Overview:

If someone tries to send you an email and receives a bounce-back message containing a "Mail Forwarding Loop Detected" or "Status 5.4.6" error, it means your email routing has accidentally been configured in a continuous circle.

To protect your inbox and ensure our email servers don't crash from an infinite loop, our system will automatically block and bounce any messages caught in this trap. Fortunately, this is very easy to fix right from your control panel!

What is an Email Forwarding Loop?

An email loop happens when two or more email accounts are configured to automatically forward messages to each other at the same time.

For example:

1. You configure info@yourdomain.com to forward all incoming mail to test@yourdomain.com.

2. Separately, you configure test@yourdomain.com to forward copies right back to info@yourdomain.com.

When a new message arrives, it bounces back and forth between the two inboxes hundreds of times in a matter of milliseconds. Recognizing that the email will spin forever without ever being delivered, the server steps in, terminates the connection, and rejects the message with a bounce error.

How to Fix It in Your Control Panel

To restore your mail flow immediately, you need to break the circle. One of the forwarding rules must be turned off. Follow these simple steps:

1. Log into your Customer Dashboard and open your Plesk Control Panel.

2. Click on the Mail tab on the left-hand menu.

3. Review the settings for the two email accounts involved in the bounce error. Click on the first email address, select the Forwarding tab, and note where it is sending mail.

4. Go back and check the Forwarding tab for the second email address.

5. Break the Loop: Determine the true direction you want your mail to flow. If you want emails sent to your business alias (info@) to land in your personal inbox (test@), keep that forwarder active. Then, go into your personal inbox settings and uncheck/disable the forwarding switch pointing back to the business alias.

6. Click OK to save your settings.

Once the reciprocal forwarder is disabled, your email routing is broken out of the loop and your incoming mail flow will return to normal instantly!