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Techmail message filters explained
Answer ID 5670   |   Last Review Date 02/12/2025

What are the reasons why techmail will filter an email message? 

 

 

Environment:

Oracle B2C Service, techmail

Resolution:

There are various reasons why an incoming email message could be filtered by techmail. The Incoming Email Filter Details report (Public Reports > Service > Email Reports  (ID 227)) can help you troubleshoot why certain emails are being filtered out or rejected. This report lists every email filtered out or rejected in the past twenty-four hours. All rejected emails are deleted, but you can setup a reject address for your mailbox(es) to receive a forwarded copy of the rejected emails per Answer ID 1976: Accessing discarded email messages .

Please see the various filtering methods techmail uses and the causes below to assist you in your troubleshooting. If you need assistance Ask Technical Support and provide the rejected email or its complete email header per Answer ID 4781: Collecting email headers or source for Oracle B2C Service Technical SupportAnswer ID 4781: Collecting email headers or source for Oracle B2C Service Technical Support.

Returned email

Check to see if the mailbox is configured to delete returned messages. A hard bounce will also flag a contact's email as invalid.  Refer to
Answer ID 2800: Bounced E-mail message handling for bounce information and 
Answer ID 2603: Cannot send response due to invalid email address for  implications of contact email being invalidated
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Invalid Address

​Occurs if sender's From or Reply-to address exceeds character limit or does not match a valid email format.  Refer to Answer ID 6381: Email address limitation 
​

Sender address

Check to see if the From address of the message matches any value(s) set in the Discard Addresses mailbox filter.   Refer to Answer ID 6492: Discard Filters on mailboxes. 
 
EGW_SECURE_UPDATE_MODE and EGW_UPDATE_BY_CREATE .  These settings determine the level of security applied when updating an incident by email. Refer to Answer ID 1457: Allowing other contacts to update incidents for a flowchart of how these configurations settings control behavior of email filtering.
Supported values of EGW_SECURE_UPDATE_MODE are:
0 - Updating an incident by email is allowed from any email address based on reference number match only. IMPORTANT! SETTING THIS VALUE TO 0 MAY IMPACT SECURITY OR PRIVACY CONCERNS FOR YOUR SITE.
1 - Updating an incident by email is allowed from any email address only if the originating message includes a tracking string indicating a match to the site and incident in question. If a ref_no exists in the subject but no tracking information is found, then an incident will be created if EGW_UPDATE_BY_CREATE is set to 1.
2 - Updating an incident by email is allowed only when the Reply-to or From address of the email message is listed in the contact record associated with the incident (that is, the primary or alternate email addresses).
Default is 2.
 
Sender address - BCC
An email reply sent from a recipient that was included in the BCC field for an incident response. In this case, they will get filtered and sent a 'Request Denied' message. 
 
Sender is our own mailbox
IF EGW_LOOP_PREVENT_ENABLED is set to Yes and the Reply-To address of the message matches the Reply-To, From, Friendly From address of ANY mailbox configured in their site, it will be filtered. Any email where the reply-to email address matches the reply-to email address of any mailbox in Oracle B2C Service will be discarded and no incident will be created. In this way, the mailbox deletes any messages from itself. Please note, while this can be turned off it is not recommended since this is a guard against serious email loops. Email loops can break the techmail utility and halt all messages until the underlying cause is addressed.
 

Header content

​Check the mailbox configuration and the Discard Headers filter. If something contained within the message header matches an entry in the Discard Headers filter, the message will be filtered. Items should be return delimited.  Refer to Answer ID 6492: Discard Filters on mailboxes  
​

 

Subject content

​Check the mailbox configuration and the Discard Subject filters. If something contained within the subject of the message matches an entry in the Discard Subjects filter, the message will be filtered. Items should be return delimited. Refer to Answer ID 6492: Discard Filters on mailboxes

 

Body content

​Check the mailbox configuration and the Discard Body filters. If something contained within the body of the message matches an entry in the Discard Body filter, the message will be filtered. Items should be return delimited. Refer to Answer ID 6492: Discard Filters on mailboxes

 

Bulk precedence (or Bulk email priority)

This will occur when two conditions are met. The header of the message will have the Content-Type Precedence set to "Bulk", "Junk" or "List" AND the mailbox is configured to "Delete Bulk Messages." The issue can be resolved by either unchecking the "Delete Bulk Messages" box within the mailbox configuration, or have the customer work with their mail administrator to remove the "Bulk" precedence being set for their messages.

 

Auto-responder

This will occur based on the "Discard Automatic Responses" value set within the mailbox's configuration. This can be set to Off, Conservative, Moderate or Aggressive and the values are set in the corresponding configuration values. Note, there is a separate configuration value for the header and body portion of the message.

Conservative - EGW_AR_CONS_BODY_FLTR, EGW_AR_CONS_HEAD_FLTR
Moderate - EGW_AR_MODR_BODY_FLTR, EGW_AR_MODR_HEAD_FLTR
Aggressive - EGW_AR_AGGR_BODY_FLTR, EGW_AR_AGGR_HEAD_FLTR
 

This can also occur via the EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS configuration.  The EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS setting specifies the maximum number of emails that will be accepted from an individual email address within the time period specified in the EGW_MAX_MSG_DURATION setting. This is used to identify and stop auto-responder email loops. Setting EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS to 0 disables the email loop detection. The default value is 23.  Refer to Answer ID 10338: Configurations EGW_MAX_PER_ADDRESS and EGW_MAX_MSG_DURATION explained.

Note:  These configuration settings are set at the per interface level.  However, they function as the maximum per mailbox associated to the interface the configurations are set.
To help illustrate the 'per mailbox' functionality:
- If a contact is sending 25 emails to the same mailbox (mailbox_id 1) within 12 hours, only 23 incidents will be created and the last 2 messages will be discarded;
- If a contact is sending 33 emails to 3 different mailboxes (10 emails to mailbox_id 1, 11 emails to mailbox_id 2 and 12 emails to mailbox_id 3) 33 incidents will be created and no email will be discarded.

 

Duplicate email

A duplicate email will be filtered when any email having the same date within four hours, from email addresses (i.e., from the same sender), subject, body, file attachment size, file attachment name as an existing incident is found. This is controlled by the EGW_DISCARD_DUPLICATE_ENABLED configuration setting.

Examples:
- Two messages with the same from, subject, content, and file attachment. This should cause duplicate to be discarded.
- Two messages with the same from, subject, content, but for the file attachment, name them identically but be sure the sizes vary (easiest with text or word files, make one very long). This should not be considered a duplicate and should create two incidents in the system.
- Two messages with the same from, subject, content, and file attachment sent to two different mailboxes that exist within the same site. This should cause a duplicate to be discarded.

 

Customer disabled

Check the contact record and make sure the record is not Disabled. Check contacts.disabled field. If the contact is disabled, the message will be filtered.

 

Bad reply format

If EGW_REPLY_BETWEEN_ENABLED=1 AND mailbox configuration “Force Reply Between Lines" is enabled, then the message did not contain the content between the lines correctly and the message will be filtered.

The REPLY_BEGIN_MSG and REPLY_END_MSG message bases define the top and bottom of reply area. Check these configurations along with the message to ensure:
-Reply strings are not getting truncated
-Reply strings match the message base for the interface
-There are no extraneous characters or HTML formatting being added
 

SLA required 

Check to see if the customer's site requires an SLA be applied to a contact and/or organization in order to receive service. If so and the contact and/or organization does not have an SLA applied, the message will be filtered.

 

Account required

Check the EGW_AUTO_CONT_CREATE and EGW_AUTO_CONT_CREATE_MA configuration settings. If either of these are not enabled, and the contact record does not already exist, the message will be filtered.

 

Workflow rules

This is caused when an incident rule has specifically prevented the creation of the incident with the rule action of Do Not Create incident. Search for all rules with an action of Do Not Create incident.

 

S/MIME signature and S/MIME decryption

​This is caused when the mailbox is configured for S/MIME and the message does not match the pre-loaded root certificates or certificates which have been added through the File Manager. Check the mailbox configuration settings related to S/MIME and/or the "Additional root certificates" directory in the File Manager.  Refer to Answer ID 4853: "There was a problem with your S/MIME Signature Certificate" error message
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Message MTA

When the email came from postmaster or mailer daemon.
 

Unsubscribe

When the email is a marketing unsubscribe email.

 

SSS response

When the email is a social self-service response which is a response to a question.
 
 
Other Database / From different DB
​
If the email contains any tracking strings associated with a different Oracle B2C Service site the email will be filtered.  All outgoing emails contain a tracking string and any replies or forwards of these emails being sent to a different site will be subject to filtering.  The tracking string of the filtered email may be in the email header 'In-Reply-To' line or embedded within the email body.  Refer to Answer ID 5331: Incident Update by Email for a description of these tracking strings. 
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