Custom A records for email server are not proliferating or allowing mail

Hey everyone - I've been having this problem for a while now. I've entered custom settings to point my domain (greencoconutdigital.com) to a mail server hosted by a different company. However, I'm still not receiving any mail to the addresses that I have registered. After digging around a bit, it seems that the A record that I have registered is not actually appearing after proliferation.

See here: https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/greencoconutdigital.com

The only IPs showing as A records are Squarespace's default IPs which are listed in the domain advanced settings and which I have not edited at all. The other custom records (MX and TXT for the spf record) are all showing with no problems. Based on this, I'm assuming that the problem is with the A record.

There are no problems with the email hosting provider. They have double-checked my custom DNS entries and I also know some other customers of that provider who told me that their mail IP and mail subdomain were exactly the same as the ones the hosting provider specified to me. Their email accounts are working fine.

I've double and triple checked all of the settings. My last resort to attempt to fix this was to remove all of the custom DNS settings and wait 72 hours for the change to proliferate (it did and all custom records for that domain were removed) then to reinput all of the custom settings and wait another 72 hours for those to proliferate. Unfortunately, this hasn't fixed the problem.

Squarespace support don't seem to be able to help and I'm at a loss for what to try next.

I'm including a copy of the DNS settings below and really hoping that someone is able to help me out with this. Unfortunately, my knowledge of this topic is fairly thin so I would be very grateful for any help, tips or fixes.

Thank you in advance!

Sam

If you'd like help fully troubleshooting this, we'll need to know who your email host is so that we can confirm the DNS records that they require. However, a cursory look shows your MAIL A record is missing. Without this, sending email servers will not find your provider's mail server.

In your screenshot you have a record but this isn't currently live. I'd expect the HOST to be 'mail' not 'mail.greencoconutdigital.com' so this could be the reason.

If you can create the correct A record then we can run through some further checks.

8 minutes ago, paul2009 said:

If you'd like help fully troubleshooting this, we'll need to know who your email host is so that we can confirm the DNS records that they require. However, a cursory look shows your MAIL A record is missing. Without this, sending email servers will not find your provider's mail server.

In your screenshot you have a record but this isn't currently live. I'd expect the HOST to be 'mail' not 'mail.greencoconutdigital.com' so this could be the reason.

If you can create the correct A record then we can run through some further checks.

 

This is really helpful. Thank you! I did wonder whether the host was properly recorded - there's really little else in the A record setting that could go wrong.

I'll change the host and let it proliferate. If it doesn't fix the problem, I can look into the email host again. They have been very helpful, though, and multiple people in their offices have confirmed the settings to be correct.

I really appreciate the help.

Sam.

OK. Do let me know.

21 minutes ago, paul2009 said:

OK. Do let me know.

Thank you, Paul2009. This actually seems to have fixed the problem already, the A records are already proliferating and a test email has actually arrived. I can't thank you enough for the help.

I've marked your post as the best answer. Please do let me know if there's anything else I can do to upvote you for this.

No problem. Happy to have helped. 😃

Hi Paul, I'm having a similar problem with one of my client's email.

Initially all was working well but recently she has not been getting her mail.

Would you be kind enough to have a look at the attached screenshots of DNS settings and nameservers - should I be using Squarespace namservers as the the blue bar is suggesting? And let me know what's wrong.  I have tried changing HOST to mail as suggested above but can't make any changes there, its locked.

The website is judithwestcott.co.uk and her email is jw@judithwestcott.co.uk.

If there's anything else you need from me just let me know.

Thank you so much.

The email address is no longer valid. From the screenshots, it appears that the domain name (judithwestcott.co.uk) was recently moved from Namesco to Squarespace.

The domain name has been moved, but nameserver and email settings haven't been changed to any new services - they still rely on Namesco services. You'll need to check if the client is still paying Namesco for the email service or if they are expecting another email provider to be running this service now, such as GSuite.

Thanks Paul.  In fact the domain is with Squarespace as you say but her email provider is with a company called Eclipse.

My understanding is that we need the DNS records from Eclipse.

And we need to use Squarespace nameservers not custom nameservers?

Am I right?

Yes, you'll need to configure the MX record for the email provider.

The Squarespace nameservers should be used.

Thanks Paul, I'll give it a go.