Not bouncing ooto

[noxan-dev]

Version:

• listmonk: v4.1.0
• OS: Debian

I recently setup listmonk on a local server and launched it on the web. It uses Amazon SES as the mailer. I am having an issue with bouncing ooto emails. When using the SES simulator, '[email protected]' it works and soft bounces but when testing automatic replies with other personal emails it doesn't soft bounce. Are there other steps I need to take that may not be documented?

[knadh]

Have you setup a POP mailbox for bounces? Are the bounced messages landing in that mailbox?

[noxan-dev]

Yes, I am getting the auto reply in the sender mailbox, and I am using the Amazon SES web hook, not sure if pop mailbox is necessary for this. Hard bouncing works and some soft bounces work. ooto soft bouncing doesn't seem to work with mailboxes other than the simulator

[noxan-dev]

I just looked in the logs

2025/03/20 error processing SES notification: notification type is not bounce

Edit: I did a search and it seems it may be similar to other issues placed but I do have the feedback setup for all email addresses and the domain.

[knadh]

I didn't know of [email protected]. Looking at the documentation, AWS classifies ooto neither as a complaint or a bounce, but an ordinary auto-response. listmonk only handles those two types as bounces (hard/soft/complaint).

[noxan-dev]

In your documentation it's mentioned as a soft bounce and it indeed does soft bounce https://listmonk.app/docs/bounces/

[knadh]

Hi @noxan-dev. Could you please point to the bit in AWS docs that says that ooto is a soft bounce?

listmonk indeed processes soft|hard bounces and the complaint type.

[noxan-dev]

There is one part of the documentation, under Transient: General where I see it mentioned https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/notification-contents.html#bounce-types

The output from that address when it bounces is

{ "mail": { "source": "[email protected]", "headers": [ { "name": "Received", "value": "from localhost (static-12-23-124-111.nwrknj.fios.verizon.net [12.23.124.111]) by email-smtp.amazonaws.com with SMTP (SimpleEmailService-d-J438IWTQB) id E1aref2BYVcI7aHel7gE for [email protected]; Tue, 18 Mar 2025 19:47:54 +0000 (UTC)" }, { "name": "Content-Type", "value": "text/html; charset=UTF-8" }, { "name": "Content-Transfer-Encoding", "value": "quoted-printable" }, { "name": "Date", "value": "Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:47:54 -0400" }, { "name": "Mime-Version", "value": "1.0" }, { "name": "X-Listmonk-Subscriber", "value": "e92be5e5-13c0-4ce6-b91f-0925d5f8261c" }, { "name": "From", "value": "Centers Laboratory <[email protected]>" }, { "name": "X-Listmonk-Campaign", "value": "cbeee468-0b68-451d-af9e-5060dd2e470d" }, { "name": "To", "value": "[email protected]" }, { "name": "Subject", "value": "Test" }, { "name": "Message-Id", "value": "<1742327274129443657.805.604584918894393110@emailserver>" } ], "sourceIp": "72.76.155.194", "messageId": "01000195aacc5aa2-cac5856d-71f4-4ded-8c51-b1515d6b3cf8-000000", "sourceArn": "arn:aws:ses:us-east-1:930238907646:identity/[email protected]", "timestamp": "2025-03-18T19:47:54.146Z", "destination": [ "[email protected]" ], "commonHeaders": { "to": [ "[email protected]" ], "date": "Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:47:54 -0400", "from": [ "Example <[email protected]>" ], "subject": "Test", "messageId": "<1742327274129443657.805.604584918894393110@emailserver>" }, "callerIdentity": "ses-smtp-user.20250304-160533", "headersTruncated": false, "sendingAccountId": "930238907646" }, "bounce": { "timestamp": "2025-03-18T19:47:54.000Z", "bounceType": "Transient", "feedbackId": "01000195aacc5c63-e7645493-50bc-414b-aaed-fecb5e0ed81f-000000", "bounceSubType": "General", "bouncedRecipients": [ { "emailAddress": "[email protected]" } ] }, "notificationType": "Bounce" }

[MaximilianKohler]

I use SES to send millions of emails and I haven't noticed any error processing SES notification: notification type is not bounce errors in my logs despite getting plenty of "out of the office" responses.

Is the problem you're raising with the log errors you're getting, or you want ooto to bounce so you can block them?

Personally, I don't want ooto replies to bounce and thus get blocked. They do sometimes though. I say "sometimes" because I've noticed the same thing you mention -- that they don't always get detected as bounces.

IMO, the best solution would be to detect OOTO bounces and create a new option to optionally ignore them instead of counting them as soft bounces.

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