Messages from Moodle rejected by email provider

Messages from Moodle rejected by email provider

by Sue Holtz -
Number of replies: 2
We are using v. 2.6

i don't know if this is a Moodle issue or email. This issue has been occurring since summer, which is about the time we upgraded.

Forum posts sent as emails from Moodle are being rejected by email providers - Yahoo, AOL, gMail. Each message says something about the message being rejected due to a policy issue. This is part of the message from gMail: Our system has detected that this message is 550-5.7.1 likely unsolicited mail.

Is there a way to change a setting in Moodle to make the messages not look like spam? Or what do I tell my users to change on their end?


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Sue Holtz

Re: Messages from Moodle rejected by email provider

by Meg James -
Hi Sue 


Is this for receiver's not on 'digest' but get an email for every post? 

I think what they do is note that the sender's domain is not where it's coming from, eg, a moodle.com site is sending a @gmail.com email - they don't match. 

 Try going to the Forum settings (Site Admin / Plugins/ Activity Modules / Forum) and untick 'use email address in reply. 

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Sue Holtz

Re: Messages from Moodle rejected by email provider

by Sue Dowson -

Hi Sue - we encountered this issue last year (2014). It was a change in policy by Yahoo that triggered the rejections from all providers. It is because Moodle issues emails using the student's email address, and in the case of Yahoo they are flagging any emails not generated from their servers as being a security risk. Read: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2141120/yahoo-email-antispoofing-policy-breaks-mailing-lists.html for an explanation.

In our case, instead of using Meg's solution, we have changed our provisioning to substitute any user's yahoo email address to our college provided Office 365 address and send them an email at their yahoo address to explain the switch. We opted to do this rather than prevent Moodle using student email addresses as our lecturers find it very useful to be able to reply to emails and have them go straight back to the student. If you prevent moodle using the student's email address it gets substituted with a 'Do not reply' address that obv. can't be replied to.

Hope this helps.

Average of ratings: -