Notification email from my Form to Comcast email address is not being received.

  • bdoodle
    Asked on October 27, 2018 at 4:16 PM

    All of the sudden, notification emails from one of my forms to my comcast.net email address is not being received.  I do get some promotional email from Jotform at the same email address, but not the notification email from my Jotform Form in my website.  I have confirmed that my email address is not on the Jotform Bounce list, and the the email is not landing in my Spam folder. 

    I configured the Form notification email for the form to also go to my gmail.com address and they ARE received.  So, I think Comcast/Xfinity is blocking them.  I called them several times and they seem unable or unwilling to fix the problem.  They say they will escalate the issue, but the problem continues and I don't hear back.   I think I have the same issue as discussed in the following forum question:

    https://www.jotform.com/answers/1131908-Email-Notifications-My-form-recipients-with-Comcast-address-are-not-getting-the-form-emails

    WHile it's annoying that I'm not getting the notification emails I need directly, I have configured my gmail email account to foward the email it gets to my comcast email account.  I am mostly concerned that all my website's customers with comcast.net email addresses are not receiving their auto-responder emails.

    Is there no way you can deal with Xfinity directly to prevent this ongoing problem where they block some email coming from your servers?  I don't know if they are blocking some of your IP addresses or whether they check with some other site that is blocking you.  If you'd get the organization doing the blocking to whitelist your servers, then multiple customers' issues would be addressed.  This should really be between Jotform and Comcast.  I did find the following link that indicates that there's a way to get unblocked, but it would need to be done by you for all your IPs that might send form generated email:

    http://postmaster.comcast.net/block-removal-request.html

    If you can't/won't deal with Comcast on behalf of all your customers using their email server, must I set up SMTP on a gmail account? I don't fully understand what must be done.  I currently have the sender for all my forms' auto-responder emails set to be the website business owner's gmail account.  Would I get his permission to alter that account to be the SMTP sender or would I use a separate gmail account and change all my many forms' autoresponder email settings to use that gmail account?  The owner's email is already in the Jotform Settings as a Sender Email.  Would I delete it and re-add it after doing the SMTP stuff?  I'm uncomfortable doing this technical stuff. 

    The particular webpage with the form that sends me a notification email that is not received is shown below.  However, any auto-responder emails directed to user input comcast addresses on other forms on the website will also have the problem. 

    Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

  • John_Benson
    Replied on October 27, 2018 at 6:30 PM

    Is there no way you can deal with Xfinity directly to prevent this ongoing problem where they block some email coming from your servers?

    Please contact your email service provider and request them to add JotForm's IP addresses to their whitelist. You can find the list of JotForm IP Addresses and domain names on this link: https://www.jotform.com/help/145-Whitelisting-JotForm-IP-Addresses-and-Domains


    If you can't/won't deal with Comcast on behalf of all your customers using their email server, must I set up SMTP on a Gmail account?

    Yes, we suggest using your own SMTP settings. You can follow this guide: https://www.jotform.com/help/244-How-to-Setup-SMTP-for-a-Form


    Would I get his permission to alter that account to be the SMTP sender or would I use a separate Gmail account and change all my many forms' autoresponder email settings to use that Gmail account?

    You can use your own Gmail account to the forms or you can use others Gmail account.


    The owner's email is already in the Jotform Settings as a Sender Email.  Would I delete it and re-add it after doing the SMTP stuff?

    Please check if that is already using an SMTP setting as the Sender Email. 

  • bdoodle
    Replied on October 28, 2018 at 3:45 AM

    Thanks for your reply.

    It seems that getting Comcast to accept all Jotform email may be impossible.  Comcast says they don't have a whitelist, just the form I gave you a link to in my original post... http://postmaster.comcast.net/block-removal-request.html   They say it's best if the sender completes the block removal requests for Xfinity/comcast.  I don't know what Joform IP addresses to put on the form...

    When I look at the details of the email I'm not getting directly in my comcast.net inbox, it does not appear to be coming from one of the IP addresses listed on your whitelist instruction page (https://www.jotform.com/help/145-Whitelisting-JotForm-IP-Addresses-and-Domains).  As I said above, I've set up my form to send notification email to both my comcast.net and gmail.com addresses and I've configured my gmail.com account to foward incoming email to my comcast.net account.  I don't receive the email sent directly to my comcast.net account, but I do receive the one forwarded from my gmail.com account.  In one test, the IP address of the sender appeared to be 150.160.253.167 

    1540710118JotformEmailDetails Screenshot 10

    Other IP addresses on Jotform sent email that I didn't receive directly on comcast.net were 152.160.247.208, 152.160.237.8, 152.160.240.116, etc.  These don't match those listed by you.   Does Jotform introduce the use of new IP addresses occasionally?  Wouldn't this be an ongoing nightmare to manage?  

    ==================

    I need clarification on your answers to my SMTP questions.  It seems that the SMTP solution would be best if you can't get comcast to stop blocking your email with a comprehensive "pass" that wouldn't require maintenance as you add new servers. 

    If I used a new gmail account, wouldn't I have to change all my many forms' autoresponder email settings to use that gmail account? 

    Note that I can't look at the SMTP details of the existing sender emails in my settings as you suggest.  I can only delete them.  See below.

    1540711298JotformSenderEmailSettings Screenshot 21

    I would want the Jotform email to appear to come from Ryan@madsails.com as it does now so the customer could reply to the email with questions, etc.  Doesn't that mean I'd have to alter that email address (which is a gmail account)  to have SMTP rather than create a new one?  Then I'd delete the Jotform settings entry above and recreate it with new SMTP details just determined, right? 


  • jonathan
    Replied on October 28, 2018 at 6:50 AM

    We apologize for the inconvenience caused. Can you please tell us also your comcast.net emails that were not receiving emails from Jotform. 

    It will help us identify what are the email addresses that have the issues so we can relay the information to the higher team support. 

    Does Jotform introduce the use of new IP addresses occasionally?

    Yes. The JotForm IP addresses are dynamic.

    Note that I can't look at the SMTP details of the existing sender emails in my settings as you suggest.  I can only delete them.  

    I think when you add the Sender Email, you did not choose the option SMTP as the Email Type. You must have selected Verified instead.

    1540723731zzz 2018 10 28 18 Screenshot 10

    Please review the user guide also: https://www.jotform.com/help/244-How-to-Setup-SMTP-for-a-Form

    After you have added the SMTP Email you can go to your account settings and look for the Sender Emails. You should be able to edit the SMTP settings.

    Let us know how it goes.

  • bdoodle
    Replied on October 28, 2018 at 9:09 AM

    " Can you please tell us also your comcast.net emails that were not receiving emails from Jotform. "

    What do you need to know other than that they are ones generated as auto-responder and notification emails from form submissions?  The notification email I routinely do NOT receive directly have "noreply@formresponse.com" as the sender.  I have no idea the sender on the auto-responder email I don't get because I never see them.

    I did receive Jotform email about your new PDF offering with noreply@jotform.com as the sender and about productivity tools from inspire@jotform.com as the sender.

    ====================

    I want the Jotform auto- responder email to appear to come from Ryan@madsails.com  (which is a gmail account) as it does now so the customer could reply to the email with questions, etc.  Doesn't that mean I'd have to alter that email address to have SMTP at Google and then delete the existing "verified" Jotform settings Sender Email entry and recreate it with new SMTP details.? 

    Can I make the Ryan@madsails.com email SMTP and keep the exact Ryan@madsails.com name?

    Do I in any way put the Ryan@madsails.com at risk for other issues by making it SMTP?

  • Kiran Support Team Lead
    Replied on October 28, 2018 at 10:42 AM

    I've checked the email history log and see that the email notifications for the form are being sent without any issue form our end using the verified email address.

    154073739028102018 201014 Screenshot 10

    I want the Jotform auto- responder email to appear to come from Ryan@madsails.com

    In this case, you may consider setting up the SMTP sender email by following the guide provided.

    Can I make the Ryan@madsails.com email SMTP and keep the exact Ryan@madsails.com name?

    Yes. When you setup the SMTP sender email address, the same email address shall be used in the email sent.

    Do I in any way put the Ryan@madsails.com at risk for other issues by making it SMTP?

    No, if you are using the email address responsibly within the Google limits and terms. Please go through the help article below from Google for setting up SMTP and the limits.

    https://support.google.com/a/answer/176600?hl=en

    Thanks!

  • bdoodle
    Replied on October 29, 2018 at 10:59 AM

    I know you are sending the emails. It was just that Comcast was not accepting them.  The good news is that for some reason, the emails have begun to go through again without my having to do the SMTP thingie.  Perhaps my many phonecalls to Comcast caused them to address the issue.  Whatever the reason, for the time being, we no longer are having the problem.

    Thanks for all your help with this issue.

  • Kiran Support Team Lead
    Replied on October 29, 2018 at 12:04 PM

    Glad to see that you are now receiving the email notifications normally. Please do not hesitate to get back to us if you need any further assistance. We will be happy to help. 

    Thank you for using JotForm!