Auto-reply emails from Gmail (and similar services) are sent to @amazonses.com instead of @im.agni.lindenlab.com, breaking in-world delivery
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Meshbody Resident
When a user sets up an automatic email reply (e.g., vacation responder or canned response in Gmail) for incoming Second Life emails, the auto-reply is incorrectly addressed to an Amazon SES bounce/proxy address (something like
xxxxxxx@amazonses.com
) instead of the original Second Life IM gateway address (username@im.agni.lindenlab.com
).As a result, the auto-reply never reaches the sender in-world, and the original sender receives no indication that their IM triggered an out-of-office or automated response.
Steps to reproduce (Gmail example):
- In Gmail, enable “Canned Responses” / Templates (Labs/Settings → Advanced).
- Create a new template with your desired auto-reply text.
- Create a filter that matches incoming emails from @im.agni.lindenlab.com(or specifically the Second Life IM address).
- In the filter actions, choose “Send template” and select the template created in step 2.
- From another Second Life account, send an in-world IM to the avatar whose email has the auto-reply configured.
- The IM arrives as an email → Gmail sends the canned response automatically.
- Observe the “To:” address of the sent auto-reply: it is an @amazonses.comaddress, not@im.agni.lindenlab.com.
Expected behavior:
The Reply-To or the effective destination should preserve the original
@im.agni.lindenlab.com
address (or provide a correct Reply-To header) so that auto-replies from users’ mail clients are delivered back into Second Life as IMs.Impact:
Users who rely on out-of-office replies, support bots, or automated responses cannot inform senders that they are away or that messages are being handled automatically. This breaks a long-standing and heavily used feature of the email-to-IM system.
Thank you for looking into this!
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Maestro Linden
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Maestro Linden
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Maestro Linden
Hi Meshbody Resident, do you have a record of which address the failing auto-reply message is going to? Does it match any of the headers in the original email from SL (you can use 'show original' in Gmail to see the raw email)?
With a manual email 'reply', gmail successfully sends to to the
From
address, which will be something like Maestro Tester <abc..123@im.agni.lindenlab.com>
. I'm not seeing a Reply-To
header in emails from SL, which would be used instead of From
if it existed. I suspect that your gmail autoreply is using the Return-Path
address, which would be used for things like automated bounce messages.Meshbody Resident
Maestro Linden Hey Maestro! Is this the info you're looking for?
From: Meshbody <meshbody.com+canned.response@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 02:53:03 -0800
Subject: Re: Connect with & See Common Interests
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_582_2045910308.1765882383587"
Precedence: bulk
X-Autoreply: yes
Auto-Submitted: auto-replied
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Maestro Linden
Meshbody Resident: Okay, so we see that your canned response autoreply was sent to
0100019b26cac676-fa44948b-ba31-4174-8968-dcc5a7b46203-000000@amazonses.com
. What I'm curious about is if that address matches the Return-Path
in the offline IM email that it was responding to, or if it's getting that address from somewhere else.Meshbody Resident
Maestro Linden I input the original email information into chatgtp and this is what its saying:
The address is the
Return-Path
(also known as the envelope sender or MAIL FROM) in the original Second Life offline IM email.This matches exactly because automatic replies, such as out-of-office responses, are directed to the envelope sender address of the incoming message, not the visible "From" header.
Second Life (operated by Linden Lab) sends these notification emails through
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
. When no custom MAIL FROM domain is configured, Amazon SES uses a default subdomain of amazonses.com and generates a unique Variable Envelope Return Path (VERP)-style address for bounce and complaint tracking. This format allows SES to identify the specific message and recipient if issues arise.The reply address is taken directly from the incoming email's Return-Path header and envelope; it is not derived from any other source.
Meshbody Resident
Don't know if this helps! But chatgtp suggests:
Recommended Solution for Linden Lab
Configure a custom MAIL FROM domain in Amazon SES (e.g., a subdomain like bounces.secondlife.com or notify.lindenlab.com).This involves:Verifying the subdomain in SES.
Adding required MX (pointing to SES inbound) and TXT/SPF records.
Setting it as the MAIL FROM for the sending identity (lindenlab.com or im.agni.lindenlab.com).
Benefits:Auto-replies go to the custom subdomain.
SES processes them internally (tracking bounces/OOTO without forwarding raw replies).
Improves DMARC alignment and deliverability (reduces "via amazonses.com" in recipients' clients).
SES already handles bounce/complaint notifications via SNS or email forwarding; a custom domain prevents unnecessary raw auto-replies from reaching amazonses.com.This is a standard SES best practice for notification emails and would resolve the misdirected auto-replies.
Maestro Linden
Meshbody Resident: Great, thanks for confirming.
FullBliss Resident
I vote too
JuanMarshall Resident
I believe that the user's expectations for automatic email replies should be met. I vote this be fixed.