CiviMail message bounces unexpectedly

[stevenwh.lee]

I set up the SMTP configuration, and successfully sent an email directly to a contact after searching for his record.

However, when I tried to send an email from CiviMail and it bounced. I set up a group containing the same individual contact, sent an email to that group, and the message registers as being sent (not currently using cron, but I manually did it using the link http://<home>/index.php?option=com_civicrm&task=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=8).

Mail report said that the email bounced (Bounce Type = Invalid; Bounce Reason = recipient is not recognized). When I went to the contact record for that person, the email had become marked as "On hold" (only after the email was sent).

I tried playing around with some configurations. Initially I had the SMTP server set with the full name, with username and password for authentication. Then I changed the server to localhost, with no authentication. Both instances are successful when I send the email using the first method, and fail for the second method.

I haven't configured the site to use AMaViS because I'm using a shared server. So I'll be looking into using imap2soap (another issue to look at later on). I assume I don't need those yet because at this stage I'm just trying to send an email out, and am not trying to process any responses.

Is there something else I need to configure?

[Kurund Jalmi]

(not currently using cron, but I manually did it using the link http://<home>/index.php?option=com_civicrm&task=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=8).

Is this correct url ?

Can you confirm Send Email and CiviMail is sending email to same email address.

Kurund

[Piotr Szotkowski]

However, when I tried to send an email from CiviMail and it bounced. I set up a group containing the same individual contact, sent an email to that group, and the message registers as being sent (not currently using cron, but I manually did it using the link http://<home>/index.php?option=com_civicrm&task=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=8).

You mean using the …mailing/queue URL?

Is there a chance that the name of the user contains non-Latin characters, like apostrophes?

I haven't configured the site to use AMaViS because I'm using a shared server. So I'll be looking into using imap2soap (another issue to look at later on). I assume I don't need those yet because at this stage I'm just trying to send an email out, and am not trying to process any responses.

You’re right (although you might be interested in using the PHP-based CiviMailProcessor instead of Perl-based imap2soap).

[stevenwh.lee]

Sorry, you're right. The url is http://<home>/administrator/index.php?option=com_civicrm&task=civicrm/mailing/queue&reset=1

Confirmation: Send Email and CiviMail are sending to the same email address.

The username is an email address containing '@'. The password also contains '@'. Perhaps that's why the cron command isn't working (do I need an escape character for these?). Would that cause an issue with sending an email with CiviMail also?

[Piotr Szotkowski]

The username is an email address containing '@'. The password also contains '@'.

Is there a chance you can switch the password to something @-less and verify whether this made it work? (The problem is that you can’t tell which server – yours or your recipient’s – bounced the email without looking into your mailserver’s logs, so this way you can at least verify that the above isn’t the culprit.)

[jbisko]

I am experiencing this same issue.
I have verified that I can send individual e-mails to contacts using the send mail action option in CiviCRM after I select one or more contacts, but when I try to send an e-mail to a group that only contains this same e-mail address I get the bounce problem with Bounce Type "Invalid" and Reason "recipient is not recognized"
 
It then automatically marks the e-mails for this contact as On Hold.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

jbisko

[Donald Lobo]

is the from address you use in both those scenarios the same?

any chance you can search your mail logs and get a better idea of the error. we basically report the error what the smtp server tells us

lobo

[jbisko]

yes, it is the same from address.

[jbisko]

With some further experimenting, I've come up with these additional observations.

If I switch to Sendmail instead of SMTP and compose a CiviMail, I am able to successfully send without the bounce so long as I check off the box to Override VERP address.

If I do not check this off, then I get the bounce error.
Also, I tried the SMTP method with this box checked off and it still doesn't work.
I'm not sure how I can view the server mail logs to better understand what is happening.  I am hosting this Civicrm site on a shared hostmonster server.

I also notice that when I drop in some of the tokens in the html message such as
 {action.unsubscribe}

It is only showing the verpheader and @ with no domain.
i.e. mailto:u.40.56.176d57ecc15ae144@
but, I believe I have my domain name information properly configured in the administrative global settings section.
Any ideas?


Also, I wanted to implement the new CiviMailProcessor.php technique of creating an e-mail address that will receive all of the VERP replies and process them accordingly, but I just realized that hostmonster does not support Catchall for e-mail accounts.  Is there anyway around this issue.

I guess that Catchall being enabled is another criteria that should be noted in the list of hosting providers that can fully support CiviCRM and the Civimail module.
So, now I might need to move my hosting yet again.

[Piotr Szotkowski]

If I switch to Sendmail instead of SMTP and compose a CiviMail, I am able to successfully send without the bounce so long as I check off the box to Override VERP address.

If I do not check this off, then I get the bounce error.

This means that the SMTP server that you send through (most probably on localhost, i.e., the same server as your CiviCRM install) does not accept emails from any addresses (even on the internal interface), but requires that you provide a proper ‘from’ (hence the need for overriding).

I'm not sure how I can view the server mail logs to better understand what is happening.  I am hosting this Civicrm site on a shared hostmonster server.

You need to ask the administrators.

I also notice that when I drop in some of the tokens in the html message such as
 {action.unsubscribe}

It is only showing the verpheader and @ with no domain.
i.e. mailto:u.40.56.176d57ecc15ae144@
but, I believe I have my domain name information properly configured in the administrative global settings section.

In CiviCRM 2.2 you need to go to Administer CiviCRM → CiviMail → Mail Accounts and edit the domain of the default account. Is is there where you set your domain?

Also, I wanted to implement the new CiviMailProcessor.php technique of creating an e-mail address that will receive all of the VERP replies and process them accordingly, but I just realized that hostmonster does not support Catchall for e-mail accounts.  Is there anyway around this issue.

If they support the standard email recipient delimiter, you can turn any account into a catchall account – like civimail+s.1.2.…@example.com (assuming the delimiter is a ‘+’). For this example you need to set the localpart in the mail settings to civimail+

[jbisko]

Thanks Piotr.  I was able to get the missing domain issue resolved.

I will have to look into the standard e-mail delimiter issue.   Do the last few periods represent wildcards?  Is there some link where the accepted wild card delimiters are explained.  Is there an easy way to just say that any e-mail that begins with civimail followed by anything would be forwarded to an address or do I need to precisely define each character (i.e. civimail*@mydomain.com -> forwards to another e-mail)?
civimail+s.1.2.…@example.com

Also, in the mean time, I was trying to just have the civimail work based on clicking  on the URL versions of the optout and unsubscribe links as opposed to the e-mail address versions.  In fact, this may be all I need because, I think it is easy enough to have someone click on a link as opposed to having to respond to the uniquely generated VERP e-mail.
So, I am having the
{action.unsubscribeUrl}
{action.optOutUrl}
links inserted into my e-mail message.

However, when I click on these links, although, it brings up the message and let's me confirm my desire to unsubscribe or optout, I don't see any result in CiviCRM or CiviMail.  The contacts e-mail does not end up with the On hold status checked off and I don't see any other visible indication that the contact has been opted out.  The Civimail report for the mail message that I sent to test this also does indicate an usubscribe or optout. 

Is there a Cronjob that needs to be invoked to process these unsubscribe or optout requests?  I wouldn't think that the civimailprocessor.php file would need to be triggered when using the URL method rather than the replyto email approach.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

jbisko

[Piotr Szotkowski]

I will have to look into the standard e-mail delimiter issue.   Do the last few periods represent wildcards?  Is there some link where the accepted wild card delimiters are explained.

I’m writing the CiviMail docs for CiviCRM 2.2 now, but the common pattern is $a.$id.$id.$hash@$domain, where $a stands for a one-letter action, followed by two numeric $ids (with an unspecified, but non-zero number of decimal digits), followed by a 16-char $hash (in hex, so 0-9a-f), followed by @ and the specified $domain.

Is there an easy way to just say that any e-mail that begins with civimail followed by anything would be forwarded to an address

This is precisely what the localpart is for – if your mail server supports an email recipient delimiter, you can put the delimiter between the local part of the address and the @ and anything past the delimiter is ignored. The Postfix mail server supports + as default, and Gmail supports it as well; thus, emails sent to civimail+anything@gmail.com will end up in civimail@gmail.com’s mailbox.

CiviCRM 2.2 lets you define a localpart of an email account – if the default account has a localpart of civimail+, then the outbound emails will carry civimail+$a.$id.$id.$hash@$domain actions and the CiviMail Processor will look for civimail+$a.$id.$id.$hash@$domain-targeted emails.

Also, in the mean time, I was trying to just have the civimail work based on clicking  on the URL versions of the optout and unsubscribe links as opposed to the e-mail address versions.  In fact, this may be all I need because, I think it is easy enough to have someone click on a link as opposed to having to respond to the uniquely generated VERP e-mail.

Yes, most of the actions can be used over HTTP. If you just use these, the return channel is used only for tracking bounces.

However, when I click on these links, although, it brings up the message and let's me confirm my desire to unsubscribe or optout, I don't see any result in CiviCRM or CiviMail.  The contacts e-mail does not end up with the On hold status checked off and I don't see any other visible indication that the contact has been opted out.

Unsubscribe should remove a contact from the relevant group, and opt-out (which is site-wide) should mark its ‘do not send bulk mail’ checkbox. ‘On hold’ (which is per-email, not per-contact) is set only if a given email address bounces.

The Civimail report for the mail message that I sent to test this also does indicate an usubscribe or optout.

‘Does’ or ‘does not’?

Is there a Cronjob that needs to be invoked to process these unsubscribe or optout requests?  I wouldn't think that the civimailprocessor.php file would need to be triggered when using the URL method rather than the replyto email approach.

No, you don’t need to invoke anything for the HTTP actions (and yes, CiviMail Processor is used only to interpret the SMTP actions).

[jvansickle]

I am new to CiviCRM and Drupal so I am a bit unclear on the solution for this issue.  I am experiencing the same problem where I can send emails personally to contacts setup in CiviCRM, but my CiviMail emails never get sent to users.  Each user on the email list has their email address put "On Hold," and the bounce message on each is "recipient is not recognized."

Is this a problem with my configuration of Civi?  Or do I need to speak with my ISP about their SMTP server settings?

[MikeKlev]

I have the same problem: Ability to send an email through the "Send Email" in a contact record, but emails sent either as a test email or to a mail list in CiviMail aren't received and the report states that 100% of emails bounced, which I posted a couple of days ago on this forum:

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,7267.msg31871.html#msg31871

Mike

[Piotr Szotkowski]

Both of these mean you have your email sending misconfigured; most probably you try to send to your localhost (either using a local sendmail or over SMTP) and it then bounces that it doesn’t know your recipient.

You should first check your Administer CiviCRM settings and then contact your ISP to see why the sending fails.