Problem Description
One or more of the following scenarios occurred:
- There was or is an issue causing messages to not be delivered to your mail account(s).
- Your hosting was suspended or disabled for a period of time causing no mail delivery
- Your domain expired and was offline for a period of time before being renewed
You wish to know what happens with email messages that were sent to email account(s) using that domain during the period of time in which it was unavailable.
Problem Resolution
Messages that are sent to a mail account that is not functioning will either be:
A) Bounced to sender with an error indicating why the message could not be delivered, or
B) Held at the sender's outgoing server until the server is able to successfully send the message
Unfortunately it's not usually possible for us to to tell which of the above two scenarios has occurred simply by investigating the case as it is ultimately up to the sending server's configuration. The exception to this is if we are the host for the person who sent the message.
Common Cases:
- Mailbox Misconfiguration: in the event of a mail configuration problem, messages will likely be bounced with an error indicating the server is having a problem.
- Authentication Record Failure (SPF,DKIM): A poorly configured authentication record, like SPF or DKIM, can result in messages be bounced indicating that the SPF or DKIM record is not configured properly. A lack of either record type will most often result in the message being delivered to spam, but could still be bounced.
- DNS Failure, no DNS MX Records or server not responding: If there is no MX record at all, or the MX record points to a non-responding server, the sender's outgoing server will most likely hold the message in its queue until the server begins responding or the MX records are restored. This is because DNS lookup failure and the server not responding are both often temporary issues, meaning it makes the most sense for the sending server to try again later.
- Mailbox Full: If the mailbox is full the message will be bounced immediately indicating that the mail box is over quota.
- Domain Expired and then renewed some time later: will result in DNS failure during some parts of the expiry (>7 days in most cases). See above.
- Hosting account suspended and then resumed some time later: typically results in an (intentional) Mailbox Misconfiguration during the period of suspension. See above.
If the message is bounced: the sender will be informed that they did not get through to you and it will be up to them to resend the message.
If the message is held: it will likely eventually make its way to you: typically within 24 hours of the service being restored
