Help Removing MX Record

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    Hello!

    I recently switched to wordpress.org, and I’m having issues with an email address that used to be setup here at wordpress.com.

    The email in question is (email visible only to moderators and staff).

    I’m not able to properly send/receive emails from this address. It’s also still forwarding to my gmail account, and I can’t find the settings to turn this off.

    My host and I suspect that there’s a dated MX record that’s sending emails to another location.

    The MX records on our end are pointing to the right place, but apparently there’s an old MX record out there that makes receiving mail go to smtp-fwd.wordpress.com.

    I’ve logged in to my settings here on wordpress (Domain –> Email) and nothing is set up there. I’ve also looked around in the Admin panel and wasn’t able to change anything.

    I can’t seem to access the MX records because I no longer have my custom domain on wordpress.com.

    Can you please remove this old MX record for us? Or tell us how to access it? I’ve scoured the help files and couldn’t find anything.

    I’ve also sent two requests for help via the Contact Page — it’s been 4 days and I haven’t received an answer yet.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • guicmazeredo · Staff ·

    Hi, @sarasmusicstudio.

    I’ve described the path to remove MX Records below:

    1. Go to Domains and click on Edit for the relevant domain.
    2. Select Name Servers and DNS.
    3. Click the DNS Records link.
    4. Search for the MX records that you want to remove and click delete on it.

    I’m also tagging this post to call staff attention, so they can have a look at your end and help you find the MX Records under your account.

    Best of luck!

  • mikestraw · Staff ·

    Hi, Sara,

    It appears your domain is still pointing to the wordpress.com name servers. Your registrar/host should be able to redirect the nameserver records to point to your new host.

    There’s more information available on moving your domain here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/move-domain/transfer-domain-registration/

    If you still can’t get it working, and the information @guicmazeredo provided doesn’t help, one of the Happiness Engineers should be able to help you out with their extra access. They should respond to the modlook tag before too long.

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    Thank you both, but unfortunately this didn’t work. I don’t have any of the options listed — Name Servers & DNS isn’t there.

    I’ve already transferred my domain. Perhaps that’s part of the issue? We don’t seem to have access to the old nameserver records anymore.

  • gemmacevans · Staff ·

    Hi sarasmusicstudio,

    I can’t seem to access the MX records because I no longer have my custom domain on wordpress.com.

    sarasmusicstudio.com is registered through DreamHost and was connected to your WordPress.com site with domain mapping.

    If the domain was registered through us or still mapped here, you would up able to update the DNS through your WordPress.com account. However, DreamHost control the DNS for sarasmusicstudio.com so you will need to update the MX records through your account with them.

    Please let me know if you have any questions.

    Thanks!

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    I had my friend who registered my domain at dreamhost look into this already. :/ Here’s what he said:

    I don’t have any DNS records for sarasmusicstudio.com on my dreamhost account now. Also, when I do a DNS query using ns1.wordpress.com as the DNS server, it returns the MX record that points to smtp-fwd.wordpress.com. So I think that must be some setting in the wordpress DNS database. Sorry, I’m not sure how to edit those settings.

  • lastfarthing · Member ·

    Hi @sarasmusicstudio,
    I don’t know if this will be helpful, I’m sure your friend already knows this, but in your Dreamhost control panel your MX wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) show up under Domains -> Manage Domains.

    Instead they’ll want to go to Mail -> Custom MX and click the edit button next to sarasmusicstudio.com

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    It’s worth a shot, lastfarthing. I’ll check this out. Thank you!

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    The problem is that we’ve lost access to the configuration tools when we made the switch to .org from .com>

    We should have made this change BEFORE we switch… but you know how hindsight works.

    We’re stuck in no-man’s land, and the business email that I’ve used for 5 years no longer works. :(

  • guicmazeredo · Staff ·

    Hi again, @sarasmusicstudio.

    Focusing on this important information that @gemmacevans gave:

    If the domain was registered through us or still mapped here, you would up able to update the DNS through your WordPress.com account. However, DreamHost control the DNS for sarasmusicstudio.com so you will need to update the MX records through your account with them.

    Have you tried to check this with Dreamhost support? Maybe it’s not easy to find where to manage DNS on their end and I think asking help for their technical support may be the best way to go.

  • sarasmusicstudio · Member ·

    This is what I got back from my friend who handled the hosting before:

    The SOA line says that ns1.wordpress.com is the authoritative server for this domain. The NS lines show all nameservers for the domain. The A record is for your web server or other internet services. The MX record says which host should handle mail. As far as I can tell, all of this info is coming from ns3.dreamhost.com.

  • gemmacevans · Staff ·

    Hi sarasmusicstudio,

    I’ve double checked your domain using a couple of external domain lookup tools. The first said sarasmusicstudio.com was registered through DreamHost. The second said the domain is registered through FastDomain.

    I cross checked this and it appears your domain is in fact registered through FastDomain. It’s likely the first tool is displaying out of date information especially if you have transferred the domain to another registrar since you purchased it.

    The next steps are to login to your FastDomain account and point the name servers to where your site is hosted. Then update the MX records from the same account.

    Let me know how you get on.

  • lizbethks · Member ·

    Hello,

    I’m Sara’s sibling and the one with the admin controls on FastDomain. I contacted FastDomain and the servers are pointing to her website and all MX records are updated to work with G Suite. It has been this way for a few weeks but emails have been routing elsewhere.

    sarasmusicstudio.com MX records in FastDomain for reference:

    1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
    5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
    5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
    10 ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
    10 ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

    FastDomain confirmed everything was correct and performed a digwebinterface.com check. They also confirmed the rogue WP MX record that seems to be causing the issue. The record is:

    smtp-fwd.wordpress.com

    FastDomain said the solution was either for WordPress.com to delete the dated MX record entirely or set it to G Suite. Considering that the domain and website has been transferred out, we’d really prefer the deletion option. For user experience, if it can also be timed to propagate overnight, much appreciated.

    Thank you.

  • mikestraw · Staff ·

    Hi, @lizbethks,

    I took a look at the domain’s settings. See the WHOIS record below. It looks like what’s happening is that FastDomain is pointing to WordPress.com nameservers instead of the FadtDomain nameservers. So, it’s ignoring the configured MX records. We can’t provide specific support on updating those name pointers, but I did find this on FastDomain about updating your nameservers:
    https://my.fastdomain.com/cgi/help/222

    The nameserver is configured separately from the other DNS records and tells the lookup where to go get the information.

    Whois query for sarasmusicstudio.com…
    Results returned from whois.internic.net:
    Domain Name: SARASMUSICSTUDIO.COM
    Registry Domain ID: 1618351126_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
    Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.fastdomain.com
    Registrar URL: http://www.fastdomain.com
    Updated Date: 2016-10-03T05:58:27Z
    Creation Date: 2010-10-01T03:23:32Z
    Registry Expiry Date: 2017-10-01T03:23:32Z
    Registrar: FastDomain, Inc.
    Registrar IANA ID: 1154
    Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
    Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
    Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
    Name Server: NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
    Name Server: NS2.WORDPRESS.COM
    Name Server: NS3.WORDPRESS.COM
    DNSSEC: unsigned
    URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
    >>> Last update of whois database: 2017-08-05T15:46:21Z <<<

    Hopefully this will get the emails going.

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