One of the mail servers I’m administrating has problems deliving emails to addresses at @Hotmail.com, @live.com and @msn.com.
That’s quite irritating especially when all of the other major mail servers, Yahoo Mail, Gmail etc. do accept my qmail server messages in their Inbox.
Every email that is addressed to for example hotmail.com is returned back to my sender folder with the message:
Remote host said: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately, messages from 83.170.105.141 weren't
sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is
on our block list. You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
Right after my mail server delivery problems were reported by one of my colleagues, the first step I took was check if my mailserver is listed in some of the major email blacklist databases on the address:http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
By opening the above url in a browser and putting a server IP, I was unpleasently notified that my mail server let’s call it with the fiction name mail.server.com is existing in the Spamcannibal blacklist dabase . Spamcannibal as most of the blacklist databases.
To completely reassure myself my server host IP is in spamcannibal, I’ve used spacannibal’s website whois on the urlhttp://www.spamcannibal.org/cannibal.cgi.
Of course this proofed one more time I’m listed in spamcannibal… Thanksfully spamcannibal has a contact form which can be used to delist an IP address from their blacklist right from their website.
After a day of waiting my server IP was removed from spamcannibal blacklist and therefore using the mxtoolbox.com’s website mail server blacklist checker I’ve assured myself the mail server is no longer in the most notable spam blacklist on the net.
I’ve gave another try to deliver an email to my hotmail mail account myaccount@hotmail.com . The mail delivery was unsuccesful again, the qmail failure notice daemon returned my sent email to my myaccount@hotmail.com once again with the error of:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.server.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.
<myaccount@hotmail.com>:
Connected to 65.55.92.136 but sender was rejected.
Remote host said: 550 SC-001 Unfortunately, messages from 83.170.105.141 weren't
sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is
on our block list. You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
--- Below this line is a copy of the message.
....
The situation by so far was that I knew for sure my qmail mail server IP is not listed in major spam black lists, but still i couldn’t say for sure that there was no minor blacklist where my ip figurates, neither I was completely sure about the exact requirements microsoft expects from my mail server.
Some of the presumed reasons which could think of could be the cause the hotmail mail delivery failure errors were as follows:
1. My mail server IP had no correct A domain name record or a PTR record
2. My mail server was missing a correct SPF record
3. My dedicated server ISP has some blacklisted dedicated server IPs which belong to the same IP range as the mail server
I’ve walked through each of the 3 expected reasons that might cause the failure but it appeared that my mail server was configured to fullfil each of the 3 aforementioned requirements.
To assure myself each of the failure reasons were untrue I issued the commands:
linux:~# host mail.server.com
mail.server.com has address 1.2.3.4
linux:~# host 1.2.3.4
1.2.3.4.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer mail.server.com.
linux:~# host -t TXT mail.server.com
mail.server.com descriptive text "v=spf1 mx ptr mx:server.com mx:mail.server.com mx:mail2.server.com -all"
Also I used the kitterman.com‘s SPF Query Validation tool located on http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html to make sure my mail server SPF record is correct.
Another way to check if a mail server SPF records are correct is by sending a test email to for gmail.com and check in the email headers.
(To check the email headers in Thunderbird you can press ctrl+U)
When the email source appears look for the field Received-SPF: pass (google.com:….
If the field says pass this means your mail server SPF is fine, if it reads uknown or something different this means it’s not fine.
Next you will have to call your ISP and have a tech conversation with the tech support.
As nothing of the above assumed possible failure was checked and I was sure the email server is not affected by them
Further on logically enough I’ve pointed my browser to the http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors which which was prescribed in the reject email returned from hotmail’s mail server.
On that URL I red the meaning of the Remote host said: 550 SC-001 , Here is what it says:
550 SC-001 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons.
Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like characteristics
or IP/domain reputation. If you are not an email/network admin please contact
your Email/Internet Service Provider for help.
Ain’t helpful is it??! Well I think Microsoft has a tradition of unhelpful manuals and documentation since the yearly days so that hotmail mail server error code explanation wasn’t that unexpected 
As I was out of ideas, I joined irc.freenode.net and asked for help in #exim irc channel.
Thanks God, there was a guy with an alias cannonball who gave me a good hints which I followed.
First he suggested that I see and join Microsoft’s (Smart Network Data Services) they’re located on https://postmaster.live.com/snds/index.aspx
Thanksfully the Smart Network Data Services could be accessed with my hotmail mail account, credentials, but after logging in to give me a real access to the site content I had to confirm, I’m a legit person and provide an legit email address where I can receive the confirmation.
As this went by in the https://postmaster.live.com/snds/addnetwork.aspx I had to use the buttons Requert Access, View IP Status and View Data to check the status of my mail server IP address 1.2.3.4
After all this struggle in 1. Requesting Access to my IP, View IP Status and View Data I finally found out the guess what unexpected fact that Microsoft’s mail servers has blacklisted my mail server IP Address!, How unexpected was that, heh ?!
So to sum up all this effort of registering in Microsoft SNDS gave me not any further clue on what I can change in my qmail mail server installation to make the user emails deliver to @hotmail.com.
After a bunch of investigation on the net, I’ve found another post which discussess issues with the 550 SC-001 error reason for a failed mail server deliveries to microsoft mail services.
Thanks God the post I’ve found pointed out that Microsoft has an Eform for delisting / removing spam black listed mail server IPs not able to deliver to hotmail and live.com
Click over the link above and you will be pointed to Microsoft’s annoying Eform for IP removal from their spam blacklist
The form needs to be filled and after that you can start praying to God to be merciful and push up Microsoft to have a good will and remove your IP from their mail spam blacklists.
The form filling takes about 20 minutes, there are plenty of information you will have to fill in the form but try to be as concrete as possible!
All the form fields are with (*) – asterisk and therefore are a required fields. After I filled up the irritating form, I’ve faced the horror of Microsoft’s Captcha!!!
Honestly I haven’t seen a more bad captcha in my life, I can’t read anything on it, neither I can perceive what word or number it is nor I can grasp whether the captcha shown letter is lower or capital… it’s really a terrible CAPTCHA I tell you! so beware and try to put all your patience in while filling it in.
What made it even worser this damned Microsoft’s IP removal form was the fact that it doesn’t work at all with Opera and Epiphany browsers.
I tried initially to use Epiphany and Opera to post the shitty form but it was no go, it could not post!!!
Thank you Microsoft for making your form a platform incompatible, I know you’re really good in that!
I finally launched IceWeasel (Firefox) and filled in the boring form once again and Thanks God this time it was properly posted as you read below:
Sender Information for Hotmail Delivery
E-mail SupportE-mail Support
Thank you for submitting your issue to Support.
Your Support Ticket Number:1151722088
For reference, please print this page or write down your support ticket number. Use this number when communicating with Support about this issue.
To make sure that you can receive a reply from Microsoft, add the "microsoft.com" domain to your e-mail "safe list". If you do not receive a response in your "inbox" within 24 hours, check your "bulk mail" or "junk mail" folders.
Print the page? I guess Microsoft are not very green company as they suggest you to print it out ?
Now I’m stuck into waiting and hoping that my removal request will be regarded and in a couple of days of time I’ll either hear a word from Microsoft’s tech support or directly get unbanned from their spam black list…. Pfuuu
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Tags: blacklists, cannibal, checker, colleagues, com, course, dabase, delivery problems, email, failure, Gmail, host, host ip, hotmail mail, internet service provider, ip address, ISP, mail account, mail delivery, mail server, mail servers, mailserver, MSN, myaccount, record, Remote, sender, server host, server ip, server messages, spacannibal, SPF, time, tsent, url, urlhttp www, website mail, weren, whois
on 
on 
linux:/var/vpopmail/domains/mydomain.com# telnet mx1.hotmail.com 25
Trying 65.54.188.110…
Connected to mx1.hotmail.com.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
220 bay0-mc3-f30.Bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail to Microsoft’s computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at http://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in California and other states. Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:01:46 -0700
^]quit
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
linux:/var/vpopmail/domains/mydomain.com# telnet mx1.hotmail.com 25
linux:/var/vpopmail/domains/mydomain.com# traceroute 216.32.183.201
traceroute to 216.32.183.201 (216.32.183.201), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 gw751-fastest.uk2.net (83.170.96.1) 0.648 ms 0.847 ms 1.292 ms
2 inx.as13213.net (83.170.70.137) 0.580 ms 0.592 ms 0.804 ms
3 igbtmdistc7503.msft.net (195.66.226.140) 1.236 ms 1.246 ms 1.244 ms
4 ge-6-1-0-0.lts-64cb-1b.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.42.74) 0.782 ms 0.783 ms 0.778 ms
5 ge-6-0-0-0.nyc-64cb-1b.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.43.46) 69.488 ms 69.463 ms 69.469 ms
6 ge-5-3-0-0.by2-64c-1a.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.40.68) 137.757 ms 137.972 ms 137.969 ms
7 xe-7-0-1-0.bay-16c-1a.ntwk.msn.net (207.46.46.140) 141.298 ms 153.101 ms 178.671 ms
8 netops.hotmail.com (216.32.183.201) 137.688 ms 141.069 ms 137.687 ms
I want to say that the steps from the above steps proove working.
The next day after I filled in the the form to microsoft I received message from their teach support team.
Here is the message from Microsoft I got:
Hello,
My name is Albert and I work with the Windows Live Hotmail Sender Support Team.
Your IP (xx.xxx.xxx.xxx) was blocked by Windows Live Hotmail because the majority of all the email that you send has been judged to be spam by our internal filtering system. I have conducted an investigation into the emails originating from your IP space and have implemented a fix for your deliverability problem. This fix may take 24 – 48 hours to replicate completely throughout our system.
Please note that lifting the block does not guarantee that your email will be delivered to a user’s inbox. However, enrollment in our JMR program and having your IPs registered with Sender ID will help with your mail delivery to your recipient’s inbox, thereby improving your IP’s reputation as well.
· Please ensure that you have published SPF records for your sending domains and register with Sender ID. You can find additional information and submit your domain for inclusion into the Sender ID program at http://www.microsoft.com/senderID Please note that technical standards (RFC 4408) discourage use of “ptr” for performance and reliability reasons.
· Monitor user complaints. Windows Live Hotmail also has a sender complaint feedback loop program called the Junk Email Reporting Program (JMRP). Enrollment in this free program will benefit you as a sender as it will keep your email lists updated and populated with interested Windows Live Hotmail customers. This program will help you to remove those Windows Live Hotmail customers who do not want to receive emails from your company. If you are interested in joining this program, please visit https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp&ct=eformts
· Windows Live Hotmail has created the Smart Network Data Services program. This is a service that helps legitimate email senders work with their customers and partners to reduce spam originating from their IP. To register, please go to http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/ This program allows a sender to monitor the ‘health’ of their IPs.
While using the SNDS tool, enrollment in the JMRP or having your IPs registered with Sender ID will not allow emails from your mail servers to bypass our filters, these are in place to help legitimate companies deliver their emails to Windows Live Hotmail customers.
· SenderScore Certified Mail Program. Many legitimate mailers and marketers have qualified and joined this “white listing” program to improve mail deliverability and decrease email from being filtered to the Junk E-mail Folder. Sender Score is a third party program administered by Return Path. Sender Score (www.senderscorecertified.com) is the only white listing service to which we subscribe.
The troubleshooting steps in this email are recommendations only. Microsoft makes no guarantees that following these steps will guarantee deliverability to MSN, Windows Live Hotmail, or Live.com customers.
For more detailed information about best sending practices to Windows Live Hotmail users, please review the following white paper: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/3/3/e3397e7c-17a6-497d-9693-78f80be272fb/enhance_deliver.pdf
Sincerely,
Albert
Windows Live Hotmail Sender Support
I found this blog and it was extremely helpful, I appreciate you writing on such a subject, thank you so much.
I loved your article.Much thanks again. Cool.
Terrific, this is definitely what I was shooting for! Your post just spared me alot of work
I’ll make sure to put this in good use!
I love your website, blogs are also very good. I’ll check that and come back soon.
I visit your site all the time. I love your articles and blogs
Website…
Howto Remove (delist) your mail server IP from Hotmail, Live.com and MSN mail server blacklist | Walking in Light with Christ – Faith, Computing, Diary…
Hey there guys, newbie here. I’ve lurked about here for a bit although and thought I’d take part in! Looks like you’ve got quite a good place here
Very interesting blog, was a excellent read. Thank you
glad its helpful
I’ve been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or blog posts on this sort of area . Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this website. Reading this information So i’m happy to convey that I’ve a very good uncanny feeling I discovered just what I needed. I most certainly will make sure to don’t forget this site and give it a look regularly.
And this work?
yep it works.
best
what about internet explorer?? might it work??
The other day, while I was at work, my cousin stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a 30 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!
How about this for a respond, we are not listed in any spam lists and they can’t do anything. OMG!
Hello,
My name is Shirley and I work with the Windows Live Hotmail Sender Support Team.
Your IP (————-) was blocked by Windows Live Hotmail because Hotmail customers have reported email from this IP as unwanted.
While I cannot offer mitigation at this time, I can offer you some advice that may help your situation.
Monitor user complaints. Windows Live Hotmail also has a sender complaint feedback loop program called the Junk Email Reporting Program (JMRP). Enrollment in this free program will benefit you as a sender as it will keep your email lists updated and populated with interested Windows Live Hotmail customers. This program will help you to remove those Windows Live Hotmail customers who do not want to receive emails from your company. If you are interested in joining this program, please visit http://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp&page=support_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts
Please visit http://www.senderbase.org, or http://www.kloth.net/services/dnsbl.php to verify that your IP is not being targeted by any third party block lists.
Segment your mailing infrastructure by IP. Marketing email, transactional corporate email, “forward to a friend” email and signup emails should be sent from different IPs. This will help to identify what types of messages are being flagged by Windows Live Hotmail customers.
Strengthen the sign up process. Confirm that you are using a double-opt-in sign up process. This will not help in removing existing Windows Live Hotmail customers from your email lists but it will confirm the authenticity of those who sign-up for your email campaigns and newsletters.
If you have any feedback loops setup with other ISPs, you should look for trends to try and determine possible causes – a new data source? New advertisement? Maybe folks signing up do not recognize the mail?
Clearly mark your emails so that Windows Live Hotmail customers are able to identify quickly and easily that they requested emails from your service.
Do some analysis on the data regarding complaints – look at Windows Live Hotmail customers who have never clicked, opened, responded or bounced in any way. These poor performers could contain many bad addresses.
Clean up your lists. Remove those who do not want to receive the emails. Make the unsubscribe process more visible.
In addition to these recommendations, we offer these programs that will help to improve the reputation of your sending IP addresses:
· Windows Live Hotmail has created the Smart Network Data Services program. This is a service that helps legitimate email senders work with their customers and partners to reduce spam originating from their IP. To register, please go to http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/ This program allows a sender to monitor the ‘health’ of their IPs.
While using the SNDS tool, enrollment in the JMRP or having your IPs registered with Sender ID will not allow emails from your mail servers to bypass our filters, these are in place to help legitimate companies deliver their emails to Windows Live Hotmail customers.
· Apply for the Sender Score Certified Mail program:
If you are doing all the above and you continue to have deliverability issues, you may wish to consider joining the Sender Score Certified Mail Program, a third party program administered by Return Path, Inc. Many legitimate mailers and marketers have qualified and joined this program to improve mail deliverability and decrease email from being filtered to the Junk E-mail Folder. Sender Score (www.senderscorecertified.com) is the only service to which we subscribe
The troubleshooting steps in this email are recommendations only. Microsoft makes no guarantees that following these steps will guarantee deliverability to MSN, Windows Live Hotmail, or Live.com customers.
For more detailed information about best sending practices to Windows Live Hotmail users, please review the following white paper: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/3/3/e3397e7c-17a6-497d-9693-78f80be272fb/enhance_deliver.pdf
Sincerely,
Shirley
Windows Live Hotmail Sender Support
Well you probably, know how reliable microsoft products & services are. So this is not a surprise for me
But they don’t care that there exchange hosted mail service are listed on spam lists.
http://www.mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=blacklist%3a216.32.181.185
216.32.181.185 -> ch1ehsobe005.messaging.microsoft.com
I was reading through some of your blog posts on this site and I think this web site is rattling informative! Keep posting.
Thanks for showing us.
Fantastic tips. Looking forward to more tutorials on ilo2 please .
Hello this blog is realy heplful however when i click the
that Microsoft has an Eform for delisting / removing spam black listed mail server IPs not able to deliver to hotmail and live.com
im expecting to filup forms that consumes 20 minutes, for me it only took almost 1 minutes? is this normal? only few fields need to fil up. but i got my ticket and did not received any notifications. how many hours/days before a received an reply email? thank you
Maybe, M$ changed something in their fill-up form. I haven’t tried this for some time. I guess if you don’t get notification until 2, 3 days. Just try to contact m$ again and ask them what is happening.
Hope this helps
Thanks this blog is really helpful
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