Tech Forum

I have long used the BYU alumni email forwarding service, so I don't have to change email addresses when changing internet service providers. But lately church administrative systems seem to have developed an aversion to byu.net email addresses. It started a few months ago when the Facilities Incident Reporting (FIR) system stopped sending email copies of building repair issues that I reported. I could not find the missing messages in any spam filters. I had to include a different email address in the "copy" box to get updates on the status of reported issues. Then today, I changed the password on my LDS account, which involves verifying my email address as a means of account recovery. Despite multiple "resend" tries, I never received the verification email at the byu.net address.

What is going on?

Ray McAllister

It's possible that your email service doesn't like the forwarding.

I know some ISPs have settings such that if the "From" doesn't match the IP address of the actual sender, the email is dumped. It doesn't even put it in the spam folder.

For a few year I had no problem, but then about four months ago, FIR simply stopped sending me confirmation messages for reports I filed. I’ve searched for error message that would indicates the cause in all the places I know where to look, without success. FIR receives and logs the report. My ISP (Comcast) accepts forwarded email to the byu.net address from other senders.

My email address in my churchofjesuschrist.org account is a byu.net email address.

My byu.net email address is associated with a gmail email address.

My ward leaders send email messages through the church website (clerk leader resources - applications - send a message).
At first, these messages were sent to my spam folder with the following message from google - Gmail could not verify that it actually came from ldschurch.org.
So I did what google told me to do - I created a filter that told the system to not send messages from noreply@ldschurch.org or noreply@churchofjesuschrist.org to spam.
This worked! I started receiving email messages from ward leaders in my inbox.

Last Friday, May 12, I was supposed to receive two email messages from church leaders. I did not receive them at all - not even in my spam folder.
I am the first counselor in Relief Society - so I tried to send a message from the church website to myself. I received nothing.
I sent my husband an email message from the church website. He received it.

I just changed my email address in the church website to my gmail email address. I sent myself an email message from the church website. I received it.

There is a problem with the byu.net email addresses.
It looks like it is BYU's problem and probably affects thousands of people.

Your prior response regarding ISP and forwarding may be what is happening.

Since you understand how the church's email system is set up, will you please help us and contact byu to rectify this issue?

Thank you!

I have the same problem. As Ward building representative, I submit periodic reports via the Facilities Incident Reporting System (FIR) for repairs. FIR refuses to send email responses and updates to my byu.net email address.

jrjennings wrote:Since you understand how the church's email system is set up, will you please help us and contact byu to rectify this issue?

This forum is primarily user-to-user support. I don't have any contacts with BYU to talk to them about their forwarding service. And, I'm not sure what they can do about it. The underlying problem is what the recipient (gmail, comcast, etc.) is doing to a church-sent email that passes though BYU. As mail service providers tighten the rules to block fake emails (spam), some people get caught in the cross-fire.

The simple answer would be to change the email on your account to your actual email. That way, the emails actually come from the institution described in the "From" field.

The byu.net forwarding system allows you to release particular emails that its spam filter caught, and also to set up custom rules that either block or allow specified senders or domains. You just do the following:

1. Go to filter.byu.edu (signing in with your BYU NetID)
2. In the "Email Finder" specify a date range and look to see if the missing email was caught by BYU's spam filter. If it was, you can select it (and any other useful emails you see in the list) and click Release. Those emails will eventually show up in your email box (it's not immediate, but should happen within an hour or less).
3. If you see email from senders or domains that you always want to receive email from, go to the Rules tab and create a rule to allow email from a specified sender or domain. You can create as many such rules as you would like.

If you have difficulty doing this, you can contact BYU IT Support at 801-422-4000 and they will help you.

I ran into the same problem earlier this year around the same time. The 'Send a Message' application in the Leader and Clerk Resources quit sending me confirmation emails that I had sent out. Here's a link to the thread I started on the forum: viewtopic.php?p=198085#p198085

I decided to test things out last night and changed my email in my church account from byu.net to gmail.com and I received the confirmation email to verify my new email address. I then changed it back to my byu.net email and I didn't receive the confirmation email. I even tried multiple byu.net addresses. There is now no way to get my byu.net email address verified in my church account. For the time being, I have had to change it to my gmail.com address.

I just got off the phone with BYU IT and they are calling the church support. One of the BYU help desk techs set up a new byu.net email and changed his church account to his new byu.net email address. He did not receive the verification email either. They were watching on the byu.net side of things and nothing arrived at their servers from the church domain. Church support said to submit feedback through the main church website.

Bottom line is the church systems were changed a few months ago and they will no longer send any emails to byu.net addresses. They need to fix the issue. It's not user error.