ProofPoint has blocked our IP for a year - and I'm at wits end

Question

ProofPoint has blocked our IP for a year - and I'm at wits end

Hello all, As you may know, the company ProofPoint is an Apple partner, and is engaged (I think) to reduce misuse of icloud emails.

We have two servers solely set up for our web-app, which is a specialised forum for apartment owners.
The new servers were established about the same time, with the same provider, with clean new IP addresses - and as mentioned above, are only used for this web-app.
During a testing phase a YEAR ago, we became aware that our in-house icloud emails weren't receiving notifications via the app, and further investigations revealed that the cause was that ProofPoint had placed a block on that server's IP.
We immediately, via their website form initiated a Support Ticket, which, the site indicated was lodged, BUT we have never received any response to that Ticket, nor have we received any response to four subsequent Tickets we initiated - nothing. In over a year!!
Yesterday, we contacted Apple support, but the devices area of support is the main section and they said it wasn't an issue they could assist with.
Some relevant matters:

SPF: DKIM: DMARC: are, I believe all configured correctly (and Gmail gives a PASS to all of them). The IP is not blacklisted by any list we are aware of. Our other server's IP isn't blocked by ProofPoint.

So, literally at wits end, I'm reaching out to the developer subscribers here to see if they have any suggestions for us.

We currently are unable to accept any new subscriber that is using an icloud email address, and that's an absurd situation to be in.

Surely we don't have to go to the trouble and inconvenience of obtaining a new IP because of this!!! But when we can't get ANY response to the Support Tickets, it's really hard.

Thanks for any ideas/assistance

Posted on Aug 31, 2025 1:53 AM

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Answer 1

MrHoffman

Level 10

149,979 points

Aug 31, 2025 8:05 PM in response to kimfrombrisbane

I’m guessing that this is an SMTP server and DNS configuration question, mixed up with a DNS or IP or SMTP reputation blocklist somewhere.

Alternatively, maybe no local mail server, but you’re sending out a whole lot of mail, and that email looks spam-like? If so, maybe offer RSS?

AFAIK, Apple doesn’t host domains for business mail services at iCloud, so probably not that.

But am unsure that’s what is being asked about.

This is a user-to-user community. While there are a few third-party developers around here, this isn’t a developer-related question, and this isn’t an Apple-related question. Not even remotely.

As a guess, if you are trying to run an SMTP server, hire somebody that can verify the SMTP server settings and DNS configuration, that can help deal with spam and spam-related issues, and that can then work through this with your mail server and with ProofPoint.

Or host your email server elsewhere, as small local SMTP servers are always going to have issues with this, and are always going to have ongoing issues with spam and blocks.

As for Google, they are quite aggressive at blocking smaller SMTP servers. Whatever Google might have verified (with your mail server and its DNS?), I’d also try MxToolbox, there.

If you’re not trying to run a mail server, or don’t need to run a mail server, configure the forums to use a relay to another and established mail server.

And more generally, pretty much every IPv4 address has a history, and a reputation. Similarly, the reputations that the larger chunks of IP addresses — the ASNs — can also have.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

92,366 points

Aug 31, 2025 7:23 PM in response to kimfrombrisbane

If you know that you’re being blocked by a third-party services of some kind, you’ll need to contact them.

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Answer 3

Aug 31, 2025 8:45 PM in response to MrHoffman

Very considered response Mr Hoffman - thank you for taking the time.

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ProofPoint has blocked our IP for a year - and I'm at wits end

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