• Registered: 2008-03-17
  • Posts: 11

Topic: Subscription emails not being sent

PunBB 1.2.12 with PhpGedView

As far as I can see emails for subscribed to topics are not being sent, or are not being sent to the correct address.

I am also getting occasional connection timeout messages which indicates the latter situation.

I note that there has been a similar problem in 1.3 beta which has been solved. Is this an easy fix?

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

1.3 has a different code base, and the problem there was because of that. wink
Are other types of emails able to be sent (eg: emailing users via the form) or do none work?

3 Reply by Big John (edited by Big John 2008-04-03 10:42)

  • Registered: 2008-03-17
  • Posts: 11

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

emailing via the form works OK

I tried punBB-hosting too, and the subscription emails don't seem to work there either :-(

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

Since I run PunBB-Hosting and I haven't heard any complaints (and last time I tested they worked, and nothing in the setup has changed), perhaps you're testing subscriptions incorrectly? What are you doing that leads to no email?

  • Registered: 2008-03-17
  • Posts: 11

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

posting a reply to a topic that I am subscribed to, under different user names (both of which are subscribed to the topics)

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

I just tested it on PunBB-Hosting and it works 100% fine. Could it be that your email provider is silently dropping the emails or putting them in your spam folder?

  • Registered: 2008-03-17
  • Posts: 11

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

I have now succeeded in getting emails about messages I was subscribed to, and by reading the message sent have deduced what my problem is.

The email says,
"There may be more new replies, but this is the only notification you will receive until you visit the board again."

Because I am on a very slow connection, and I suspect the PGV server is slow too, I am getting the message:
"An error was encountered
Error: Could not connect to smtp host "send.vodafone.net" (110) (Connection timed out). "

1) Is there any way of increasing the timeout limit, so that the system has time to connect to the smtp host?
2) Because of the "only warn you once" system for sending emails, if the "could not connect" message happens once, the subscriber will not be notified that someone has replied to his post, even if more than one reply is posted. Is there a way of overriding the 'only once' flag?

Thanks again.

John

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

1. Yes, you can edit the call to fsockopen in include/email.php. However, the timeout is currently set to 15 seconds: it sounds more like your forum has no connection at all, at times.
2. Yes, edit post.php, line 218 and remove the part of the large query that refers to the previous post time.

If I were you though, I would focus more on fixing the underlying issue with connections rather than on trying to hack around it and send more emails. tongue

  • Registered: 2008-03-17
  • Posts: 11

Re: Subscription emails not being sent

Thanks Smartys

You were right, of course. :-)

I was trying to use the smtp host that I use with my ISP: smtp.vodafone.net

I should have been using the smtp host that my PGV/punBB hosting server requires: mail.nbepiphany.x10hosting.com

I changed that and all is working fine.

Thanks for sticking with me on the journey.

Regards

John