Email error 554

A 554 email error is sometimes thought of as a catch-all of email errors. It is generally used when there is a generic delivery failure that another email error code doesn't directly define a problem for.

Some mail servers will also use a 554 error even if there is a specific error code that defines what went wrong all ready.

You should receive a bounce-back message from the server with a variation of email error 554 in the subject, and the body should contain your original message that you attempted to deliver.

Example bounce-back message

Common variations of the 554 email error

• 554 5.7.0 Message Size Violation
• 554 5.7.1 Message blocked due to spam content in the message
• 554 5.7.1 [P4] Message blocked due to spam content in the message.
• 554 5.7.1 <sender@yourdomain.com>: Relay access denied
• 554 5.7.9 Message not accepted for policy reasons. See http://postmaster.yahoo.com/errors/postmaster-28.html
  
  
• 554 RLY:B1
• 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn't have a ymail.com account
• 554 Denied (Mode: normal)
• 554 Invalid recipient
• 554 Malformed mail denied!
• 554 Message is not RFC compliant; missing "Date" header
• 554 Message not allowed - [PH01] Email not accepted for policy reasons. Please visit http://postmaster.yahoo.com/errors/postmaster-27.html [120]
• 554 Message permanently rejected
• 554 Message refused
• 554 no valid recipients, bye
• 554 rejected due to spam content
• 554 rejected due to virus
• 554 <sender@yourdomain.com>: Relay access denied
• 554 Sorry, no mailbox here by that name.
• 554 Spam detected
• 554 Spam violation, the content of your e-mail contains illegal characters, re-sent after examination
• 554 Transaction Failed Spam Message not queued.554 Virus found, message permanently rejected (#5.3.0)

Resolving a 554 email error bounceback

Because errors in the 554 series don't always bounceback for a common reason, they could be either a hard or soft bounce. To better understand soft and hard bounces, and general email bounceback errors you can read why does email bounce, bounceback, or error?

In our example bounce-back error above the reason the message has failed is because an auto-reply was trying to be sent to an account that didn't exist. So the RemoteDomain.com mail server responded back with a 554 Invalid recipient error.