Meraki Support Email Failure to Send

[nbv]

I opened a support ticket with Meraki about an issue we had. They responded quickly but when I tried to reply via email, I got a bounce-back from mailer-daemon@googlemail.com that said support@meraki.com couldn't be found, or is unable to receive mail. Then at the bottom it says MY email account is disabled. This is quite confusing since we do not use Google for our mail provider. When I tried a message trace, it appeared my email sent correctly. I have not received any other reports like this from other staff in my office either who respond to gmail account daily. I attached a picture of the email body from the bounce-back.

Is Meraki having email trouble right now? I can see that they use salesforce for ticketing, so maybe it's something related to that? Or maybe the recent DMARC requirements Google is enforcing?

Just wanted to put this out there to see if other people have had issues. I wasn't sure if my email response was truly received and I ended up commenting on the ticket through the "My cases" web page.

[alemabrahao]

If you want you can call the support.

[Brash]

I just replied to a support email and haven't received any bounce notifications.

[BlakeRichardson]

Doing a NS lookup shows that Meraki.com uses Google for MX and their DMARC record is valid and is strict.

What do the message headers say?  Also as mentioned you could phone them. 

[sambhit08]

So I got a response not long after posting this funnily enough. The response was I should call support as they prioritise inbound calls. The ticket mentioned I had been cut off after 1.5 hours on hold to support.

I have literally been on hold today for over 5 hours across three different calls. Seems their IVR only allows you to be on hold for 1.5 hours before your booted off the line. Lets see how long this one lasts for currently been on hold for 30 mins .

[nbv]

Are you also receiving bounce-back emails?

[PhilipDAth]

Wow - that is bad!

Not a great fix, but try calling at a different time of the day (early morning or later evening) so you can go to a different support centre in the world.

[nbv]

Thanks for all the replies, it was well past the end of day for me when I posted this and we hadn't had any reports like this from our organization. I just figured I'd post here just in case others were having problems.

I'll give them a call today, like suggested, to see what's going on and post an update.

[BlakeRichardson]

It would be nice if Meraki support offered a call back option to save possibly stressed network admins sitting on hold instead of trying to troubleshoot. 

[BlakeRichardson]

@sambhit08  If you are having issues getting in touch with support still I would suggest getting hold of your Meraki account manager and let them know you are having problems 

[nbv · Accepted solution]

Hi everybody,

I figured out the problem and am now able to email support@meraki.com just fine. It was specifically caused by how Google Drive and Google Workspace handle interactions with external users. It's likely not something Meraki could fix unless they can see my account as some sort of guest in their own Workspace. I don't know much about how that works since we don't use Google for our email provider.

I imagine this is a very niche problem, but I'll add what I found out and my best assumptions below.

Q1: Why did the bounce-back say my Gmail account was disabled?

A: Early last year, I received a Google Drive document from a vendor using a Google environment. I never created an account to access the document but I did receive a One-Time-Passcode to open the file inside of Google Drive. Near as I can tell, me accessing that document auto-created a Google account using my work email even though I didn't go through any setup process. I have not accessed that file since the day I received it, thus I have not even opened Google Drive for probably over a year. I imagine Google auto-suspends accounts like these after a period of no usage.

Q2: Why did the bounce-back happen when sending to Meraki support's email address but not others?

A: Google processes emails to Workspace Group accounts and individual accounts differently. If a Gmail account is disabled (my auto-created account), it cannot send to group accounts. My assumption is support@meraki.com is one of those Workspace Group accounts. My organization deals with individuals so this is probably the first time anyone here has sent an email to a Google Group account.

Q3: How did it get fixed?

A: I had to log in to the Google account tied to my organization email. That's it. Before I even logged in, it said my account was disabled. I was then emailed a One-Time-Passcode to sign in and it forced me to create a password and setup a Google account. The account I created doesn't appear to be set up like a typical account. It does not have Gmail capabilities by default, certain settings are turned off, etc.

Overall, this was an easy fix once I realized what happened. I now know more about Google Workspace environments than I ever wished. Google auto-creating an account like that then suspending it is a bit frustrating though. Especially when the person doesn't realize their Microsoft work email even has a Google account!

Thanks to everybody who gave suggestions!