What does the Microsoft bounce message 'technical difficulties and our engineers are working to resolve the issue at the earliest' mean?

Email marketer from Microsoft Community Forums recommends checking the Microsoft 365 Service health dashboard to see if there are any known ongoing issues that might be causing the bounce message. She mentions that this will give an official update from Microsoft about the problem and its expected resolution time.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that in his experience, every time he received that reply (going back months) he had to resubmit the ticket.

Email marketer from Mailjet Blog recommends reviewing email content for potential spam triggers, such as excessive use of certain keywords, large images, or unusual formatting. Microsoft might flag emails with these characteristics as suspicious, leading to delivery delays or bounces.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that she has received this off and on for the past couple months and you may have to resubmit that ticket.

Email marketer from Microsoft Community Forums suggests that, while it could be a temporary issue, this message *might* also indicate a problem with the sender's or recipient's account, like exceeding sending limits or a security flag. He advises contacting Microsoft support if the issue persists to rule out account-specific problems.

Email marketer from Reddit mentions that she received the same message and waiting a few hours before resending worked. She suggests Microsoft likely had a temporary outage.

Email marketer from Reddit explains that if the sending IP address has a poor reputation (e.g., due to previous spam activity), Microsoft might temporarily block or throttle emails from that IP, resulting in this kind of message. He recommends checking the IP's reputation using online tools.

Email marketer from EmailGeeks Forum recommends ensuring that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are properly configured for the sending domain. Incorrect or missing records can lead to deliverability issues, and Microsoft might interpret this as a potential security threat, resulting in delayed or bounced emails.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that he had to resubmit tickets too after getting this response.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Tips Blog suggests checking if your sending IP or domain is on any blacklists. Being blacklisted can cause deliverability problems and trigger messages like this from Microsoft, as they might see your emails as spam.

Email marketer from Email Deliverability Guide explains that high outbound email volume can sometimes trigger temporary blocks, especially from new or less-established sending IPs. She recommends gradually increasing sending volume to build a positive reputation and avoid being flagged as a potential spammer.

Email marketer from Microsoft Community Forums suggests that this message indicates temporary technical difficulties on Microsoft's end, such as server issues or outages, which are preventing emails from being delivered. He advises waiting and resending the email later, as the issue should resolve itself once Microsoft's engineers fix the problem.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that he got that yesterday, too, then later they replied to unblock and assumed they were hit by the same outage as Facebook.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains they saw issues with Microsoft this week too and had to submit, got that same response which was the first time he's seen it, and hopes its a good sign.

Email marketer from StackExchange suggests a tiered approach: first, wait and resend. If the problem persists, check Microsoft's service status. Finally, if neither resolves the issue, contact support, providing detailed information about the bounce message and the attempted email.

Expert from Word to the Wise suggests the message often indicates a temporary greylisting situation at Microsoft's end. She explains that Microsoft may be deliberately delaying acceptance of email from new or untrusted sources to combat spam. This often resolves itself automatically upon retry.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that she has had 2 calls this week specifically for MS problems and has been dealing with a 3rd client.

Expert from Spam Resource explains this message could point to Microsoft employing aggressive tarpitting techniques. He says that tarpitting involves intentionally slowing down email connections from suspicious sources to make spamming less efficient. Therefore, the 'technical difficulties' message could be a side effect of this tarpitting process.

Expert from Email Geeks says that he wish he could trust the response and that he would submit a new ticket.

Documentation from RFC Standards explains that SMTP error codes in the 4xx range (e.g., 451, 452) typically indicate temporary failures. These suggest that the server is currently unable to process the request, but the client might be able to successfully retry at a later time.

Documentation from Microsoft Docs details that throttling policies in Exchange Online are designed to prevent abuse and maintain system performance. If a user exceeds sending limits due to these policies, they might receive temporary error messages indicating the system is experiencing technical difficulties. This is to prevent spamming or other harmful behavior.

Documentation from Microsoft Docs explains that a 'temporary failure' or 'deferred' status often indicates a transient issue, such as a server overload or network congestion. The system will typically retry delivery automatically, and no action is required from the sender. However, repeated temporary failures may indicate a more persistent problem.

Documentation from Microsoft Docs states that NDR SMTPSEND.DNS errors, which can trigger such messages, often mean a DNS lookup failure. This suggests a problem resolving the recipient's email server address, which could be a temporary DNS server issue or a configuration problem on either the sender's or receiver's end.