Subscription notification broken, for me anyway

  • Bug
  • Thread starter rhody
  • Start date
In summary, the conversation involved a user experiencing problems with email notifications for thread subscriptions. They searched for a solution and found a similar thread from April 2008 where another user had the same issue. The user had tried various methods, including changing their email, but nothing worked. They asked if the problem was on their end or the server's end. They then discussed potential causes and solutions, including creating a new account or searching for a solution on other forums. The conversation ended with the user asking for a dummy email to be sent to them as an experiment and questioning if the source code for the forum had been customized.
  • #1
rhody
Gold Member
681
3
I did a search and it seems a user back in April of 08 had a similar problem, see https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=226031&highlight=subscription+email+notification". Post #2 of this thread says that Redbelly (a PF mentor) has experienced the same thing.

My problem is that every thread I subscribe to (with instant notification) has stopped working, I unsubscribed, re-subscribed to all of my threads to no avail, in desperation, I even changed my e-mail, bad move, because guess what, I did not get my notification activation e-mail so I was locked out of PF for a couple of days, that was no fun I can tell you.

My question, is the problem all on the webserver/e-mail server side or is their something in my setup, cookies possibly that are keeping posting e-mails from reaching me ? I will blow chunks and delete my cookies if instructed to, however I don't think the real root cause has ever been determined. It would be nice to have this feature back again, and so far a couple PM's to mentors and Admins hasn't helped. Thanks...

Rhody...
 
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  • #2
rhody said:
and so far a couple PM's to mentors and Admins hasn't helped. Thanks...

Rhody...
:cry: I don't know how to fix the problem.
 
  • #3
Evo said:
:cry: I don't know how to fix the problem.

I know, Evo, and I appreciate your concern and thanks for helping me the other day get reactivated. Eventually, this will get fixed one way or another, I will do some google searching in the meantime, maybe I can find a possible cause, you know me by now, I am persistent, am not a quitter, if there is a solution to this, eventually we will find it. It has to be a combination of things, or it would be happening to everyone else as well, and it is not.

Rhody...
 
  • #4
I vaguely remember another thread on this recently, but I can't find it.
 
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  • #5
rhody said:
... so I was locked out of PF for a couple of days, that was no fun I can tell you.

Dang. I'm glad you're back. I thought my eyes were failing me; not seeing you for a while. :biggrin:
 
  • #6
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  • #7
dlgoff said:
Dang. I'm glad you're back. I thought my eyes were failing me; not seeing you for a while. :biggrin:

Redbelly98 said:
Yes, not sure why this happens (or fails to happen). Even better than using My PF, is to click on https://www.physicsforums.com/subscription.php?do=viewsubscription&folderid=all" [Broken]

Redbelly,

Yeah, I already discovered that, and am using that as a workaround, thanks,

dlgoff,

I am about, spending time outside, breaking in the new bike, got a chill yesterday, and have not been able to stop sneezing fits since, even at lower revs, smooth throttle application it pulls like a freight train on steroids, but that's another story. Thanks for your concern.

Rhody...
 
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  • #8
I did some searching and found http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?12111-auto-notification-email-name". From other posts as well, it sounds like something having to do with a plug-in that the admins use.

Having said that, I am wondering if chroot or greg were to copy all of my account info, save it, then recreate my account, then the problem would go away.

It is worth a shot, what do you say, chroot, greg, is it worth a try ?

Rhody...
 
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  • #9
I PM'd Redbelly98 about the subject and it appears once broken, it cannot be fixed, which leads me to my next plan. Create a sock puppet, rhody-sp, then post to thread and see if the verification works, if it does, can Greg or Chroot, copy the characteristics of rhody's profile to rhody-sp, mark rhody-sp as inactive, delete rhody's id, then rename rhody-sp to rhody ? I know that certain ID's can be deleted because I have seen members after a single post have their thread removed and their ID wiped from the system, that is why I think that this cludgey approach just might work. I may lose subscriptions in the process, but these are easy to add again using the search feature.

Rhody...
 
  • #10
rhody said:
I PM'd Redbelly98 about the subject and it appears once broken, it cannot be fixed, which leads me to my next plan. Create a sock puppet, rhody-sp, then post to thread and see if the verification works, if it does, can Greg or Chroot, copy the characteristics of rhody's profile to rhody-sp, mark rhody-sp as inactive, delete rhody's id, then rename rhody-sp to rhody ? I know that certain ID's can be deleted because I have seen members after a single post have their thread removed and their ID wiped from the system, that is why I think that this cludgey approach just might work. I may lose subscriptions in the process, but these are easy to add again using the search feature.

You will loose all posts - they will be assigned to old user, no matter what the name is.
 
  • #11
Borek said:
You will loose all posts - they will be assigned to old user, no matter what the name is.

Ok Borek,

I will just keep searching for a solution and scratch that idea. There has to be tens of thousands of forums out there driven by the same or similar software, someone, somewhere has to have seen this problem before and have come up with a solution to it.

Rhody... :yuck:
 
  • #13
Borek said:

Borek,

I am reading the trouble reports on e-mail notifications now. As an experiment, could you go into my profile and click on send an e-mail message, and send me a dummy one ? One more thing, did any third party hired by greg, and or Greg or Chroot change the source code for vb, then recompile to make it "custom" ?

Thanks...

Rhody...
 
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  • #14
Borek, Greg, Chroot,

After reading http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/troubleshoot_email", could you check the logs as specified below:
First, make sure that you actually have turn on the email functions here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> Enable Email features -> Yes

Then verify that the email system for your forum is working via the Admin Control Panel. You can do that under diagnostics.

Admin Control Panel -> Maintenance -> Diagnostics -> Email Diagnostics

If there is an error stated, you can look at the logs for your mailer daemon to find out what error is occurring. If their is no error and the email is sent to the supplied address, then the issue is on the ISP/mailbox end. Continue reading further down this page for other suggestions.

If there is no error and you didn't get the emails then make sure you have a valid webmaster's email address in your Admin CP settings and that there is only one address. In addition make sure the domain on the email address matches the domain for your site. Otherwise some ISPs may treat this as spam. Then try this:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> Enable "-f" Parameter -> Yes

Then try the vB email functions again. If it still doesn't work, then this is either a server and/or mailbox issue. By default vB uses PHP's mail() function for all its email and uses the SMTP server specified in php.ini. If PHP and the mail server are configured correctly then email will work. You can view the details here: http://us3.php.net/mail/

To troubleshoot any email problems you will need to view the mail logs on the server to see what happened to those emails that don't work. Once vB sends it to PHP it's in the hands of the server. :cool: If you are on a shared server you may need to ask your host to look through the logs for you.

Many large service providers such as Verizon, AOL and MSN are implementing aggressive filtering. In many cases, the customers of these providers can place the email address you use for notification in their contact list and then your emails will be allowed through. If this doesn't work, you should contact the provider in question and ask to be placed on their whitelist. Some providers will charge a listing fee for this.

In addition, AOL (and possibly others) will not accept emails from domains that do not have reverse DNS setup. It's possible these emails are being placed into a spam folder or are being filtered.

The problem could also be caused by aggressive spam filters on the user's machine. In these cases their anti-spam software should be configured to allow emails from your domain name. Refer them to the documentation for the software they are using.

If all else fails you can switch to the SMTP mail option to see if this works better for you. These settings are here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> SMTP Email -> Yes

Then fill out the appropriate SMTP settings for your account and server.

also check this, taken from the second link above, this is a simple format issue, but could cause e-mail failure as well, using php code:
bool mail ( string $to , string $subject , string $message [, string $additional_headers [, string $additional_parameters ]] )

Sends an email.
Report a bug
Parameters

to

Receiver, or receivers of the mail.

The formatting of this string must comply with » RFC 2822. Some examples are:

* user@example.com
* user@example.com, anotheruser@example.com
* User <user@example.com>
* User <user@example.com>, Another User <anotheruser@example.com>

subject

Subject of the email to be sent.
Caution

Subject must satisfy » RFC 2047.
message

Message to be sent.

Each line should be separated with a LF (\n). Lines should not be larger than 70 characters.
Caution

(Windows only) When PHP is talking to a SMTP server directly, if a full stop is found on the start of a line, it is removed. To counter-act this, replace these occurrences with a double dot.
<?php
$text = str_replace("\n.", "\n..", $text);
?>
additional_headers (optional)

String to be inserted at the end of the email header.

This is typically used to add extra headers (From, Cc, and Bcc). Multiple extra headers should be separated with a CRLF (\r\n).

Note:

When sending mail, the mail must contain a From header. This can be set with the additional_headers parameter, or a default can be set in php.ini.

Failing to do this will result in an error message similar to Warning: mail(): "sendmail_from" not set in php.ini or custom "From:" header missing. The From header sets also Return-Path under Windows.


Note:

If messages are not received, try using a LF (\n) only. Some poor quality Unix mail transfer agents replace LF by CRLF automatically (which leads to doubling CR if CRLF is used). This should be a last resort, as it does not comply with » RFC 2822.

additional_parameters (optional)

The additional_parameters parameter can be used to pass additional flags as command line options to the program configured to be used when sending mail, as defined by the sendmail_path configuration setting. For example, this can be used to set the envelope sender address when using sendmail with the -f sendmail option.

The user that the webserver runs as should be added as a trusted user to the sendmail configuration to prevent a 'X-Warning' header from being added to the message when the envelope sender (-f) is set using this method. For sendmail users, this file is /etc/mail/trusted-users.

Report a bug
Return Values

Returns TRUE if the mail was successfully accepted for delivery, FALSE otherwise.

It is important to note that just because the mail was accepted for delivery, it does NOT mean the mail will actually reach the intended destination.

Isn't trouble shooting tons of fun, NOT...

Rhody... :devil:

P.S. Since all manual e-mails to PM PF addresses and e-mail addresses work properly, it may have to have something to do with a canned or preset header, which could cause the message not to be delivered. The logs should show it as well. You can post to anyone of my subscribed threads to see if in fact there is a header problem. If not then I need to understand more about your configuration to troubleshoot properly, privately of course.
 
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  • #15
rhody do you receive any emails from PF? I suspect we run into some problems with our SPF settings because I route incoming mail to my gmail account even though I send though the PF server.
 
  • #16
Greg Bernhardt said:
rhody do you receive any emails from PF? I suspect we run into some problems with our SPF settings because I route incoming mail to my gmail account even though I send though the PF server.

Hi Greg,

Yes I got PM's and e-mails from mentors and members both Borek and member dlgoff tested it successfully this week, and there were no problems. FYI, Redbelly98 has not been able to ever get subscriptions working after they were broken for him awhile ago either. I have a suspicion like I said in my earlier post that it has something to do with the template the vb uses when sending subscription notifications, but without the logs it is hard to prove. The links I provided, especially the second one, suggest tracing the e-mail from the source to the final mail server destination as some message boards use multiple servers. The links I sent also suggest that there are a ton of options that came be overwhelming to Admins or the people you contract as admins. Who knows, this could be another way hackers gain access to PF, which would be very bad. Thanks for your attention, I am willing to spend time researching this, or writing and testing code. Remember I write software for a living and have run into many situations like this over the years. The majority of the time I have been able to solve the problem with patience and persistence.

Rhody... :wink:
 
  • #17
Just to clarify something: when I had email notification enabled for thread subscriptions, I usually got the emails, and only occasionally noticed that I did not get an email some of the time. The problem of occasionally missing an email continued, and at some point I disabled the email notifications (for subscribed threads) and instead I now check for activity in subscribed threads when I am at PF.

Rhody, sorry I think I did not explain this very well in my earlier PM to you.
 
  • #19
Greg Bernhardt said:
is anyone currently experiencing any problems receiving email from PF?
Good here Greg, that's how I got this notification.

Rhody...
 

1. Why am I not receiving subscription notifications?

There could be several reasons why you are not receiving subscription notifications. It could be due to an error in the notification system, a problem with your internet connection, or an issue with your email settings. It is best to troubleshoot each of these potential issues to determine the cause.

2. How can I fix the broken subscription notification?

The first step to fixing a broken subscription notification is to check your email inbox and spam folder to see if the notifications are being sent but are getting caught in your spam filter. If that is not the case, try clearing your browser's cache and cookies, or try using a different web browser. If the issue persists, contact the website or app's customer support for further assistance.

3. Is this a common problem with subscription notifications?

Subscription notification issues can happen from time to time, but they are not a common problem. Most websites and apps have systems in place to ensure that notifications are sent out correctly. If you are experiencing this issue frequently, it could be a problem specific to your device or account.

4. Can I manually check for subscription updates?

Some websites and apps offer a manual way to check for subscription updates. This could be in the form of a "refresh" button or a way to manually sync your account. Check the website or app's settings or help section to see if this option is available.

5. Will I miss important updates if my subscription notifications are broken?

If your subscription notifications are broken, you may miss some updates, but it is unlikely that you will miss any critical or urgent updates. Most websites and apps have other ways to notify you of important updates, such as through email or push notifications. It is always a good idea to regularly check your account or the website/app itself for any updates or changes.

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