How to Troubleshoot Inbound Parse - Events not being posted

This article explains how to troubleshoot when events are not being posted in the endpoint configured for inbound parse.

Assumptions

• User has configured an inbound parse in their account: https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/parse
• User has performed the instructions suggested here Setting Up The Inbound Parse WebHook
• User has read the article what's inbound parse
• User has a valid domain authenticated for the domain being configured for the inbound parse

Expectations:

SendGrid has provided this article to assist our customers to the best of our ability.  However, it is important to clarify that the majority of this configuration is completed outside of SendGrid on the user's endpoint.  Therefore, if any problem should arise, we expect our users to kindly reach out to the endpoint's vendor support. 

Review:

1.  Check that inbound parse is configured in SendGrid. 

Review this setting by going to Settings > Inbound Parse. For example:

2.  Check if the MX record is configured in the host correctly. 

Use the Dig command to check if the MX record for the host is pointing to  mx.sendgrid.net with a priority of 10.

The MX record mx.sendgrid.net must be the only record in the results for the host.

In this example the host is parse.thepanch.xyz.  

The dig command would be dig mx parse.thepanch.xyz.
The following example with the dig results shows it is correctly configured. 



2.1  What if there are multiple MX records? 

If there are two or more MX records, SendGrid will post to the one with the higher priority (The smaller the number the greater the priority). This could lead to events not being received by your endpoint, if the MX record with the higher priority doesn't point to SendGrid.

SendGrid recommends just having one MX record pointing to mx.sendgrid.net  

Note: Please check with your domain administrator before deleting records or performing changes as this might break the configuration. 

2.2 What if the MX record looks fine, but emails sent from the authenticated domain are not getting posted to the endpoint? 

The domain from where you are sending, is the same or similar to the one configured as host in your inbound parse. For instance, sending from an address like example@thepanch.xyz to example@parse.thepanch.xyz doesn't get posted to the inbound parse with host parse.thepanch.xyz. However, you might notice that if you send from external domains, events get posted successfully. 

If this is the case, it is recommended to check your configuration on your DNS host side. It's likely the Email Routing Configuration in your DNS host is incorrectly configured. Notice that the following option,  "Remote Mail Exchanger", should be selected.

Here is how it should be configured in cPANEL:



3.  What if the configuration looks correct, and events are still not being posted?

3.1 Verify that the emails are being sent to the correct end point domain.

For instance;


This means that every time an email is sent with a "to address" with domain parse.thepanch.xyz, SendGrid will parse the message and post it to the URL. The keyword in this case is the HOST.

However, if an email is set with a "to address" with domain thepanch.xyz , the events will not get posted unless there is a configuration on your DNS host that forwards the emails received by thepanch.xyz to parse.thepanch.xyz

Why?

Turns out when an email is sent, it gets routed through the MX record. Since the MX record for inbound parse is configured for parse.thepanch.xyz, when an email is sent to thepanch.xyz that domain doesn't have an MX record configured pointing to mx.sendgrid.net.  Therefore, SendGrid is not going to post there because it is not receiving the email in the expected configured domain. 

3.2 Events are still not being posted 

Try configuring the inbound parse using a different URL (endpoint). For instance, an online tool like https://webhook.site/  can be used as it will provide a URL to test your WebHook easily. Then send a test email and confirm if it's being received by the site.  If it was received by the site correctly for the test tool, we recommend that the user engage their endpoint's vendor support and troubleshoot from their side. 

3.3 Events are still not being posted (Reserved Words)

There are reserved words that shouldn't be used when trying to post to inbound parse. For instance; if you send to unsubscribe@parse.thepanch.xyz, SendGrid will not post the events.