Users receive an invalid or spam email error upon logging in

A user's email address may be marked as invalid due to the following reasons:

1. The last email that was sent to them returned with an error. For example, the domain name didn't exist, the user's email account at that domain name didn't exist, the user's email account was disabled by the email provider, etc.
2. The last email that was sent to them was returned as spam by their email provider. This happens as a result of the user marking an email as spam. The user is unsubscribed from that type of email. If unsubscribing the user fails, the email address is marked as invalid.
3. The last email that was sent to them was returned due to a full mailbox.
4. The user clicked on the Unsubscribe link when the initial "Verify your email address" email was sent to the user. This occurs in cases where someone signs up to your forum with an email address that is not theirs. When the person whose email address it actually is sees an email from a forum that they don't recognize, they unsubscribe.

We receive an email notification from the email provider when one of these events occur. For all of the events except for the spam event, we then mark the user's email address as invalid and stop delivering future emails to them. When the user visits any page of the forum, they'll see a message that explains what happened when we tried to email them and requests that they update their email address. This ensures that users are aware that emails are not successfully being delivered to them so that they can update their email address and begin receiving emails properly. For the spam event, we will first try to unsubscribe the user from that particular type of email instead of stopping all email delivery to them. For the full mailbox event, the user will also be able to click a "re-enable email delivery" link on the page once they have freed up space in their email mailbox.

Email providers assign a reputation score to all IP addresses, email addresses, and domain names that send emails. Email delivery failures due to any of the reasons mentioned above cause that reputation to be negatively affected. If the reputation score goes too low, email from the associated IP address, email address, or domain name may be entirely rejected or may face delivery issues. We follow the process outlined above to ensure that your forum maintains a healthy email reputation so that email is always successfully delivered.

If you still need help, please contact us.