Form email plugin unreliable

[p38]

Hi,

Is there a reason why my email plugin is erratic when it comes to sending the email after a new record is posted?

Sometimes it gets sent, other time not.

I have selected an article to attach with numerous placeholders.

How can I determine where the bottleneck occurs, in other words where can I see if the email was in fact sent?

Will the email still get sent if a placeholder might not exist due to spelling errors in the article template?

Paul.

 

[cheesegrits]

If you are using the PHP Mailer, then there is no way of telling what's happening.

Is this a UNIX host? Can you use sendmail? With sendmail, you get full logs, and can see exactly what's happening.

-- hugh

 

[p38]

Ok,

I have activated sendmail on our hosting (it is linux).

I have tested using the J2.5 mass mail, and the emails are sent and received correctly.

I have been able to determine that the email is erratic in sending from one record to the next in the list (I edit and resend).

• Will the email still get sent if a placeholder might not exist due to spelling errors in the article template?
• Are there any checks that will prevent an email being sent from one record to another?

Paul

 

[cheesegrits]

Not sure what you mean by "spelling errors in the article template"?

Also not sure what you mean by "from one record to another". Each form submission is an entirely separate, standalone transaction.

If you have access to your sendmail logs, the best way to see what is happening is with an ssh session, in which you do:

tail -f /var/log/maillog

... and watch that as you submit your form.

If that doesn't help, catch me on Skype ('cheesegrits') and we'll take a look.

-- hugh

 

[p38]

Not sure what you mean by "spelling errors in the article template"?

There is an option to send an article as the body of the message. This article can contain placeholders. It is possible to make a mistake with incorrect element names in the placeholder. If this occurs, will an email be prevented for being sent?

Also not sure what you mean by "from one record to another". Each form submission is an entirely separate, standalone transaction.

I have a list with say 10 records. I edit record 1, and press the save button. An email is successfully sent.
I then go to record 4, and edit this one. When I press save, an email is NOT sent.
I then go to say record 9, and do the same, an email is sent successfully.

This makes me wonder if there is not a validation issue with data within the particular record I am editing that prevents a successfull email send?

If you have access to your sendmail logs, the best way to see what is happening is with an ssh session, in which you do:

Unfortunately my hosting is only able to give me logs via a web interface, and is delayed, so it wont be able to show me "as it happens"

Paul.

 

[rob]

If this occurs, will an email be prevented for being sent?

no that shouldn't cause the email to not be sent.
Can you post your plugin settings as a screen shot? Perhaps you are using placeholders in the 'from' or 'to' fields?

 

[p38]

Here it is. I do have placeholders in from/to, and I did take them out to see if this was the problem.

No difference.

Paul.

 

[cheesegrits]

Have you been able to look at your sendmail logs, and see if it looks like the "missing" mails are being handed to sendmail for delivery?

If the logs aren't helping, I'll need to get on your site and put some debug code in.

I've not been able to replicate any kind of issue, and we don't have a slew of people reporting email problems, which there would be if this was a systemic problem, as it's one of the more heavily used plugins.

So I still suspect some kind of problem with the form, or the server config,

-- hugh

 

[cheesegrits]

So if you want to catch me on Skype, we'll take a look at your site.

-- hugh

 

[p38]

Thanks, I'll skye you with login details when you are online (we are 8 hours behind)

 

[p38]

Can I PM you login details?

Paul

 

[cheesegrits]

I'll be working all night tonight, GMT-6, probably till about 6am. Hopefully that should mean we'll overlap. I'd prefer to have you on Skype, so you can show me your setup, get me logged in to your control panel to look at logs if we need them, etc.

-- hugh