KnowledgeBase Articles » How do I diagnose why an e-mail message was blocked?

Monday, August 31, 2026, 15:20

How do I diagnose why an e-mail message was blocked?

Category: General

Solution ID: 00000353

Summary:

How do I diagnose why an e-mail message was blocked?

Answer:

To investigate the details of why an e-mail was blocked, use the PerfectMail Web-UI. Navigate to "E-mail > Mail Log", search for the problem e-mail, then click on the e-mails subject to pop open the message viewer. In the header section you'll see four (4) expandable sections with a 'plus' icon beside them: Headers, Score, Logs and Body. Click on the "Score" header to expand that section to display the scoring details.

The Score section is where you will likely find the answers to why your e-mail message was blocked. The header line for the Score section also has links to "Report Spam", "Release Message" or "Resend Message". If you click those links you will see your actions logged in the Score section.

The four (4) expandable sections are described below.

Headers:

The Headers section displays the message Envelope and the raw message Headers subsections.

The Envelope was negotiated during e-mail transmission. It shows when the e-mail transaction actually happened, which host send the email and from where, who the sender was reported as (referred to as the Return-Path) and who the recipient was.

It is noteworthy that emails may be sent to your server as a single transaction for multiple recipients or they may come as individual transactions for each recipient. The envelope displays which e-mail recipient was actually being sent to for the message, for a particular transmission.

The Headers subsection displays the raw, unformatted e-mail headers, as they were sent during the e-mail transmission.

Score:

The scoring details display various analysis and actions that were applied to the e-mail. Each line displayed is a summary of a particular group of tests; for example "Relay Server Analysis". You can click on the [+] link to expand the summary to see the details for that analysis group.

At the bottom of the "Score" section is a summary of the total "SPAM SCORE", an ANALYSIS message and the final RESULT, along with any actions that were performed on the e-mail after it was initially processed.

Logs:

The Logs section displays detailed diagnostic information that shows the PerfectMail analysis and filtering decisions. This information is useful to PerfectMail support staff when diagnosing filter decisions.

Body:

Expanding the Body section changes the message display to show the raw, unformatted e-mail body, as it was transmitted to the mail server.

Tags: diagnose, investigate, email, blocked, false, release, fix

Link to this article: https://perfectmail.com/kb/diagnose_blocked_email

Updated: Monday, August 31, 2026, 15:20

-- David Rutherford