Mail delivery failed

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poppy4
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Mail delivery failed

Post by poppy4 »

Hello. My forum is on version 3.3.7. I have a default mailbox with my host which I don’t use. Recently it has been receiving a lot of mail delivery failure emails. They are being sent by the board (topic replies) and involve mostly one member’s email address. She has not changed this. I am at a loss to know why this is happening. Is anyone able to throw some light on this please? I would like to stop them coming to me and for them to go to the correct recipient.
Thank you.

Edit: I should say that while most are mail deliver failures to one member’s email address, four other addresses were also involved. At least one was a private message notification sent by me to one of the members. It was sent (correctly) using the email address that I use for the forum but failed to deliver to that member and was bounced back to this default mailbox.
Last edited by Mick on Fri May 27, 2022 7:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Solved.
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Steve
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Steve »

Welcome, please see posts from the search : search.php?keywords=email+&fid%5B0%5D=661
@ The Chief Medical Officers guideline for men is that: You are safest not to drink regularly more than 14 units per week.
- I drank that today++ :lol: 🍺
poppy4
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by poppy4 »

Thank you for the link. There are 121 pages. I've looked through a number of pages but am unable to find anything similar. Basically, these are email notifications of replies and private messages that are being sent by the board but cannot be delivered so are being sent back to the default email address. I'm at a loss. Can anyone help please? If it is thought to be something to do with the host company, I can contact them but need to know for sure.
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battye
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by battye »

Hi poppy4, are you using SMTP or the default PHP mailer for your outbound emails?

I was having a few issues with mailing on my forum recently, and I found the best solution was to use the SMTP mailer that my web host provided. That fixed it right up - so if you aren't using SMTP, maybe that could be an option for you :)
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Mick
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Mick »

poppy4 wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 5:47 pmI can contact them but need to know for sure
This seems backwards to me, surely you should contact the host first? For example, if everything was working normally and something suddenly stopped through no fault of your own, assuming you’ve done nothing to cause the problem, then it would appear your host has changed something. Can you please post screenshots of your email settings, that would be two normally.
  • "The more connected we get the more alone we become" - Kyle Broflovski©
  • "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
    " - Harmony Cobel
poppy4
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by poppy4 »

@battye - thank you. Your advice is what the host company has given me and I have now changed it to smtp. Need to monitor it now. However, they also think that the emails have been marked by the recipient as spam. This could be due to the strings of text and number of links. If I have to alter this I will need to post back because I do not know how to do it.

@Mick - yes, you are correct, I should have contacted the host company first. It has come out of the blue and I was just confused and didn't know where to start. Apologies for that. I do appreciate the support on here though. It helps to talk things through.

I haven't made any changes whatsoever. As an elderly person I leave well alone and don't mess with things I don't fully understand. I rarely have any problems with my forum. I have contacted the host company and they have advised me to use smtp so I have altered that and inputted the smtp server. He thinks they have been marked as spam by the recipients but is wondering why. His suggestion is that I change the strings of text and reduce the number of hyperlinks. I can see the sense in this but don't know where to go in the cPanel to change the notifications email. If anyone can advise about that I would be grateful. However, I will see where the change of smtp takes me. Hopefully that will solve the problem but if it doesn't I will have to try changing the message once I find out where it is.

Again, thank you battye and Mick for your help. It is much appreciated.
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Steve
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Steve »

Poppy, I posted the link because it’s a common occurrence for phpBB not to send emails, it’s dependent on your settings defined(set in acp). I also have issues with emails being sent to the spam folder, from any phpBB forum. There is a huge issue with emails from Version 3.3.5.
@ The Chief Medical Officers guideline for men is that: You are safest not to drink regularly more than 14 units per week.
- I drank that today++ :lol: 🍺
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janus_zonstraal
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by janus_zonstraal »

There is a huge issue with emails from Version 3.3.5.
Maybe on your board but there isn't a common problem with phpbb sending mails.
Sorry! My English is bat ;) !!!
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Mick
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Mick »

I was under the impression it was 3.3.6 that had mail (gmail?) issues but they weren’t the same as this particular problem.

I’ve just checked my own email with the mail checker. I use PHP mail() with an address supplied by my host which forwards to a dedicated outlook account. I get a 10/10 result and would expect the OP’s to be the same being as it sounds like a similar setup. I’m of the belief that some hosts are better at running PHP and email than others.
  • "The more connected we get the more alone we become" - Kyle Broflovski©
  • "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
    " - Harmony Cobel
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Steve
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Steve »

I have a yahoo and outlook accounts, all mail is sent to spam folders. I don’t use gmail and never will.
@ The Chief Medical Officers guideline for men is that: You are safest not to drink regularly more than 14 units per week.
- I drank that today++ :lol: 🍺
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janus_zonstraal
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by janus_zonstraal »

yahoo and outlook
They deleted mail without asking you.
Gmail is much better, at least the don't delete your mails, but you have to send your mails the proper way, see mailtester, you have to get 10/10
Last edited by janus_zonstraal on Thu May 26, 2022 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sorry! My English is bat ;) !!!
poppy4
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by poppy4 »

Steve - that’s interesting about sent emails and 3.3.5 version. I don’t subscribe myself so haven’t noticed anything. I just log in and click new posts or unread posts. I used to receive notifications of private messages and new member activations but that stopped a long time ago. Don’t know why. Doesn’t matter though because I can see them both when I log in.

The email settings have never been altered since the forum started 13 years ago so why this has happened is a mystery. Anyway, since I changed them to smtp I haven’t had any more mail delivery failures. The staff member suggested that I change the username and password too but I said I would prefer to take one step at a time. I hope that this has solved the problem. Thank you to everyone for your help. :)
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Mick
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Re: Mail delivery failed

Post by Mick »

Some people seem to forget logging in to see if anything is going on is a thing these days.

Can I ask who you’re host is? PM it to me if you wish.
  • "The more connected we get the more alone we become" - Kyle Broflovski©
  • "The good news is hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination.
    The bad news is, whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
    " - Harmony Cobel
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