Fix for not receiving confirmation mails on hotmail accounts

New Member Joined: Jun 19, 2006 Posts: 14

Well it's not really a fix, but I think I've lockated the problem and it's well... the most stupid thing ever, really.
There is nothing wrong with the script, but it seems to me that the problem only arises when you set a hotmail adres as reply adres (aka the administrator email located under Preferences in the Admin menu, and the email on your board configuration)

I could narrow the problem down to the "From: blabla" part in the mailfunction code (BE SURE TO KNOW THAT YOUR MAILFUNCTION IS WORKING, if you're not sure use the test script below) so I first just deleted the From part and everything worked, but it was showing the email from the apache server from the provider, and that's not what it should be so then set a fake email like blabla@noreplybla.com and I got the email on hotmail!

So in short: don't use hotmail as administrator email adresses

(don't know if this issue was directed before but on my previous post about this problem I got almost no reply, hope this helps some guys out)

grtz

Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6432

Which previous post?

Is it that hotmail won't receive email from the same address?

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:52 am

kguske wrote:

Which previous post?

Is it that hotmail won't receive email from the same address?

that might be also true, but no one that was registering with a hotmail adress received any mail, and others using their provider mail, or just any non hotmail mail did receive mails

the previous post I am referring to is, and you did reply(where for thanks):
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went dead quite quickly, and no solution came out of it, so that's why I make this post, so everyone knows that it's not the script, but just the admin mail that's the problem Wink

and no one else has to have the trouble of manually activating every user that signed up with hotmail

I just can't imagine I'm the first to find out what causes this trouble Confused

however I thought to share it with all others, I've seen alot of posts in my search to find the solution from others that had this problem, and didn't find any solutions (keep in mind that I can't read the whole Ravens board lol so srry if I missed the solution somewhere)

Grtz

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:54 am

btw: this was the code I used to check if the mail function was working:

Code:

<? 


   $to = 'mail@domain.com'; 


   $subject = 'test email'; 


   $msg = 'If you are reading this, it appears that your mail setup is functioning correctly!'; 


   mail($to, $subject, $msg) or die('MAIL ERROR'); 


   die('Mailed - This just means that the PHP mail() function is working.<br />If you do not receive the email, then there is probably something wrong with your SMTP setup.'); 


?>

I didn't make it, and shame on me but I forgot who did, it was someone on this forum, Confused

so if it's yours feel free to claim is Razz

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:05 am

Something you may want to try is setting up the SMTP options in forum config.
I think the underlying issue is the server configuration is sending php mail as 'anonymous' and hotmail is blocking it because of that.

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:32 am

tnx for your reply guardian, but that isn't the case, I could send a test mail through the code I posted above, and I received it on both hotmail and my provider email, so the setup from the server isn't wrong, hotmail just blocks emails that carry a hotmail adress that's stated under the "From" part

smpt server didn't work either, no clue why not but guess it also had to do with the same problem as I just described about hotmail blocking hotmail adresses that aren't really send by the hotmail website or outlook...

got to go now, but if it isn't clear what I just posted I'll try to clean up my english and clarify it Wink

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:27 am

I wonder if your hotmail address is being treated as a spam email. Have you tried another hotmail address as the from address?

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 1:29 pm

kguske wrote:

I wonder if your hotmail address is being treated as a spam email. Have you tried another hotmail address as the from address?

it would really surprise me if it was on a spam list... because I never used that email adres before, and just created it for having my personal and webstuff seperate, haven't tried another account, because I just know it will turn out the same way

If any of you doubt this, feel free to test it and enter any hotmail adres, I'm sure you won't get any mails delivered to other hotmail accounts, it's not even that surprising I think... I'm pretty sure hotmail can detect if a mail was send using hotmail or another server that's just putting hotmail as reply adres, hotmail is most likely running a system preventing their own services being used for spamming, OR at least making sure that webservers can't be used for spamming in such way that it seems like it's comming from hotmail (srry for my bad english, got more to say then I can express)

basically: I think hotmail will only allow their own servers to send from hotmail to hotmail, and will not allow a webserver carrying a hotmail adress as stated under "From:..." sending messages to other hotmail adresses

Can you make up anything out of what I just tried to explain lol? I just don't think it's a code error, I'm very sure that it isn't actually, the code is working just fine, and the webserver is also setup the right way, it's just hotmail fighting spam and this is well "collateral damage" so to say

edit: oh well I'll try another hotmail adres anyway tonight when I don't bother any ppl on the website, will post results tomorrow, but trust me it will turn out the same way

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:06 pm

If what you're saying is true about hotmail detecting where the server is sent, you won't be able to make any changes to that (other than switching to a non-hotmail address).

Why not use one for your domain?

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 4:13 pm

kguske wrote:

If what you're saying is true about hotmail detecting where the server is sent, you won't be able to make any changes to that (other than switching to a non-hotmail address).

Why not use one for your domain?

yep, that's what I have done now, and it works Wink

, all we need now is some more ppl to check if I'm right, but everything I looked after (and that is ALOT indicates that way)

I know this might seem a bit far fetched, but I wouldn't post it if I weren't 100% believing this is all true, or at least it would fix the problem

Worker Joined: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 211

This fix has solved several email problems. It may be of some help
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Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:40 am

Dauthus wrote:

This fix has solved several email problems. It may be of some help
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Thank you very much!!! that looks very interesting I'm gonna edit the script and do a little test tonight, if this makes it possible to use a hotmail adres as admin email it would be that much better!!

As I stated above, I tried another hotmail email adres, 2 in fact just to be sure, to test if I would receive emails, both didn't return anything on other hotmail adreses, and did return on my provider email adres, in other words: the same problem