Troubleshooting email connection issues with GoDaddy mailboxes

Key findings

• Intermittent drops: A significant percentage of connection attempts to GoDaddy mailboxes may experience immediate drops, even when others succeed, indicating instability rather than a consistent block. Logs might show around 16% of connection attempts failing in this manner, while others are delivered successfully.
• Silent blocks: Unlike typical blocks that return a specific error message, these issues can appear as silent connection closures, making diagnosis difficult. A connection might be dropped before any SMTP commands (like HELO/EHLO) are exchanged.
• Diagnostic tools: Manual telnet attempts might fail due to strict timeouts or other unknown server-side behaviors, whereas automated tools like Swaks often succeed in establishing connections, providing more reliable testing results.
• Network-level vs. user-level: If connection issues affect all GoDaddy domains, it points to a network-level problem. If it's isolated to specific domains, it suggests user-level settings or configurations are the cause.
• GoDaddy limitations: GoDaddy is known to have connection limits that can be easily exceeded, especially given the large number of domains they host. These limits, however, typically result in clearer bounce messages, not silent drops.

Key considerations

• Verify MTA logs: Thoroughly review your Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) logs for detailed information on connection attempts, successes, and failures. This can help distinguish between silent drops and standard bounces. If you're experiencing connection timeouts, explore our guide on troubleshooting email connection timeout errors.
• Use automated testing tools: Rely on SMTP testing tools (e.g., Swaks) for accurate diagnostics, as manual telnet can sometimes behave differently due to timing or specific server requirements.
• Assess global impact: Determine if the issue affects all GoDaddy-hosted domains or only a subset. This helps pinpoint whether the problem is widespread or specific to certain recipients.
• Contact GoDaddy support: If persistent issues are observed across multiple IPs and domains, reach out to GoDaddy's support or abuse teams for clarification. Their bounceback guide may offer initial insights, though silent drops might not be explicitly covered. For broader deliverability problems, review our advice on why your emails fail.
• Review connection limits: While GoDaddy's limits usually provide error responses, understanding typical ISP connection limits is crucial for preventing unexpected drops. Consult best practices for setting email domain connection limits.

Key opinions

• Frustration with silent drops: Many marketers express frustration when connections are immediately closed without any SMTP response, as it complicates troubleshooting.
• Manual testing difficulties: Manual telnet attempts can be misleading, as some servers (like GoDaddy's) might be sensitive to the speed of interaction or specific handshake protocols that automated tools handle better.
• GoDaddy support challenges: Obtaining detailed, email-based support from GoDaddy can be difficult, often requiring live chat or phone calls, which can be time-consuming.
• Suspicion of IP blacklisting: Initial reactions often lead marketers to suspect their IP has been silently blacklisted or blocklisted, especially when connections are dropped without explicit errors.
• Intermittent vs. consistent issues: If only a percentage of connections fail, it's more indicative of network instability or soft limits rather than a hard, intentional block, which would typically be consistent.

Key considerations

• Automated testing is key: Always validate connection behavior using automated SMTP clients like Swaks to rule out manual interaction issues.
• Gather comprehensive logs: Collect detailed MTA logs showing connection attempts from various source IPs and target GoDaddy domains to identify patterns or widespread problems.
• Consider network-level issues: If widespread, the problem is likely on GoDaddy's network side, indicating instability or large-scale throttling, not a specific block of your IP.
• Persistence with support: While challenging, continuing to engage GoDaddy support, even through less direct channels like legal or abuse email addresses, can sometimes yield results. Understanding how to diagnose email deliverability issues is key.
• Distinguish from blacklists: A silent connection drop is distinct from an explicit blocklist (or blacklist) listing, which would usually result in a documented bounce code. Learn more about how email blacklists work to differentiate these issues.

Key opinions

• RFC timeouts: While RFCs prescribe timeouts in minutes, many modern mail servers, including GoDaddy's, implement much shorter timeouts (e.g., one second), which can lead to manual connections being prematurely closed.
• Reverse DNS impact: GoDaddy is known to sometimes ungracefully drop connections if reverse DNS (rDNS) is improperly configured for the sending IP, even if the MTA might still log a 'goodbye' message.
• Network vs. user-level blocks: If connection issues affect all GoDaddy domains, it is more likely a network-level issue on GoDaddy's side; if it's specific to certain domains, it could be user-level policy tweaking by the domain owner.
• Silent block implications: A blanket silent IP block is a possibility if automated tools like Swaks work from different IP ranges but regular MTA traffic does not, suggesting a broad filtering mechanism.
• Connection limits are common: GoDaddy, like other large providers, implements connection limits that can be easily overrun, leading to issues, though typically they result in explicit bounce messages rather than silent drops.

Key considerations

• Speed of interaction: Be mindful that manual SMTP interactions may be too slow for some servers' rapid timeouts. Automated tools are better for testing.
• Reverse DNS validation: Ensure your sending IP has valid and matching reverse DNS records. Issues here can lead to connection rejections or even silent drops from some receiving servers. This can sometimes lead to issues with services like Microsoft 365. See our page on Microsoft 550 5.7.515 access denied bounces.
• Distinguish from blocks: If connections are dropped without a clear SMTP error, it's less likely a traditional blocklist (or blacklist) and more likely a network-level issue or an aggressive anti-spam measure that silently drops connections. This is different from an IP block that would result in specific bounce codes. More information on what happens when your IP gets blocklisted can be found here.
• Contact relevant departments: When engaging GoDaddy, consider contacting their abuse team (abuse@godaddy.com) in addition to general support, as they may have more insights into network-level filtering. For deeper insights on email deliverability, the Mahendra Technosoft guide can be useful.

Key findings

• Standard bounce explanations: GoDaddy's help documentation typically focuses on explaining common email bounceback messages (e.g., 550 errors, mailbox full) and their corresponding solutions.
• Server settings verification: Documentation consistently advises verifying incoming (IMAP/POP3) and outgoing (SMTP) server settings, ports, and authentication credentials as a first troubleshooting step.
• Account status checks: Users are often instructed to check if their mailbox is full or if there are any account-specific issues that might prevent email delivery or reception.
• General connectivity advice: Basic steps like restarting devices or checking internet connectivity are frequently suggested to resolve simple connection glitches.

Key considerations

• Beyond basic troubleshooting: While useful for common client-side issues, standard documentation may not cover complex server-side behaviors like silent connection drops due to network instability or very aggressive filtering. For such cases, delving into specific SSL/TLS key size errors could provide clues.
• Consult specific ISP guidelines: For specific issues, checking ISP-specific postmaster pages or knowledge bases beyond general GoDaddy support can provide more targeted solutions. This is also important for issues with other providers, like Yahoo Mail.
• Authentication standards: While not explicitly about silent drops, documentation on email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is critical. Proper authentication minimizes the chances of your emails being flagged as suspicious, which could lead to connection issues. Refer to a simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM for more details.
• Network diagnosis: When facing connection problems, it's essential to perform network-level diagnostics (e.g., traceroute, ping) to identify any routing or firewall issues between your sending infrastructure and GoDaddy's mail servers.