This topic

Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Sun, 14 May 2023 11:35:57 GMT

My wife has a regular sender (her sister) who has suddenly (3 days ago) found that all the emails she has sent to my wife are returned as "blocked". She has checked with her service provider who is of the opinion that the problem lies with us, not hem. I have had difficulty in trying to find the source of this problem which affects both my wife's iPhone and iPad. As far as we can tell, no other sender is having the same problem.

It seems to me that, because the problem affects 2 devices, the problem is likely to affect a common point for both which would be the BT server. However, in an effort to solve the problem I have:

1. Checked using my laptop that none of of the "blocked" emails are showing on the BT server.

2. Shut down and reopened both devices.

3. Deleted my wife's sister's email address from my contacts and re-entered it on both devices.

4. Checked that there are no blocked senders in the email app on the iPhone. (I cannot find an equivalent facility on the iPad.)

5. Checked that there are no blocked senders on my BT internet account.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Sun, 14 May 2023 11:45:28 GMT

Further to my original post we now find that the sender is blocked from using my email address as well as my wife's. We have a single account and use 2 separate email addresses attached to the account.

The plot thickens - I will check my email address for a blocked sender.

Re: Blocked Sender

gg30340 — Sun, 14 May 2023 13:11:51 GMT

Log onto your BTMail account using a browser, not an email client/app, and then click on your username at the right hand side. Select "Settings" then go to the left hand side and select "Mail". Scroll down and click on "Blocked Senders". Scroll down the list until you find the one you want to unblock and select it. Click on "delete". Also check for the senders domain, the bit after the @. If it is there unblock that aswell.

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Sun, 14 May 2023 20:33:42 GMT

Thanks for this. I have already checked the blocked senders on the iPhone and on my account and all of them are empty i.e. there are no blocked senders shown. (See points 4 and 5 on my original post.) The only outstanding blocked sender is the iPad where I cannot find any way to access them. I have posted a request for info on this on the Apple communities website.

Re: Blocked Sender

JohnC2 — Mon, 15 May 2023 15:02:16 GMT

Hi @Grumpysam, did you manage to get any help to resolve this on the Apple community?

Cheers

John

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 16:14:37 GMT

Hi JohnC2

Not yet. Unfortunately Apple has changed the way its community works since I last used it and I'm not sure if I posted the query correctly. I'll check it out and get back to you

Best wishes

Grumpy

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 19:27:19 GMT

Got a reply from Apple and I designed a simple test: I switched off all my devices - iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro and iMac - that way they couldn't influence any aspect of the event. I then got my wife's sister to send me 2 emails, one from her email account and one from her husband's. Her husband's email came through as expected but hers was blocked. As I see it, this means that the problem must lie at the BT server as no other device was involved.

Unless you have another suggestion, I'll start a conversation with the help team.

Re: Blocked Sender

PaddyB — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:01:25 GMT

Hi @Grumpysam,

Thank you for posting back. Who is your sister's In-Law's email provider?

Thanks,

Paddy

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:05:25 GMT

Hi Paddy

It's gmail.com

Sam

Re: Blocked Sender

Les-Gibson — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:25:11 GMT

Can your sister in law send email to other BT email customers? If not then it could be that she's sending plain email over port 465 instead of encrypted email over port 995

Re: Blocked Sender

licquorice — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:42:56 GMT

That would be a good trick. Port 465 is encrypted, plain SMTP is port 25. Port 995 is the encrypted POP3 port not SMTP.

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:43:39 GMT

I can't answer this right now as I'll have to contact her and see if she has any other contacts who use BT. If she has, I'll also ask her to see if emails to them get rejected.

By the way, Iad a rather odd addition to your response which read:

Single word responses to advice offered in this Community Forum do not help its members to help you, please give as much information as you can when replying

Without knowing why or by whom this was added, it is worth pointing out that the post to which I was replying contained no advice whatsoever and asked a single, specific question which I answered in full. If a member needs further information they need to ask for it - respondents are not clairvoyant.

Re: Blocked Sender

licquorice — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:47:13 GMT

@Grumpysam That is @Les-Gibson signature which will be appended to all his posts.

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:47:50 GMT

Thank you, but I regret that this post is beyond my level of competence. However, it may be worth saying that we have been receiving emails from my sister-in-law for over 10 years. This problem arose about 5 days ago.

Re: Blocked Sender

licquorice — Mon, 15 May 2023 20:50:39 GMT

I very much doubt that it is the problem.

Are you sure you haven't inadvertently blocked the whole Gmail domain, there have been several instances of that in the past. Check again in webmail to make absolutely sure.

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Mon, 15 May 2023 21:00:51 GMT

Fairly certain as I have checked all my blocked sender lists except 1. This includes iPhone, MacBook Pro and iMac. The only one I have been unable to check is the iPod which is why I performed the test with all my devices switched off to remove it from the equation. Also, my brother-in-law sent me an email via gmail.com at the same time as his wife during the test. Hers was blocked but I received his without a problem.

Re: Blocked Sender

Les-Gibson — Mon, 15 May 2023 21:02:51 GMT

Don't take it personal, it's just a footer that goes at the bottom of all my posts.

You'd be surprised how many people don't give full details and then respond with just one word to the advice offered, I'm just pointing out that they're not helping themselves in so doing

Re: Blocked Sender

gg30340 — Tue, 16 May 2023 08:21:37 GMT

Do you have any antivirus software installed or active that could be blocking the address?

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Tue, 16 May 2023 08:36:18 GMT

I have 2 which I use, Bitdefender and Dr Antivirus. However, these are not the full versions but 'scan only' which I use to check that nothing nasty has infected my hard drives. Neither of them has any specific abilities aimed at, for example, scanning incoming emails. I have used them both for at least 10 years, the last time I ran them was on Sunday. Happily, they have never found anything to report.

Re: Blocked Sender

Grumpysam — Tue, 16 May 2023 15:15:13 GMT

In response to Les Gibson's asking whether my sister-in-law can email other btinternet accounts the answer is NO. Unfortunately she had no-one in her contacts who used BT so I asked a friend if we could use her account to test the result by sending her an email. We did that and the email was blocked.