Some time ago when we first moved our mailbox accounts over to Google mail. We came across a situation where one of our clients was unable to email us. When they did – they received a bounce back message that our accounts did not exist.
After much time investigating the issue – we managed to find the solution. It was only recently when we hear the same scenario play out we decided to make it our blog post this week in case others experience the same problem and like us – didn’t find much online that helped.
The Issue:
The issue began when we changed our email provider to Google (Google Apps for Business).
Our client contacted us and said that they were having issue’s. We initially thought it was down to the migration over to our new Google accounts that caused the issue.
After much searching online for similar issue’s – we didn’t find anything that pointed out the resolution – so we had on contact Google directly for an update.
We were informed by support that our accounts were fine and that the problem is most likely due to the client/senders domain or server still remembering our old IP address and settings from our previous email provider, which they believe was causing the issue.
At that time. This was the first case of this happening – so were a bit dubious that this was the cause, but had to follow the instructions set out by Google just to make sure.
How to resolve:
We were made aware that if your domain name or your hosting server is remembering previous connections – then a DNS Flush is required.
Note: As a Web Design and Development company we know website browsers have a similar issue of remembering things and when you clear out your browser cache it forgets the website the way it was and shows the latest updates or changes.
Option 1:
The first place to Flush the DNS is at the domain level. All you need to do is email the support team of the provider of your domain. You will need to ask them to perform a DNS Flush on your domain and explain slightly the issue you are having. i.e. clients/contacts can’t email you etc.
If this works – then great. All is resolved.
How-ever – in our case – this didn’t sort out our issue – so we had to try option 2.
Option 2:
Because the flush on our domain name didn’t work in our case – we had to then perform the DNS flush on the server that contained our email accounts.
Luckily for us – our client was on Linux (CentOS) web hosting server – so we had full access to all area’s that were required.
We had to log into the server using SSH access and then type in the following command:
/etc/init.d/bind restart
Once we performed the resolution above – our clients email account was able to email is straight away.
Our servers run on the CentOS version of Linux. Depending on what version of linux you have installed on your server the command may vary – so knowing what your servers are running is important. Once you know – you can find the command required to perform the flush.