Spam Score Not Passed From Gateway Build 9623

Problem reported by Scarab - 5/14/2026 at 11:53 AM

Resolved

After upgrading from Build 9575 to 9623 the SmartHostSpamWeight is no longer being passed from the Incoming Gateway to SmarterMail. All incoming Spam is not being filtered as the SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight is now incorrectly being scored as "0 (Authenticated)" resulting in a SmarterMail-SpamAction of "None | NoAction" as shown in the example below:

X-SmarterMail-SpamAction: None | NoAction
X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: 0 (Authenticated)
X-SmarterMail-Spam: SPF [SoftFail]: 5, DMARC [failed]: 0, Reverse DNS Lookup [Passed]: 0, Null Sender: 0, ISpamAssassin [raw:1.2]: 2, DKIM [None]: 0, _ARC: none, Custom Rules [MEDICAL: 5], BARRACUDA: 0, UCEPROTECT Level 2: 0, UBL: 0, IADB: 0, BACKSCATTER: 0, BONDEDSENDER: 0, SEM-BS: 0, UCEPROTECT Level 1: 0, MAILSPIKE-WL: 0, MSRBL: 0, MAILSPIKE: 0, HOSTKARMA - Yellowlist: 0, SURRIEL: 0, HOSTKARMA - Blacklist, HOSTKARMA - Brownlist, HOSTKARMA - Whitelist: 0, PROTECTED SKY - Red: 0, SURBL - SpamCop: 0, DNSWL: 0, SPAMRATS: 0, SENDERSCORE: 0, GBUDB: 20, SEM-BL: 0, MAILSPIKE-Z: 0, WPBL: 0, PROTECTED SKY - Yellow: 0, MSRBL-Virus: 0, URIBL - Black, URIBL - Grey, URIBL - Red: 0, SURBL - Multi: 0, SEM-URIBL: 0, SEM-FRESH15: 0, Declude: 18
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamKey: 680306812
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamSalt: -794348846
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpamWeight: 50
X-SmarterMail-SmartHostSpam: 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
X-RBL-Warning: WEIGHT10: Weight of 18 reaches or exceeds the limit of 10.
X-Declude-Sender: hr.jk@samsung.com [210.251.95.146]
X-Declude-Spoolname: 62438580.eml
X-Declude-Scan: Outgoing Score [18] at 08:33:32 on 14 May 2026
X-Declude-Tests: ROUTING [4], SUBCHARS-55 [1], SUBCHARS-60 [1], SUBCHARS-65
[1], FILTER-COUNTRY [10], FILTER-SUBJECT [2]
X-HELO: hjk.ne.jp
X-Identity: 210.251.95.146 | hjk.ne.jp | hjk.ne.jp

We did not change any settings post-update. I have enclosed the Incoming Gateway Settings and the Whitelist Settings on our primary SmarterMail installation below:

Any ideas of how to to circumvent this behavior so that the Spam Score is correctly passed from the Gateway once again?

3 Replies

Reply to Thread

Derek Curtis Replied

5/14/2026 at 4:18 PM

Employee Post

We haven't had any tickets on this, but we'll do some testing on our end. May get a ticket started with you if we don't see anything on our end.

Derek Curtis

CCO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

Scarab Replied

5/15/2026 at 10:52 AM

We have a Support Ticket open for this issue and were able to isolate the cause.

The cause appears to be having a Whitelist Domain entry with the same root domain as the Incoming Gateways which was (as of Build 9623) resulting in "This sender will be authenticated automatically by listed in SMTP Auth Bypass" and "Spam Checks skipped: User authenticated" causing the X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight to be "0 (Authenticated)".

We were able to mitigate this issue by removing the Whitelisted Domain.

The bug in Build 9623 appears to be that entire string of the Whitelist Domain Name is no longer being parsed and compared during SMTP and instead SmarterMail is doing a right trim for the root domain (such as [^.]+\.[^.]+$) resulting in a partial match with the Hostname of the Incoming Gateways. In our specific case it was doing the following logic:

Whitelist Domain: mail.scarabmedia.com = scarabmedia.com

Incoming Gateway: mta01.scarabmedia.com = scarabmedia.com
Whitelist Domain of scarabmedia.com = Incoming Gateway of scarabmedia.com.

Whereas in previous versions it was comparing the entire string, including the subdomain (i.e. mail.scarabmedia.com != mta01.scarabmedia.com) and not matching.