Fix RFC 5322 Email Compliance Errors in Sparkforge

RFC 5322 is the email format spec. When your sender name, address, or headers violate it, recipient servers reject the message outright — it never even hits the spam folder. Most violations come from special characters in sender names or malformed display formatting.

Bounce messages that point to RFC 5322 issues

• "The email was rejected because the From header or domain does not meet required technical standards"
• "The message was rejected due to protocol or formatting issues"
• "The sender address format does not comply with email standards (RFC 5321/5322)"
• "The email message format or headers do not comply with required standards"
• "The message was rejected due to a mail loop or excessive hops"

Common RFC 5322 violations

Header issues

• Missing or malformed From header
• Invalid characters in sender name or address
• Improper date formatting
• Excessive or malformed Received headers

Address format problems

• Special characters that aren’t properly encoded
• Missing angle brackets around email addresses
• Invalid domain name formatting
• Display names with disallowed characters

Message structure issues

• Mail loops causing excessive hops
• Lines longer than 998 characters
• Missing required MIME boundaries

Step 1: Audit every place you set a sender

Campaign senders

1. Go to Marketing → Email → Campaigns.
2. Open each affected campaign and click the email step.
3. Inspect From Name and From Email.

Workflow email actions

1. Go to Automation → Workflows.
2. Open every Send Email action and verify sender fields.

Bulk action emails

1. Go to Contacts → Bulk Actions.
2. Match the bulk sender info with your campaign standards.

Step 2: Standardize sender info

• Sender names: alphanumeric characters, spaces, and basic punctuation only
• Strip quotes, brackets, and symbols from display names
• Email addresses follow name@domain.com with no special characters
• Display names under 64 characters
• Reply-to addresses are valid and properly formatted
• All sending domains are authenticated (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

Step 3: Validate templates

1. Open Marketing → Emails → Templates.
2. Confirm no line exceeds 998 characters.
3. Test rendering across major clients before deploying.

Step 4: Run external compliance checks

• Mail-Tester.com — send a test from your campaign or workflow and review the report
• MXToolbox Email Header Analyzer — paste headers from a delivered message
• RFC 5322 validator tools for ad-hoc address checks

Recovery timeline

Phase 1 (1–2 hours): fix sender formatting across campaigns, workflows, and bulk actions — immediate drop in rejections.

Phase 2 (2–4 hours): clean up templates — fewer message structure violations.

Phase 3 (1–2 days): systematic testing — stable delivery without RFC errors.