Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups for bellsouth.net domain

Question

I already consulted support directly in my outlook window and it was useless. I already confirmed the following things:

1. The email is spelled correctly.
2. I am able to send the email from my gmail account just fine.
3. I spoke to the recipient and no they have not blocked me.
4. I tried Outlook client and it fails.
5. I tried Outlook.com web portal and it fails.

This is clearly a problem on the Microsoft side as Bellsouth (ATT) still accepts email from Gmail just fine.

Here are the complete details of the bounce back, it takes a full 24 hours for these to come back:

I blanked out the email handles and names.

Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups: xxxxx xxxx (******@bellsouth.net) Your message wasn't delivered. Despite repeated attempts to deliver your message, the recipient's email system refused to accept a connection from your email system. Contact the recipient by some other means (by phone, for example) and ask them to tell their email admin that it appears that their email system is refusing connections from your email server. Give them the error details shown below. It's likely that the recipient's email admin is the only one who can fix this problem. For Email Admins No connection could be made because the target computer actively refused it. This usually results from trying to connect to a service that is inactive on the remote host - that is, one with no server application running. For more information and tips to fix this issue see this article: [https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=389361](https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=389361 "go.microsoft.com")       Diagnostic information for administrators: Generating server: BL3PR05MB10292.namprd05.prod.outlook.com Receiving server: BL3PR05MB10292.namprd05.prod.outlook.com  ******@bellsouth.net 1/1/2025 5:30:01 AM - Server at BL3PR05MB10292.namprd05.prod.outlook.com returned '550 5.4.316 Message expired, connection refused(Socket error code 10061)' 1/1/2025 5:18:25 AM - Server at bellsouth.net (144.160.235.143) returned '450 4.4.316 Connection refused [Message=Socket error code 10061] [LastAttemptedServerName=bellsouth.net] [LastAttemptedIP=144.160.235.143:25] [SmtpSecurity=-2;-2] [CY7PEPF00000010.namprd05.prod.outlook.com 2025-01-01T05:20:01.213Z 08DD28772E97D72C](Socket error code 10061)' Original message headers: Received: from CY8PR05MB9817.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:930:73::11)  by BL3PR05MB10292.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:208:3b5::9) with  Microsoft SMTP Server (version=TLS1\_2,  cipher=TLS\_ECDHE\_RSA\_WITH\_AES\_256\_GCM\_SHA384) id 15.20.8314.11; Tue, 31 Dec  2024 20:17:16 +0000 Received: from DS7PR05MB7496.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:5:2cc::6) by  CY8PR05MB9817.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:930:73::11) with Microsoft  SMTP Server (version=TLS1\_2, cipher=TLS\_ECDHE\_RSA\_WITH\_AES\_256\_GCM\_SHA384) id  15.20.8293.20; Tue, 31 Dec 2024 09:07:55 +0000 ARC-Seal: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; s=arcselector10001; d=microsoft.com; cv=none;  b=DXuOaW62cmc88ZE2lPO0x9bjZ8JgY8NJKII8SD1HVjW+rw72nOqUnOVppifWiOB41OhmOfQTfI9QUPMwa+oOfYgndqBWN9tVGcmCE4n5Sk2HWykjvjl/FPh0LxHR3wm4i2HellSokM7NGSgpxliiOPIcbk8nRNsfBFu64OI3xwDXDBc8ThW5dJ9c33B+F0tetRxF5KiWW2Kj7gXOTD6lzOspJ1PVDRHYc6LnIoujEkfUvMmWuAohCkCdJ9S+ODKKBt6qgBi8Ws8NIKZ61O6CTPF6EOH8Ui03sOwpfWBc4m7kGpACGMHT2i9dpxpylStFJJPF/N/xWUuiQhsUDxSMVw== ARC-Message-Signature: i=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=microsoft.com;  s=arcselector10001;  h=From:Date:Subject:Message-ID:Content-Type:MIME-Version:X-MS-Exchange-AntiSpam-MessageData-ChunkCount:X-MS-Exchange-AntiSpam-MessageData-0:X-MS-Exchange-AntiSpam-MessageData-1;  bh=jSaPjomIyQcrjNd9wAnoTeQIaX82O/fgfyXCX2Hf+CM=;  b=hjs68iFCsZKK9z7kPSjbUAI5AwiliBPgtjznNekSwBOeqnrwGDwmTGQjzjFG/5K0v7bji+icSTIwp6d2ZBtxk03W0eCEO4sOPLUD+v4adu38Ps5pEgQ+z5pYfxhpXXBPXvQdM6VO0+sDEBZ99D6wZvnO8/zvqz0n/wIYuh9rHOemjpIs91xPMQyW8hsYibTfdW/aFuYNPreIJ4diNfuTpZllIR+jeb1sotEEM5XfA1Ym0fO1ej9bVXxZwpqnQYFhAp/oig3ymgbubFqUq813Un1lXZucylEBI/0fhDV9ooHYba2G0wi9cqWHohFdUHmeHDcQaIZxuKO1M91TX1SM+w== ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; mx.microsoft.com 1; spf=none; dmarc=none;  dkim=none; arc=none DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=outlook.com;  s=selector1;  h=From:Date:Subject:Message-ID:Content-Type:MIME-Version:X-MS-Exchange-SenderADCheck;  bh=jSaPjomIyQcrjNd9wAnoTeQIaX82O/fgfyXCX2Hf+CM=;  b=Kc/54gKMQ/XNG5PV1ka0gxsbWZ/Ce1tx2NGIkjWvDRWq359Dv2GwaltWG0dBxT6yNHREjrmgox0x2Z6YusmLNCPmPyYIbxV5NqqPLJD/JeUpHk2qikygM9CzAuIrx0zSYeMyJnA4Ruzg1+fKh0EeR2eXVOTX7AMMpvbo6kWQ1+OHRQ7iTuG1s6bnezh2qTqG6Cl2zOZdQ3mTcHjqXB7VtP30pu/yV6qCeoG9zL+5Esp7MCWX7SWUGw7vYWiQ+nefG/IvIRhXLuLVpgqqw0F1lM9SqnXtD9mKCaLcYMjIOG6gXipiRB4AZUHOrYsALshS+i12u+7u32vderlUxTDGOA== Received: from DM5PR05MB3497.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:4:44::10) by  DS7PR05MB7496.namprd05.prod.outlook.com (2603:10b6:5:2cc::6) with Microsoft  SMTP Server (version=TLS1\_2, cipher=TLS\_ECDHE\_RSA\_WITH\_AES\_256\_GCM\_SHA384) id  15.20.8293.19; Tue, 31 Dec 2024 05:20:43 +0000 Received: from DM5PR05MB3497.namprd05.prod.outlook.com  ([fe80::a76c:f4ed:6e7b:52a8]) by DM5PR05MB3497.namprd05.prod.outlook.com  ([fe80::a76c:f4ed:6e7b:52a8%4]) with mapi id 15.20.8293.000; Tue, 31 Dec 2024  05:20:43 +0000 From: xxx xxxxx  To: xxxxx xxxx  Subject: test 2 Thread-Topic: test 2 Thread-Index: AQHbW0O4Zip2tOIZ5EuLXJwzyuLSEg== Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2024 05:20:43 +0000 Message-ID:  Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: msip\_labels: x-ms-publictraffictype: Email x-ms-traffictypediagnostic: 	DM5PR05MB3497:EE\_|DS7PR05MB7496:EE\_|CY8PR05MB9817:EE\_|BL3PR05MB10292:EE\_ x-ms-office365-filtering-correlation-id: 8d384e7f-4a5b-4448-428f-08dd295adfcd x-microsoft-antispam: BCL:0;ARA:14566002|8062599003|8060799006|19110799003|15030799003|15080799006|6115599003|461199028|7092599003|102099032|440099028|3412199025; x-microsoft-antispam-message-info: =?iso-8859-1?Q?nASNhKKSzMpSXWc3FuDhbF1fPAdAwFjbA+8+RBUquh0IRXbh5Uy+j1s19j?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?qR4uto4TRjEMKZl5jW+rz5+22s6k629G+yxqQ/HJ+rqDZL+qTk91TeENkq?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?rmkUoqZe08v4aBXgSbMiSKSoX/Y1Z3Jg9xHpBECRQrniwG9WTHyDHwHC3L?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?+KSIWh4C6danY1i3oXf6cskiVK4P025XlArS8dorQr8nLAr/3k3dPayZq6?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?jAesM/iZR3NBB6+iwvQi58eRBgDYruuKU0LjJZsBgxc8CNsyc2WF0z+dlc?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?Nzb1enj0WFD6sdDFNi1pZY26ETqdWT3ypJJ1E+CjXp06sUsX3fRvBIPWRk?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?Phcq4tip9wzsaxSX+MDkIayKDI+h2GvDDAGyRkaX3Qb8XskYuNzg7bddcH?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?efVZe4gLPB6eXNz2qzB6deJcVrYOeX4C11jTBl3JEieIFpwdR/WLfC9rTp?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?T2Upc2FuKJy19bDdk6x5hq+lRKTfkz7eAplUFOf4FUp3FVFzz6vUDr2Fvt?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?rLkTRRQrkYB9bg/X5lcQ2KoSz6AECYXVObk02QvIeDqYirvk+Aa5VNArHH?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?ZQB5jnsZVTyFVOYVl+yJH8Pmxn+bchZGzG7aJhsK05jBVlPNe4JWbrqPB5?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?MWKHU9M/R599Bv0KVgnO2u1960eHrfpSBP6UGIY9FN7iAtQQf1mvGOcUom?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?5zUtAUqYZzhle1LuMEMVDbSeBdfJWNyplz9VjLDr/9aTipcWrOVcFqx1oV?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?kpboXfe2Y5YbPExxL+4xWAt1dQ98c8JY4Bsjs7FEE8UhpYNtLYeQ/LxnJG?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?911m2L81blVRccGB9SOAq93ytxcyo3RpEo1CQ/6CHeOQa5joNx5IMdUQi/?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?f4XRlJMpfQhB5DGqk81chPN1DUP1Xc2zBQ1rYXMxGbZf4AfdfdsujMIzBE?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?KLLwJN7PIrBeHc2RUaYDYKXZr6N1uXR1uUxC1rsr1zODQgBgDzvxK3vkv8?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?zZetyHqQAzIlqN0FCSVaOXNu3HxYa17D6CNU6AAkrLVPxlbQSMnMJE1Ud1?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?WKCgspp3HAFUafmnw5dTFjLGxPzcNNL23nAwQvMgdyYWq2PZijplKy6cMH?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?DURtooY6iAAMQNeJMiuAftrjQnItgwdg1sKtVgBvVqAvUYgMtIKZHIFzyW?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?ozBSjz3cESBniA=3D=3D?= x-ms-exchange-antispam-messagedata-chunkcount: 1 x-ms-exchange-antispam-messagedata-0: =?iso-8859-1?Q?zUbsWW+orSrEeKpzYUik20txnoM01aGwitQTR9mKflVtSoRg/aoMFASMXY?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?olDoVQ6Bj84V80wHmtkFIDe2c1WAZKNCZZ1PCnUfoWmYt0DCWTypbVGIHm?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?m3KI1Gy+/P052uD/4BKU1VrfNUPShCyIICEJGUpjRyYeWPon3hQfsuusai?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?DRrrzh7Axj5N1zhWlISkSpDAvRiuu3xjOfPXj634/wNdz/ZLvic5I5R7xY?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?VPX+EYKvxueuTUb3vlcCwaqk6SO1OsVlmOYUSw8GSlXZ8j1gCaT0ZD6PCC?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?ZEL0Uzs72xNiZP1IPt36XMdflcRhI59iPqkcqa8ljf7qF7S4D8hcaTgssN?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?M5jqfGR30198OkrJJrQdDuR7fDMNd/NwgztrusQP+jLJq5yePV4R/cUefX?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?PzAABrBPu9hlXEHaryFP/3buW8mMVKHrPKJTvS7LzTxTA7XHAqN0hzZgAA?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?QmQ4vQFLoG9DzG3OaZMuxShY8m077okn0aqYQd1BCLy7AY/V7tNqZjaNSR?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?cyGWPItMe8kbXYMlsGNl8s/XJw05O0x9cgEnDHXDAA/VRtjaJT3DqsB7Ul?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?+zOuikwlUOOCEuiJtVTKbkFpw9HFpYGnyTlFMpSUWktnSBhI+nqPZvVo/q?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?2Ewygxyyk+uTBe1D7JyDNGhD3hpVk/39gt9VIr/0CsC3ubrT2Lr43R2Wlz?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?m5oSxjra4LTOjxvfqNVGDYk5k99lw7LIi5tvF9Tf3PgPipksoFSqE4vIyn?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?McNOFsV/sRCyaKjD2802HoeGC29HzlHDAha/WQ+4qo59fr2iQ0W+EKpeSD?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?mk/VytzNqmGuiinYRfp22+jm/JesYHZ5Pb3XAOsHtJgXj0d3tQ9Q7Gl/mt?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?AwUZh2yEZo9xS/gZhi+zhAgyG5yBcU72zw1BvsDl6r8v+yUJ+THTtP4v47?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?HSq9ZmJ9jECTABz1SBkJxXhUppPpozHDMhEwFEf+z3sz0hXxT2dimIv4bm?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?3SuLEc9H69QgpP5UsZseCpk3AigD35c+GV4fNpCkH2T/XUzr1/jJzAIpUL?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?Kr1ia0sB+KChyVAVWv80et+9TTjcJKlBEaBUFye5Wb0BnE0f7nLQ1J5DQ7?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?RnlkB+vy/hpfcERnP9KDp2FTwkYrpw4C5fI7LKWaLvpcP/jez3tVp8JRBu?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?PqXa8SAdCnT3L75WsTut/F99cJtqA18W03vZbjE43rmDsIUQ0RjLej2pu2?=  =?iso-8859-1?Q?s6q72NyIwUPn87rg7rBo0tKgZ0qP5pJAe861dwGGI=3D?= Content-Type: multipart/alternative; 	boundary="\_000\_DM5PR05MB34979BC1670119E243DB4B78E30A2DM5PR05MB3497namp\_" MIME-Version: 1.0 X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-AuthAs: Internal X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-AuthSource: DM5PR05MB3497.namprd05.prod.outlook.com X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-RMS-PersistedConsumerOrg: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-Network-Message-Id: 8d384e7f-4a5b-4448-428f-08dd295adfcd X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-originalarrivaltime: 31 Dec 2024 05:20:43.4483  (UTC) X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-fromentityheader: Hosted X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-id: 84df9e7f-e9f6-40af-b435-aaaaaaaaaaaa X-MS-Exchange-CrossTenant-rms-persistedconsumerorg: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 X-MS-Exchange-Transport-CrossTenantHeadersStamped: DS7PR05MB7496 Return-Path: ******@outlook.com X-OriginatorOrg: outlook.com

Answer 1

Any update on the issue of sending emails to Bellsouth.net mailboxes? Having the same issue. Also a paying Office365 user.

Answer 2

Am I speaking to a bot? I'm not trying to be funny or rude, everything I just read tells me you didn't read what I wrote. Additionally, your response feels AI generated because it's just one big word salad of mostly nonsense.

I will reiterate:

1. I can send email to that same Bellsouth.net account just fine using my Gmail account.
2. The problem only presents itself from the Microsoft side when I use my Outlook account. It doesn't matter if I use the Web Portal or the Outlook desktop application.
3. It takes a full 24 hours for bounce back and I get the above listed error.

You are suggesting I look into 550 4.4.7, but no where in the error I provided does that show up. I only see 550 5.4.316. Furthermore that article is for email administrators which I am not. I am a Microsoft 365 paid subscription user and I would not expect to be told "fix it yourself" when it's clearly outside of my ability to do so.

My hope was that being that you are the email provider (outlook.live.com) you had the ability to reach out to Bellsouth.net (ATT) and fix this because this is way outside of my reasonable realm responsibilities since I am just a mere end user. Being that this is yet another dead end, I guess I will go contact Bellsouth.net on behalf of Microsoft to fix their problem for them.

This is genuinely mind numbing.

If you want to give me system administrative access to outlook.live.com backend let me know and I will fix Microsoft's problem for them. That's what you are asking me to do, so just send me my credentials and I will get started on it.

Answer 3

Dear Eli Hayon1

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

According to your description of the problem, you are not able to send letters bellsouth.net using Outlook mailbox address.

For this issue, I would like to confirm if this problem only occurs when sending bellsouth.net (AT&T) mailboxes? Are you able to send properly to other recipients using your Outlook mailbox address?

Actually, the community staff can't directly view the user's account mailbox settings and modify them due to permissions, but based on the error you provided, if your mailbox sends mail to other inboxes (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) just fine, I'm tentatively suspecting that the bellsouth.net mailbox server may be using Outlook to send mail to your account. You can let the recipients who use bellsouth.net mailbox or if you have bellsouth.net mailbox, you can try to whitelist the mailbox in bellsouth.net environment, and then test whether it can be sent successfully.

At the same time, you can also try to rule out whether the problem is caused by Microsoft based on the content of the link:Fix NDR error 550 4.4.7 in Exchange Online - Exchange | Microsoft Learn

Finally, if you follow the link but still can't solve the problem, you can basically tell that bellsouth.net (AT&T) service provider on the server side of your Microsoft mailbox marked as spam, thus blocking all your emails sent to bellsouth.net, this problem, including you and the recipient himself, as well as Microsoft can not be acted upon, the only way is to let the recipient with the This is a problem that neither you, nor the recipient, nor Microsoft can do anything about. The only way to deal with this problem is for the recipient to contact the bellsouth.net (AT&T) service provider and explain that your Outlook mailbox is preventing you from sending to bellsouth.net, and the service provider will intervene to deal with this issue.

Feel free to text back if you need further help.

Best wishes

Chris.S-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist