Email sending problem

[trancetopia]

Hi All,

Hope you can help. I've just purchased vb and installed it and everything is work absolutely great apart from one small issue.

New users are not receiving the activation emails because some filters my host has in place but i'm hoping there is a quick fix for this.

I get notifications that a new user has registered which is sent from [email protected] to [email protected]. So if a user registers with an email address other than using the @littlewales.com domain it's not being sent.

I've contacted the host and this is the 1st reply I received:

Every script that does generate an email on Fasthosts web severs must follow these rules:

- The from and the to address must be specified

- Both must contain valid email addresses

- At least one of those email addresses, either the from or the to must be a valid and existing Fasthosts email address

Specifically to the formmail.pl forms, please note that most of the scripts available to download around the Internet do use sendmail as a mail program. Note that sendmail is only available on Linux server so if you try to run this script on a windows domain it will not work.

I find this strange as the activation emails should be sending from [email protected] to the user. As admin I get the new user email notification.

I then had this following reply from the hosts which is confusing me.

The problem that you are encountering with your forum is due to a setting in the PHP.ini which sets the From Address in the script to [email protected]

This is the address that is used by the SMTP server to check the validity of the email, as stated in the previous email.

You will need to add the following line of code to the forum email script to change the email address in the PHP.ini for this script.

e.g.

<?php
ini_set("sendmail_from", " [email protected]"); //set from address
mail("[email protected]", "Testing PHPs mail function", "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3"); //send email
?>

I can't access the .ini file so do I really have to hack the code to get this working?

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,
Paul

[Dennis Olson]

PHP.ini is a configuration file. It must be edited to conform to your system parameters. That's not a hack. It's part of PHP setup/install.

[trancetopia]

PHP.ini is a configuration file. It must be edited to conform to your system parameters. That's not a hack. It's part of PHP setup/install.

That's what I thought and this is the latest response i've got back from the hosts:

You cannot edit the PHP.ini file.

The code that I entered into the previous email makes the changes each time the code is run. This is the only way that this will work.

There seems to be at the moment nothing I can do apart from hacking the code which is the hosts suggestion. There must be an easy solution for this?

[Steve Machol]

Try making sure the Webmaster's email address in the Admin CP is using the same domain your forums is on.

Also try this:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Server Settings and Optimization Options -> Enable "-f" Parameter -> Yes

[trancetopia]

Try making sure the Webmaster's email address in the Admin CP is using the same domain your forums is on.

Also try this:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Server Settings and Optimization Options -> Enable "-f" Parameter -> Yes

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for your reply. The webmaster address is correct ([email protected]) as i'm getting the new user email. I've changed the -f parameter to yes but unfortunately i'm still getting the same problem.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Paul

[Steve Machol]

Try the email diagnostics in the Admin CP and report back the results:

Admin CP -> Imports & Maintenance -> Diagnostics -> Email

If after all this you still don't get the email then this is a server and/or mailbox issue. You will need to view the mail logs on the server to see what happened to those emails. Once vB sends it to PHP it's in the hands of the server. If you are on a shared server you may need to ask your host to look through the logs for you.

[trancetopia]

Hi Steve, here are the results:

Test 1

sendmail_from: [email protected]
sendmail_path: None

Results

No errors were returned while attempting to send the email. Check [email protected] shortly to confirm you've received the email. If you don't receive the email, try sending the test to a different address. If that fails, check your mail server's configuration.

Test 2

sendmail_from: [email protected]
sendmail_path: None

Results

The mailing function returned an error while trying to send the mail.

Check your mail server to ensure it is configured correctly to allow PHP to send mail from it. You should also check your mail server's error log for more diagnostic information.

Steve, my host says that my domain either needs to be in the 'from' or 'to' part of the email. This test is sending it from [email protected] to [email protected] so surely test 2 will not work anyway?? Please correct me if i'm wrong. The 1st test to [email protected] worked.

Thanks,
Paul

[Steve Machol]

Sorry I'm confused. What is the difference between the two tests? I had already mentioned in post #4 that the webmaster's email domian needed to be the same as your server and you said it was.

[trancetopia]

Yes the webmaster email address is definitely the same as the domain the forums is hosted on. The webmaster address is set to [email protected] in the admincp.

The difference between the two tests are:

Test 1: I sent an email to [email protected]. This sent an email to this address which was ok as [email protected] would have been in the 'to' of the email.

Test 2: This was sent to [email protected] which was not delivered and i'm assuming this happened because the test said the sendmail_from was from [email protected] so my domain (webmaster address) was not included in the test mail.

Is this diagnostic page supposed to use my webmaster address ([email protected]) to send the test mail?

[jlangerud]

I am having the same sort of issue.. The teat shows the [email protected] The diag says all is well but the mail never gets to the recipient.

Help



Pertinent PHP Settings

SMTP:

localhost

sendmail_from:

[email protected]

sendmail_path:

/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

Help

Results

No errors were returned while attempting to send the email. Check [email protected] shortly to confirm you've received the email. If you don't receive the email, try sending the test to a different address. If that fails, check your mail server's configuration.

I have tried several e-mail recipent's with the same result.
You mention

<?php
ini_set("sendmail_from", " [email protected]"); //set from address
mail("[email protected]", "Testing PHPs mail function", "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3"); //send email
?>

I could not find this anywhere in the vB3 manual.
I assume the [email protected] can be the mailbox we set up for the domain. And this will set the "From" address.
I am a bit confused my the second line though. Is that spicific for other probl;em in this thread or will I need to add it as well.

I did not mean to jump into someone elses thread. This was the same kind of issue. Should I start another thread?

Thank you
John Langerud

[trancetopia]

Hi, John.

I don't mind you jumping on. The code was supplied by my host as an example but there is definitely something wrong somewhere.

I need to make a move in launching the forums so hopefully we will both get this resolved soon.

If you do fix it outside of these forums. Please let me know how you did it and i'll do the same for you.

Regards,
Paul

[jlangerud]

Thanks. WIll do.

I know the sending address needs to be a valid address. And no where in the manual does it refer to where this needs to be in the config.ini.

Keep the faith, we will figure it out.

[Steve Machol]

Test 2: This was sent to [email protected] which was not delivered and i'm assuming this happened because the test said the sendmail_from was from [email protected] so my domain (webmaster address) was not included in the test mail.

Is this diagnostic page supposed to use my webmaster address ([email protected]) to send the test mail?

The 'From' address is the Webmaster's email, not the one in php.ini. I suggest you contact your host and ask then to check the mail server logs. There's something weird about their configuration.

[trancetopia]

Hi Steve,

I've contacted my host and this is the reply I have got:

The From address specified in the PHP.ini is the default From address used when sending any emails from a PHP mail script.

You need to change this value, but do not have access to the PHP.ini to make these changes.

Using the INI_SET function provides you with the ability to make this change.

Advise vBulletin support of the above details, and they should be able to make the changes for you.

Does this make any sense to you?

Thanks,
Paul

[Steve Machol]

Not really. I have no idea what they are asking you to do. Please ask them for more specifics.