Author Topic: Understanding bounces/holds (Read 3551 times)

lcdweb · February 16, 2008, 12:30:51 pm

I'm trying to setup CiviMail, and running into some problems. I'm setting it up using the alternative config option (shared server).

When I send out an email to a test group they all bounce: Invalid, No Such User Here
I've confirmed the cronjob is running correctly, and I'm able to send an email directly to a user through the individual contact page.

Any ideas why this would be happening?

Donald Lobo · February 16, 2008, 08:39:52 pm

The alternative config option is used to only handle incoming email. Outgoing mail via civimail uses the normal smtp path

Your best bet would be to check the mailer logs and figure out why the system is giving you a "Invalid: no such user" message. Is the email address incorrect? what about the from address?

lobo

lcdweb · February 20, 2008, 04:22:59 pm

That's what I thought.

Same email address from within the contact record in CiviCRM is sent no problem, but sent with CiviMail and it immediately bounces when the cron is run.

I'm not sure if the mailer logs have revealed too much more. It said "sender verify fail". What's strange is that it seems to be calling the "to" email @ the domain. I'm no expert reading mailer logs, so I'm not sure if I'm reading them correctly.

I've attached a screenshot. Maybe you'll make more sense of it. You'll see where some emails to brian at lcdservices biz were completed correctly -- those are the ones sent via the contact form. The ones immediately following that were bounced are those sent via CiviMail.

thx
-Brian

Donald Lobo · February 20, 2008, 06:24:36 pm

1. I assume you have set your From email address to something reasonable. I suspect that your mailer is something other than postfix

(might be exim!)

2. For some strange reason, your mailer is doing a sender verify on the "Return-Path:" address. We use the return path to trap slow bounces. Dont know of an easy way to get around this AND trap the slow bounces. You might want to check:

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=return+path+sender+verify+failed&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

and see some of the posts and workarounds there.

3. The easiest work around is to hack: CRM/Mailing/BAO/Mailing.php, and search for Return-Path. Skip setting the header and/or send it to the from address and it should work. However it will also not catch a few bounces

lobo

lcdweb · February 20, 2008, 08:01:58 pm

Well, the hack did the trick. I commented out line 873 and it's working. I can deal with the missed bounces for the sake of having the primary functions working.

To fill in the picture:

1) I remembered after I last posted that Claudian had tipped me off to some suggestions for setting things up on this shared hosting provider: http://www.nabble.com/CiviMail-Bounce-to8427763.html -- sure enough, he had run into the same problem.

2) Problem is, Bluehost has disabled catchall mail features. On one hand, that seems ridiculous, since it's such a basic and necessary concept for many users. On the other hand, it probably is the biggest source of spam collection (which is why they shut it down). There are workarounds, so it's not as though you're completely stranded. But the workarounds don't solve this problem.

So I suspect had been able to setup a catchall account and used that for my return path, it might have got things working. But I'll be happy with the hack solution.

Thanks!
Brian

ken · April 19, 2008, 11:29:55 pm

Dear lcdweb,

I understand Bluehost doesn't allow catch-all addresses, and I assume that emails sent to 'bad' addresses will bounce. But does Bluehost allow you to specify :blackhole: rather than :fail: as the default action? (ie, to accept and throw away emails, rather than bouncing them?)

If so, you could try the following configuration I'm planning on using for CiviMail ...

assuming your domain is my.org, set up a subdomain called civimail.my.org so the changes made to the subdomain don't affect your other email addresses
create an email address called news@civimail.my.org from which emails are sent and received by CiviMail
configure CiviMail to use news@civimail.my.org and civimail.my.org
set email for civimail.my.org to go to :blackhole: so that the SMTP server won't report an invalid address for the return-path
set up the regular expression for email forwarding so CivicMail bounces etc go to news@civimail.my.org
use imap2soap to process the bounces etc

Hope this helps,
Ken

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Author Topic: Understanding bounces/holds (Read 3551 times)

lcdweb

Understanding bounces/holds

Donald Lobo

Re: Understanding bounces/holds

lcdweb

Re: Understanding bounces/holds

Donald Lobo

Re: Understanding bounces/holds

lcdweb

Re: Understanding bounces/holds

ken

Re: Understanding bounces/holds