PBI Report Server Email Distribution Sent But Not Received

[lynnma]

Hi PBI Report Server Forum Folks,

I am using PBI Report Server, such that I am able to send out emails using Subscriptions in Power BI Paginated Reports.  This works for individuals.  However, when I use a Distribution Group, the Report Server communicates the email is sent, but nobody receives it.   In Report Server Configuration Manager, we have the SMTP Settings as follows:

Sender Address:                                                   reporting@andersonhospital.org

Current SMTP Delivery Method:                          Use SMTP Server

SMTP Server:                                                        mail.andersonhospital.org

Authentication:                                                     No Authentication.

Agian, this works in Power BI Paginated Reports,  if I set the Subscription Email to individual users, where its succcessful being sent and received.  However, for a Distribution Group, PBI Report Server show "Success" when the email is sent, but its not received.

Please provide solutions.

Thank You,

Very Appreciative,

Mark Lynn.

Power BI Analyst/Data Analyst/Programmer.

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @lynnma , I hope you're doing well! Just checking in to see if you had a chance to review the details shared earlier. If any of the information addressed your needs, feel free to mark it as "Accept as Solution"  to help others in the community. Please let me know if you have any further questions!

[v-hashadapu]

Hello @lynnma , Just getting back to see if the shared details answered your question. If so, marking it as "Accept as Solution" and giving a 'Kudos' would be greatly appreciated to guide others in the community. Feel free to reach out with any additional questions!

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @lynnma ,
I wanted to follow up and see if you’ve had a chance to review the information provided here.
If any of the responses helped solve your issue, please consider marking it "Accept as Solution" and giving it a 'Kudos' to help others easily find it.
Let me know if you have any further questions!

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @lynnma , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

This usually isn’t a problem with PBIRS itself or your SMTP settings, but rather with how your distribution group is configured in Exchange. The distribution group maybe set to reject unauthenticated senders and since your PBIRS SMTP setup uses no authentication, Exchange silently drops the message. To fix this, ask your Exchange or IT admin to run this command:

Set-DistributionGroup -Identity "YourGroupName" -RequireSenderAuthenticationEnabled $false

This allows anonymous emails, like those from PBIRS to be accepted by the group. It’s a safe change in most internal environments but should be cleared with your security team. Next, ensure the sender address you’ve configured is a real mailbox or alias in Exchange. If it isn’t recognized, Exchange may also refuse to deliver the message to a group even though it works for individual addresses.

If the issue persists after that, check SMTP server logs or have your admin inspect Exchange message tracking logs for signs that the message was dropped or rejected after handoff. You can also check the PBIRS logs at:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Report Server\PBIRS\LogFiles

If this helped solve the issue, please consider marking it “Accept as Solution” and giving a ‘Kudos’ so others with similar queries may find it more easily. If not, please share the details, always happy to help.
Thank you.