes, I had it happen to me with another free email provider in the past (mail.com). They got this more under control by putting in automated source-point monitoring, but then the also put in an annual fee, and then later a monthly fee. I dropped my account. At present, every one of my email addresses except for vivaldi.net is hosted by a pay-for service except GMail, and no one blocks the GMail domain as spam. One reason for this is that Google both blocks users from emailing to "too many" (I don't know how many "too many" is, but when trying to notify my client list that I was dropping my inbox.com email address, I hit the limit and the mail was never sent) recipients at once and by pro-actively monitoring account-holder behavior - something Vivaldi will not be a party to.
Vivaldi management may or may not be able to prevail upon Microsoft to stop doing it. As a "partner" (Bing default search engine) with Microsoft, they might have more of a voice than some random guy on the street, but the amount of income Vivaldi provides to Microsoft by distributing Bing is something that company could lose and neither know nor care. So I don't know how much sway Vivaldi brass will have with Microsoft.
The SMS verification step Vivaldi put in place to reduce spam may or may not have "solved" the problem, but as Microsoft is blocking us, it obviously has not been entirely successful.
Vivaldi buys their "free" webmail service at substantial cost from Roundcube. Roundcube has some pretty restrictive limits on how many emails an account may send out at once, and how many copies to different addresses an email may be sent within an hour or a day. This should help prevent vivaldi.net from being used/blocked as spam - and yet it still happens. Microsoft are not the first to do it.
I can elevate the issue to community managers and see what can be done, but Microsoft does unreasonable and illogical crap all the time to "protect users" and won't always admit they are doing it, so I can't guarantee what results might obtain.
Volunteer Mod and tester on Windows 11 Home X64, i7-13700 @ 5.4 GHz turbo; Intel UHD 770 graphics; 1TB NV2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD; 32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM. Community Code of Conduct
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Dealing with spammers is a constant struggle for all free email services, including us. Spammers have countless methods and strategies for spamming. When we block their activities, they will always come back with new ways to continue what they're doing. The better we are at dealing with spammer accounts, the more valuable a target we actually become. That's because when our mail servers have a better reputation, their spam is more likely to be delivered successfully. It's an endless cycle.
At the same time, we have to make sure that the methods we have in place to prevent spam don't affect real users. The SMS verification requirement was received with mixed feelings by our users, but it did have a big positive impact on limiting the amount of users with malicious intentions using Vivaldi Webmail. That method, like most others, helps to decrease the amount of spam, not eliminate it altogether.
In addition to dealing with outgoing spam, email services have to deal with incoming spam as well. One way to block incoming spam is to just not accept any emails from the sending domain. That's what Microsoft is doing. They wouldn't dare to block the highly popular services, such as Gmail, even though they are also used by spammers, but blocking small ones, like Vivaldi, is an easy option for them.
That's what the "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" message in @VivaLaUSA post means. We of course ask to be delisted as soon as we discover that we're blocked, but we never know, how long it will take. -
@ayespy said in Sent messages do not reach recipient account:
Vivaldi buys their "free" webmail service at substantial cost from Roundcube. Roundcube has some pretty restrictive limits on how many emails an account may send out at once, and how many copies to different addresses an email may be sent within an hour or a day.
@Ayespy, I'm not sure where you heard that, but it's not true. Roundcube is just the web UI for Vivaldi Webmail. It's free and open source and we have no costs when it comes to that. Also, we control all the limits in the email service.
