Order Emails going to Spam or Junk

ZC version, 1.54
Westminster New template
PHP Version: 5.6.40 (Zend: 2.6.0)

Last week all working fine. This week order emails go to Spam or Junk folder. I can't tell if outlook 2010 (windows 7 PC) is doing it or ESET antivirus. Nothing I do in setting does anything.

After assuming it was my domain email, I created a new email this morning through fastmail and setup order confirmations to be from it. Now, these new emails still go to junk or spam, however, when I send an email from that account to test it they do not go to spam. So, it seems to be something with being sent from Zencart I think.

Any ideas on what could be going wrong?

Four pieces of software you mention in your post are beyond end of life.

I understand your observation, but I don't see how that would explain it working last week and not now.

The first thing I would look at is to compare the source of the received emails - 'spam' vs 'non-spam'. (view source in the email app). That might give clues as to why they went to spam.

Well, I look at the raw message and here's what I see. The spam one is being caught by fastmail before it gets to my computer. The one I'm on now is win10 and the test order confirmation never showed up. I log into webmail and it's in a spam folder there with a 7.0 spam rating.

Spam this week

X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-sender-reputation: 500 (none)
X-Spam-score: 7.0
X-Spam-hits: FREEMAIL_ENVFROM_END_DIGIT 0.25, FREEMAIL_FROM 0.001, FREEMAIL_REPLYTO 1,
HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, INVALID_MSGID 1.167, ME_NOAUTH 0.01,
ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001,
SPF_HELO_PASS -0.001, SPF_NEUTRAL 0.652, SPOOFED_FREEMAIL 1.999,
SPOOFED_FREEM_REPTO 1.997, LANGUAGES en, BAYES_USED none,
SA_VERSION 3.4.2
X-Spam-source: IP='192.185.143.39', Host='gateway31.websitewelcome.com', Country='US',
FromHeader='com', MailFrom='com'
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8', html='utf-8'

Older not spam:

X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-sender-reputation: 500 (none)
X-Spam-score: 1.1
X-Spam-hits: HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, INVALID_MSGID 1.167, LOTS_OF_MONEY 0.001,
ME_NOAUTH 0.01, ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001,
SPF_HELO_PASS -0.001, T_SPF_PERMERROR 0.01, LANGUAGES en,
BAYES_USED none, SA_VERSION 3.4.2
X-Backscatter: NotFound1
X-Backscatter-Hosts:
X-Spam-source: IP='192.185.50.73', Host='gateway24.websitewelcome.com', Country='US',
FromHeader='com', MailFrom='com'
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8', html='utf-8'

CosmosK:

Well, I look at the raw message and here's what I see. The spam one is being caught by fastmail before it gets to my computer. The one I'm on now is win10 and the test order confirmation never showed up. I log into webmail and it's in a spam folder there with a 7.0 spam rating.

Spam this week

X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-sender-reputation: 500 (none)
X-Spam-score: 7.0
X-Spam-hits: FREEMAIL_ENVFROM_END_DIGIT 0.25, FREEMAIL_FROM 0.001, FREEMAIL_REPLYTO 1,
HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, INVALID_MSGID 1.167, ME_NOAUTH 0.01,
ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001,
SPF_HELO_PASS -0.001, SPF_NEUTRAL 0.652, SPOOFED_FREEMAIL 1.999,
SPOOFED_FREEM_REPTO 1.997, LANGUAGES en, BAYES_USED none,
SA_VERSION 3.4.2
X-Spam-source: IP='192.185.143.39', Host='gateway31.websitewelcome.com', Country='US',
FromHeader='com', MailFrom='com'
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8', html='utf-8'

Older not spam:

X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-sender-reputation: 500 (none)
X-Spam-score: 1.1
X-Spam-hits: HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, INVALID_MSGID 1.167, LOTS_OF_MONEY 0.001,
ME_NOAUTH 0.01, ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001,
SPF_HELO_PASS -0.001, T_SPF_PERMERROR 0.01, LANGUAGES en,
BAYES_USED none, SA_VERSION 3.4.2
X-Backscatter: NotFound1
X-Backscatter-Hosts:
X-Spam-source: IP='192.185.50.73', Host='gateway24.websitewelcome.com', Country='US',
FromHeader='com', MailFrom='com'
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8', html='utf-8'

cosmos,
email is hard. ZC is not an email server. it is a shopping cart. it can send email via a multitude of different configurations, and servers. you can NOT blame ZC for your email going to spam. you can blame spammers who have made it rather difficult for legitimate email to get through. because of them, we have to implement all of these email filters.

looking at your headers, you have spam assassin setup. spam assassin assigns a score to your email, and then your email client might have a rule on it to put emails with a certain score into your spam folder. spam assassin is probably configured from your cpanel for your receiving email. it has nothing to do with ZC.

as you can see the SA score went up specifically due to 2 rules:

SPOOFED_FREEMAIL 1.999,
SPOOFED_FREEM_REPTO 1.997

that amounts to almost 4 of your 7 points. and those 4 points are directly tied to you using fastmail.

one needs to train spam assassin and then configure it properly to get the right emails going to the right places. that said, there will always be false positives, and true negatives.... or something like that.

the current gold standard for ensuring proper email delivery is the combination of SPF, DKIM and DMARC. SPF is the easiest part of it to setup. DKIM is probably the most difficult as it involves configuration of the server where ZC resides. and if you are on a shared server, you then have to rely on the tech support of your hosting company to see if they do anything.

as i initially stated, email is hard. your emails are going to your spam folder due to spam assassin not being properly trained and/or configured, and your email client. those 2 things are working in tandem. i do not believe eset has anything to do with it.

good luck.

I quite agree with Carl that using fastmail is a big mistake. You really want the mails coming from your domain. His advice to get sorted with DKIM, SPF etc is also sound. Your hoster can guide you.

I'm not trying to blame ZC. Bluehost screwed me last time with a PHP upgrade, so I would suspect them. Spent a while with their tech support, pretty worthless. Carl, thank you for the excellent response. I will read carefully and digest. I'm using fastmail as a attempted cure as my domain email is where the problem started. Upside of switching temporarily is I can use fastmail tech support who I hope is more educated on emails than bluehost. Right now I need a beer ;) and will try some more on it tomorrow. Thanks for the help all!

If the hosting providers emails are going to junk send your self an email look at the header for the host of the email and you can run that through spam filter lists and see if their server IP is being blocked.

If you have recently updated your spam settings since the ZC email is a template style email that maybe why. I had the same issue for a little while with template emails going to spam but normal emails going right to the inbox. But if all emails go to spam I would check the host against spam filters.

I never changed the source email away from the domain email until this issues came up. I switched to fastmail to try to fix it. Easy enough to switch back.

Fresh set of eyes today. I ran a test order through again with the PC off. I have a Mac also and the email came in fine!

Header has less in it:

X-Cyrus-Session-Id: sloti2d1t02-1587063261-1479588-2-5578048413692244205
X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 3.0
X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8'

carlwhat:

looking at your headers, you have spam assassin setup.

I don't know what this is and I never set it up. My current two culprits are Outlook 2010 or ESET antivirus. I have nothing installed other than these that could be at play. Maybe one of them uses spam assasin?

Conspiracy theory-wise, I'm imagining Bill Gates sends out new spam rules for older programs like Outlook 2010 to force me to upgrade. Or ESET updated their rules?

I'm not clear on where the header info comes from and who puts it there. Does my computer create the header info? It seems it must.

How us FREEMAIL fastmail? I've used fastmail for 15 years at it has always seemed solid to me.

To clarify, the ZC component here is an email sent from ZC goes to spam but sent from the same email by me does not.

I powered up the PC and the test order that was not spam on the mac sure enough was spam on the PC w/ ESET.

I wonder if I'm not helping myself as my test product is called "test" and is free shipping. Again, the problem happened before any test was conducted.

i look at this thread, and i am reminded of the very first thing i said here:

email is hard.

i will try and explain. you want to send an email, you use your email client which communicates with a sending server. the sending server then sends it to a receiving email server. your recipient then uses their email client to retrieve the email from their receiving email server.

ton of stuff can go wrong along the way.

lets talk about your specific issues.

• zen-cart sends you an email
• in the initial config, zen-cart functions as the client and the sending server.
• it goes to your receiving email server.
• you retrieve the email using your email client on your machine
• 2nd config, you use fastmail. so now zen-cart sends the email to fastmail, and fastmail then takes over.
• in your last example, on your mac, you used a different email client than on your PC.

now, lets try and address some of the problems/issues:

CosmosK:

...
X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-sender-reputation: 500 (none)
X-Spam-score: 7.0
X-Spam-hits: FREEMAIL_ENVFROM_END_DIGIT 0.25, FREEMAIL_FROM 0.001, FREEMAIL_REPLYTO 1,
HTML_MESSAGE 0.001, INVALID_MSGID 1.167, ME_NOAUTH 0.01,
ME_SENDERREP_NEUTRAL 0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE -0.0001,
SPF_HELO_PASS -0.001, SPF_NEUTRAL 0.652, SPOOFED_FREEMAIL 1.999,
SPOOFED_FREEM_REPTO 1.997, LANGUAGES en, BAYES_USED none,
SA_VERSION 3.4.2
X-Spam-source: IP='192.185.143.39', Host='gateway31.websitewelcome.com', Country='US',
...

when your receiving email server receives the email, it's adding these items to the header. your email is not adding it to the header. your receiving email server does it, so the your email client, ie outlook can use it to determine whether to put it into your spam folder, or delete it, or whatever the heck kind of rule you have on your client.

i really don't care that you have never set up spam assassin or that you are ignorant of its function. that information is put there by the receiving email server. and those items look 99.48797% like spam assassin (SA) information. so unless you can show me proof of some other program on your receiving email server adding that stuff, it was done by SA.

CosmosK:

I have a Mac also and the email came in fine!

Header has less in it:

X-Cyrus-Session-Id: sloti2d1t02-1587063261-1479588-2-5578048413692244205
X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 3.0
X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8'

i'm unfamiliar with x-cyrus. looks like an opensource email system. without really digging in, it is truly hard to figure out what is going on. and why the headers would be different on your mac client v your pc client.

finally:

swguy:

I quite agree with Carl that using fastmail is a big mistake....

i never stated this. i have 0 experience with fastmail.

@CosmosK was curious why his spam score went higher. that was due to fastmail triggering those 2 rules, and the relative score assigned by SA to those rules.

that was all i said. and not having used SA for quite some time, i can not even tell you what a high score is... but everything is relative.

i am sorry if somehow my comments were mis-interpreted.

What are the settings for email transport method and Emails must send from known domain? from admin>configuration>email options? Set your email back to sending from your domain then send one to an address you get from here:https://www.mail-tester.com and see what the score tells you. There are many things that can go wrong. And if you are having trouble receiving email from your site there is a high probability that your customers can experience issues, too.

lankeeyankee:

What are the settings for email transport method and Emails must send from known domain? from admin>configuration>email options? Set your email back to sending from your domain then send one to an address you get from here:https://www.mail-tester.com and see what the score tells you. There are many things that can go wrong. And if you are having trouble receiving email from your site there is a high probability that your customers can experience issues, too.

uh, its going to tell you you have no SPF record, its not signed with DKIM, and there is no DMARC.... and it will give you a SA score... which is heavily weighted to the 3 prior elements.

i just did one from one of my clients ZC site:

SPF, DKIM and DMARC are the way to avoid email from going to spam.

carlwhat:

i never stated this. i have 0 experience with fastmail.

You said,

that amounts to almost 4 of your 7 points. and those 4 points are directly tied to you using fastmail.

And I agree: Using a free email client to send commercial email is not a good plan; it will get marked as spam by at least some system.

CosmosK:

I have a Mac also and the email came in fine!

Header has less in it:

X-Cyrus-Session-Id: sloti2d1t02-1587063261-1479588-2-5578048413692244205
X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 3.0
X-Spam-known-sender: no
X-Spam-charsets: plain='utf-8'

I may have been looking at a different email header. I think this info is not right. I believe the headers are the same on both machines. I'm confused and frustrated. This is annoying but hasn't shut down my website, so I'm going to walk away for a bit as I feel like continuous testing is making it worse. I've switched the from email back to my domain. Thanks for all the help, I will try to learn from your comments and report back if I find some resolution. Thanks!!