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Proofpoint, Inc.

User email address stops receiving email or is "marked as invalid" with SMTP Discovery enabled.

Situation

Inbound emails were delivering normally then stop unexpectedly.

  • Looking at the log it says: "550 5.7.1 Recipient {or Sender} address rejected: User email address is marked as invalid"

  • I cannot find user account in the logs, but user was receiving emails.
Solution

This often occurs after a discovered address expires without any action having been taken by the admin. If the email address is in fact desired to be able to send and receive email, it should be removed from the Marked Invalid List.

  1. Find if the email account is on the Marked Invalid List.
  2. Removing from the Marked Invalid List.

 

NOTE: If you have already created the user in your users list, It will immediately remove it from the Marked Invalid List.

Once removed from Marked Invalid list, it may take up to 8 hours to propagate on the backend before mail will be accepted for the address.

Find if email is on the Marked Invalid List and Removing it from that List

Description or other notes about this first multi-step task

  1. Navigate to User Management > SMTP Discovery.
  2. From the dropdown, select Marked as Invalid List.
  3. Find the email on the list and check the box beside it.
  4. From the Select dropdown, select Remove from Invalid List.
  5. Click Apply.

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Remember you need to create the user after doing this. Removing from the invalid list will not create the user automatically. There are 30 to 40 minutes of Propagation time after creating a new user.

Invalid email addresses are summarized in our SMTP Discovery reports, which are run weekly.

See: SMTP Discovery for more information on SMTP Discovery reports

To minimize administration requirements and to ensure an accurate email list for future reference, please consider using Active Directory Sync or Azure Active Directory Sync.