Return-Path is empty in Auto reply / out of office reply

Nur Hossain 282 Reputation points
2020-10-29T06:35:40.053+00:00

Need help with following

when Automatic reply/ Out of office reply send to external recipients, we can see that the return path is empty that the Email security appliance blocked the mail.
35905-image.png

Is there any way to add a return path?

Thank You
Nur

Exchange Online
Exchange Online

A cloud-based service included in Microsoft 365, delivering scalable messaging and collaboration features with simplified management and automatic updates.

Exchange | Exchange Server | Management
Exchange | Exchange Server | Management

The administration and maintenance of Microsoft Exchange Server to ensure secure, reliable, and efficient email and collaboration services across an organization.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Andy David - MVP 160.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2020-10-29T10:29:12.88+00:00

No, that is by design. You will need to fix the email appliance. If its dropping those its doing it incorrectly. a null <> sender is perfectly legal .
I would ask support for that appliance on how to work-around this.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2298

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-c03261672

Out of Office (OOF) Notification for remote users goes with blank sender and gets stuck in SmartHost or kind of products; Based on the research found With Exchange Server 2010 (and 2007's latest Service Pack) Microsoft has changed the behavior of automatic server based notifications, especially Out of Office (replies to rely on RFC 2298. As per RFC 2298 Message Disposition Notification (MDN) messages should be sent with a blank sender. The OOF reply messages are Message Disposition Notifications. This means that the HUB Server in the organization replaces the senders name with a blank one while transferring it to the internet.

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.

1 additional answer

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Lydia Zhou - MSFT 2,386 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2020-10-30T07:42:46.577+00:00

    @Nur Hossain

    Agree with AndyDavid. I checked the message header of OOF in my environment, it's the same result. Also, yes, this is by design and cannot be configured from Exchange server side.
    36273-600.png

    It's suggested to contact the vendor of the Email security appliance to see if any configuration can be set to accept these OOF messages.

    If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

    Was this answer helpful?

Your answer

Answers can be marked as 'Accepted' by the question author and 'Recommended' by moderators, which helps users know the answer solved the author's problem.