# Forum notification emails fail DKIM: stray quotes in the mail.\_domainkey TXT record

**URL:** <https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018>\
**Category:** meta\
**Created:** [October 6, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018 "2026-10-06T19:30:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kprzyb](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kprzyb](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/kprzyb)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018/1 "2026-10-06T19:30:09Z")

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Hi,

Small heads-up: notification emails from this forum arrive with `dkim=fail`. Gmail shows DKIM fail for the forum’s signature (selector `mail`), while SPF passes and DMARC passes (`p=QUARANTINE`), so mail still gets delivered thanks to aligned SPF.

The cause seems to be the DKIM public key in DNS. The `mail._domainkey` TXT record of the project’s main domain (served by the registrar’s nameservers) contains literal quote characters in the middle of the base64 key:

```auto
"v=DKIM1; k=rsa; s=email; p=MIIBIjANBgkq…G8DMG" "\" \"XZbjXGdr+W7OK04…IDAQAB"

```

Note the `\" \"` at the start of the second string: the quotes became part of the key data. The `mail._domainkey` record of the forum subdomain returns the same broken value.

The same key in the occams zone (served by the box itself) is correct:

```auto
"v=DKIM1; k=rsa; s=email; p=MIIBIjANBgkq…G8DMG" "XZbjXGdr+W7OK04…IDAQAB"

```

It looks like the split value from the box’s DNS page was pasted into the registrar’s DNS panel together with the `" "` separator. Removing the `" "` (or pasting the key as one continuous string and letting the panel split it) should fix it.

Thanks for the project and the forum!

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**Author:** ![JoshData](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/user_avatar/discourse.mailinabox.email/joshdata/32/2153_2.png) [@JoshData](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/JoshData)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 1:00pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018/2 "2026-10-16T13:00:47Z")

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Thanks! I think fixed now.

Some time ago the domain was hit by a DDOS attack (though I doubt we were the target) and I switched from my box itself hosting the domain to a more robust DNS provider, and I guess I didn’t copy the records correctly or maybe I pasted from a zone file and it wasn’t imported correctly. 😑

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**Author:** ![kprzyb](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kprzyb](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/kprzyb)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018/3 "2026-10-16T15:34:42Z")

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Confirmed - your reply arrived with dkim=pass (d=discourse.mailinabox.email, s=mail) and DMARC pass. Thanks for the quick fix!

And thanks for Mail-in-a-Box in general. I run it for a couple of my own domains and it’s been remarkably low-maintenance; the Status Checks page alone has saved me from several DNS mistakes of exactly this kind.

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**Author:** ![JoshData](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/user_avatar/discourse.mailinabox.email/joshdata/32/2153_2.png) [@JoshData](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/u/JoshData)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2026, 3:28pm UTC](https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/forum-notification-emails-fail-dkim-stray-quotes-in-the-mail-domainkey-txt-record/17018/4 "2026-10-20T15:28:22Z")

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Appreciated! Thanks!