1 Topic by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Topic: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Hi,

Messages from PunBB keep being detected as spam; sometimes in Apple's Mail.App and always in Gmail (where users don't see any messages unless they look in their spam inbox).

Interestingly, spamassassin tends to pass PunBB messages fine, often with a negative score.  Hotmail passes the messages fine, too.  Normal emails (i.e. not from PunBB) from the same domain go through fine to Gmail etc.

I'm not new to spam/emails/etc at all: I know the servers/domain names/MX records/etc are fine.  I'm not using SPF records, though.   I've tried restructuring the emails PunBB sends but nothing I seem to be doing is working.

Any ideas, anyone?  Do other people have this issue (and how did they solve it)?

R

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

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

I haven't had any issues with PunBB emails with Gmail: could you paste the full headers for the email?

3 Reply by fixed (edited by fixed 2007-03-06 03:18)

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

hi,

how exactly do i copy headers from gmail?

i can copy them from an email sent to my personal inbox from the forum (which isn't being detected as spam, but it's the same email), but i'd prefer not to paste that completely in a public place.  can i email that to you?



edit: actually, just figured it out.  i'll paste an external link to it in a second.

4 Reply by fixed (edited by fixed 2007-03-06 03:24)

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

http://breakcore.com.au/tmp.txt

(and yes, i've modified the email template: it made no difference at all.  gmail still picks it up as spam, unfortunately).

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

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Could you also provide the headers for a working email?

6 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

the headers/emails are more or less the same.  gmail specifically just seems to be tagging anything sent by the forums as mail.

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
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  • Posts: 7,844

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Could I see them? I think it might be helpful wink

8 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

considering my other domains are on the same box, i don't see what useful diagnostic information you'd get out of it considering there'd be no smtp communication outside the same machine.

want me to stick your email in (or alternatively sign up yourself), then i'm happy to promptly delete your account?

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Could you perhaps post a link to the forums in question so we can try it out?

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

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

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Mmm, try adding valid postmaster@ and abuse@ addresses and see if that helps

11 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

ah, of course. will try that now, thanks.

12 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

nope: still ending up in gmail's spam box.

13 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

hi, any ideas, guys? 

this is a pretty major problem for me: i've got users who think that they're never receiving the initial password email, so they're not using the site.  i really need to work out why.

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

I tried signing up and like you said, gmail tagged it as spam. Are you using an external SMTP server or is the server that's running the forums also sending the e-mail?

I did notice in the headers that SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is in effect. Not sure if that can affect anything.

It should be noted that this is the first time I've seen gmail tag a PunBB generated e-mail as spam.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

15 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

i'm not using SPF at all - that's on gmail's side.  and yes, that server sends email, but it's a properly colocated server that hosts *many* other websites and has been used as a mail server for years.  i've never had spam issues in the past.

indeed: it's very odd.  i'm completely baffled.

  • From: -8 GMT
  • Registered: 2004-05-04
  • Posts: 1,396

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

if people don't know by now to look in their spam/junk folders for emails they are expecting then that's not your fault. i just tried and it too went straight to spam folder. i also searched the Gmail forums and the only suggestion i came up with was to have everyone mark your emails as "Not spam" to sort of effect the algorithm Google uses.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more
  • From: Ottawa, Canada
  • Registered: 2006-09-05
  • Posts: 308

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Rickard wrote:

It should be noted that this is the first time I've seen gmail tag a PunBB generated e-mail as spam.

I use a DDNS server with MX records and all. Even have optional SSL (advertised via TSL) on my smtp server. Gmail will mark as spam any mail (punbb or otherwise) until I send a reply to a user in that domain (ie: joe at robshouse dot no dask ip dot info). At that point only that single gmail account has that single email address in a "white list". I haven't bothered trying to figure out why, or testing other e-mail servers yet, but I'm guessing it's more to do with the DDNS (with TTL probably very low), then with anything else.

fixed, can you get normal e-mail from that domain+smtp server to gmail without being marked as spam?

echo "deadram"; echo; fortune;

18 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

yeah, as i said above: normal email is perfectly fine into gmail.  it's just forum email.

and dr.jeckyl: sure, i agree with your statement in theory, but it's still a problem which i need to find a fix to smile

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

The problem is that we don't know why gmail has tagged it as spam. If we knew why, we could figure out what to change in order for it to go through.

I'm curious if changing from/reply-to to the domain that is actually sending the mail will help. E.g. change the webmaster e-mail address from @breakcore.com.au to @<your server>.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

20 Reply by fixed (edited by fixed 2007-03-08 09:36)

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

unfortunately it made absolutely no difference: emails still coming through as spam.

  • From: 127.0.0.1
  • Registered: 2001-11-02
  • Posts: 9,167

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Would it be possible to send the e-mails via another SMTP server? The only reason I can think of why gmail is tagging this is as spam is that it for some reason believes <your server> is the source of a lot of spam.

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

Rickard's Website

22 Reply by fixed (edited by fixed 2007-03-08 12:04)

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

which i can assure you is not the case - and there's plenty of users on the same machine who email from/to gmail accounts all the time without issue.  again, it's just punbb emails, oddly.

will it be simple to modify punbb only to do this?  considering the site is hosted on a heavily used production server, changing something like this server-wide i'm definitely not keen on.

edit: edit again: thanks!

  • From: Ottawa, Canada
  • Registered: 2006-09-05
  • Posts: 308

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

lol fixed, your as crazy as I am (when i decide to care about something at least smile).

You try sending a mail from punbb, but modifying the subject and anything that ends up injected into the body of the e-mail? If it's some text in the e-mail that would at least point out where the problem is. Then try to remove any extra header data from punbb e-mails, see if that does it? Finally add an extra header, i forget the exact syntax but it's something like "X-Emailer: Outlook Express". If gmail thinks it's a user's program sending the e-mail they may be silly enough to pass it through on just that.

echo "deadram"; echo; fortune;

24 Reply by fixed

  • Registered: 2007-03-02
  • Posts: 32

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

yeah, that was one of the first things i tried (i changed it to match my mail.app X-Mailer), then i reformatted the initial email based on what phpbb gives out (which, from other sites, wasn't tagged as spam).

no go.  as i said, i'm baffled.

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

Re: PunBB forum emails being detected as SPAM (gmail)

Might I suggest emailing Gmail and see what they say?