Test Mail Settings reports success, but it doesn't work

[davidd]

I am using Cpanel.  I set up everything according to the instructions.  When I run the Test Mail Settings inside ListMail, it says everything is working fine and I receive the necessary emails- TESTBOUNCE to my bounce address and a message at my admin email.

However, when I put in bad email addresses(ones that I know for a fact bounce) into a list, and then send an email to them in the Listmail program, nothing happens, they are not deleted from the list.  I do receive a delivery failure message at my bounce email address, but the email address in question is not deleted from the list.

My signup cgi script is not working either.  I tried it two times, by sending a blank email to my subscribe address, which forwards to the script, but I do not receive my welcome message(which I did turn on).  And the email address is not added to my list.  I tried it another time with "signup" in the subject, because I read in another posting that this worked for him, but this didn't work either.

Can I get some help with this?  How can you charge $100 for a script that doesn't always work and requires so much effort to set up?  This doesn't seem right.

David D.
http://www.opportunitiesandmore.com

[DW]

You should not actually receive the message with TESTBOUNCE in the subject.  If your bounce forwarder and cgi script are set up correctly, sending this message to the bounce address should generate a ListMail "success" message to your Admin email.  The subject will be "ListMail bounce.cgi Test: Success!" and the message body will read "The test message was successfully received and processed by ListMail's bounce.cgi. This most likely means that the script is configured correctly".

To set up bounce.cgi under cPanel follow these instructions.

Note that you should not have an actual mailbox created for the bounce user.  Likewise with the signup scripts.

Once it's all set up correctly you won't need to do it again.  cPanel should fully support the forwarding required for ListMail's .cgi scripts.   If you require hands-on assistance I charge $35 for a Server Analysis

Regards!

[davidd]

I read through, and followed, the instructions about 10 times already.  I still can't get the email aliases to work.

After testing bounce.cgi yet again, inside Listmail with the Test Mail Settings, I found the script is not working correctly after all.  The results that popup say what you said, that I should get an email at my admin email, declaring success.

This does not happen.  I do get an email with TESTBOUNCE as the subject in my bounce@ email box, though.  

I don't understand how I can set up a forwarding email address without actually creating an email box.  This doesn't make sense to me.  I already tested the forwarding mechanism on my server with another address, and it works fine.  So that is not the problem.

The only thing I can think of is that I do not have the wget module installed on my server.  I did download this module from the address you gave in the instructions, but I gave up trying to install it.  I was completely lost.  I have no expertise in Telnet or Linux.  I don't even know where to begin.

Unless I can figure out how to make the scripts work, I'm just going to use the "email box with Dailymail option" to handle bounced emails.  And I guess I won't be able to implement the ability for people to sign up by sending a blank email.

David Dube
http://www.opportunitiesandmore.com

[DW]

David,

An account mailbox with password should not exist for the addresses you have set up in Mail Forwarders in cPanel.  Messages sent to the bounce address do not need to be sent to a mailbox - they are instead sent to the bounce.cgi script via the forwarder.  If an actual mailbox exists with the same name as a forwarder your forwarder will not work.

wget comes standard with cPanel so, unless you chose specifically not to install it, it should be there in the default location.

Please let me know if you continue to have troubles.

Regards

[davidd]

I created a new forwarding address, this one without actually creating an email box and password.  I pointed it to the script, as per the instructions.  But it still didn't work when I tested it.  I sent a blank email to my bounce address with the subject of TESTBOUNCE.

The way I understand it doing this should cause the script to send a success message to my admin email, without actually attempting to delete the user who sent the bounced email.

In any case, it still didn't work.  When I checked my admin email there was no success message.  I tried it multiple times.  I even tried changing the path to the script, when entering the forwarding address in cpanel.  I tried it without the quotes.  I tried it without the | at the beginning.  I tried various combinations.  Nothing worked.  I never received a success message at my admin email, when I sent the TESTBOUNCE email.

I also tried deleting bounce.cgi altogether, and then uploading it again, but this time using the onboard upload utility in cpanel, rather than my FTP application.  This worked with another script I set up a few months ago.  For some reason uploading the files(they were mostly all php files) with FTP was causing it not to work.  It was only when I uploaded them with cpanel's upload utility that the scripts/application finally worked.

But not this time.  This made no difference this time.  Although, I didn't upload all the files with cpanel's upload utility, only the bounce.cgi script.  Maybe I should try deleting everything, and then uploading everything again, but with cpanel's upload utility, instead of FTP.

I hate to think that I will have to do this.  It's a lot of work.  Plus, it doesn't really make sense.  Everything else works perfectly.  It's only the bounce.cgi and signup.cgi scripts that aren't working.

You think there might be a bug in these scripts?

Don't know what else to do.  But I'll keep trying to think of ideas.

Dave D.

[steve]

Dean,
I'm having a similar issue. The tests are coming in as "Successful" but the bad addresses are not being removed from the list. Actually - now one of the tests is not - see below.

Let me provide you with some details about my configuration.
I'm running on a virtual private server in which I have a few domains. I am running ListMailPro v 1.8 on two domains.

This Linux setup has a main domain - spidercreations.net - and I am able to add Web sites and then set the DNS servers to point to my server.

Each of the domains I create have their own IP address. I don't have to do this, but I do since some sites have a SSL certificate that requires its own.

The way that mail is set up, I can set user ids to work across ALL domains, or target just one. With this set up I have my own mailserver to help with issues like AOL banning a server that I'm on. If I get banned - it's me.

I have bounce.cgi located in each of the proper cgi-bins for the two sites. This is one level above the public html directory.
To keep this simple, I will only provide information for one of the sites.

/ (Root Directory) > home > webadmin > divenassau.com > cgi-bin > (again bounce.cgi and signup-list1.cgi are in this folder) Note that I do not use the sign-up by e-mail feature.

I have .procmailrc located in the following folder:
/ (Root Directory) > home > webadmin > divenassau.com

I have .procmailrc as follows:
:0
* ^TO_bounce@divenassau.com
| $home/webadmin/divenassau.com/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi

:0
* ^TO_register@divenassau.com
| $home/webadmin/divenassau.com/cgi-bin/signup-list1.cgi

(I know that this file can be funky with the way it does the line breaks since it messed me up before)

I did some hunting and wget is located in the following directory:
/ (Root Directory) > usr > bin

Take note of the directory structure please... each of the sites are located in different areas, divenassau is located in / (Root Directory) > home > webadmin > divenassau.com, and scubashackct is located in / (Root Directory) > home > steve > scubashackct.com.

I am trying to put all of my sites under webadmin, but I messed up and put one in steve. I do not think that matters, but what will matter is the location of .procmailrc

There is one other issue. Although both of the sites are set up the same way, I'm getting a failure - Sending TESTBOUNCE email to bounce address.. Failed. Try manually sending an email to your bounce address with TESTBOUNCE in the subject line - on one of the sites.

Also note that when I'm sending an e-mail to a bad address I get this back. Note that the return path is spidercreations.net, even though I sent this from scubashackct.com.

Return-Path: <MAILER-DAEMON@spidercreations.net>
Received: from localhost (localhost)
        by spidercreations.net (8.12.10/8.12.10) id j3E25jJJ024737;
        Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@spidercreations.net>
Message-Id: <200504140205.j3E25jJJ024737@spidercreations.net>
To: <bounce@scubashackct.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;
        boundary="j3E25jJJ024737.1113444345/spidercreations.net"
Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)

This is a MIME-encapsulated message

--j3E25jJJ024737.1113444345/spidercreations.net

The original message was received at Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500
from spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

   ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<steve@bad9988776mm.edu>
    (reason: 550 Host unknown)

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 5.1.2 <steve@bad9988776mm.edu>... Host unknown (Name server: bad9988776mm.edu: host not found)

--j3E25jJJ024737.1113444345/spidercreations.net
Content-Type: message/delivery-status

Reporting-MTA: dns; spidercreations.net
Received-From-MTA: DNS; spidercreations.net
Arrival-Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500

Final-Recipient: RFC822; steve@bad9988776mm.edu
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.2
Remote-MTA: DNS; bad9988776mm.edu
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 Host unknown
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500

--j3E25jJJ024737.1113444345/spidercreations.net
Content-Type: message/rfc822

Return-Path: <bounce@scubashackct.com>
Received: from localhost (spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1])
        by spidercreations.net (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j3E25jJN024385
        for <steve@bad9988776mm.edu>; Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500
Message-Id: <200504140205.j3E25jJN024385@spidercreations.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:05:45 -0500
From: "Scuba Shack Newsletter" <news@scubashackct.com>
To: "Steve Bad Address" <steve@bad9988776mm.edu>
Subject: test6
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Mailer: ListMail v1.8

test6


--j3E25jJJ024737.1113444345/spidercreations.net--

Final note - I had originally created two e-mail addresses that I should not have done - bounce@divenassau.com and bounce@spidercreations.net.

I know this is a bunch of information - but I'm stuck and am hoping that too much info is better than not enough.

Steve

[DW]

Steve,

Okay - I think the bounce is normal.  Your server (spidercreations) is sending the bounce to your bounce address @ scubashackct.com.

Before testing bounce, I would like to verify that your .procmailrc is acting as expected.

Add this line to your .procmailrc:

LOGFILE=$HOME/logfile

Once an email is sent through an address in .procmailrc, the file (logfile) could contain some useful messages.

What does it say in /var/log/maillog  (tail -f /var/log/maillog to "follow" the log) when you email bounce@scubashackct.com ?

Another test.  Instead of the pipe to the script (ie: | $home/webadmin/divenassau.com/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi - I think $home might need to be capitalized) try setting up a forward to a regular, checkable email address:

! youremail@scubaschackct.com

These tests should help you figure out where the problem lies.

Regards

[steve]

I will do some testing tonight and let you know what turns up.

Steve

[steve]

Before testing bounce, I would like to verify that your .procmailrc is acting as expected.

Add this line to your .procmailrc:

LOGFILE=$HOME/logfile

Did that, tested it twice - first from an orangehill.com address which is also one of my VPS domains, then I tested with a gmail account. Results for the four lines are as follows:

Apr 14 20:06:45 spidercreations sendmail[21664]: j3F16g9F021664: from=<info@[domain].com>, size=1565, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<DCEBKNABKNCCMNBEMDJNAEOCDAAA.info@[domain].com>, proto=ESMTP, relay=lakermmtao09.cox.net [68.230.240.30]

Apr 14 20:06:45 spidercreations sendmail[22112]: j3F16g9F021664: to=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, delay=00:00:03, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31778, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

Apr 14 20:11:23 spidercreations sendmail[2883]: j3F1BMXL002883: from=<steve.[domain].@gmail.com>, size=1087, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<76ea94ee05041418106960de27@mail.gmail.com>, proto=ESMTP, relay=wproxy.gmail.com [64.233.184.197]

Apr 14 20:11:23 spidercreations sendmail[2893]: j3F1BMXL002883: to=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31292, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

After changing to a capital H for Home, I tried a test send and got these results:

Apr 14 20:29:32 spidercreations sendmail[7362]: j3F1TWUI007362: from=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, size=288, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200504150129.j3F1TWUI007362@spidercreations.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

Apr 14 20:29:32 spidercreations sendmail[7457]: j3F1TWUI007362: to=<steve@gooddomain.com>, ctladdr=<bounce@scubashackct.com> (502/500), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=30549, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

Apr 14 20:29:32 spidercreations sendmail[7362]: j3F1TWUJ007362: from=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, size=294, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200504150129.j3F1TWUJ007362@spidercreations.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

Apr 14 20:29:32 spidercreations sendmail[7362]: j3F1TWUK007362: from=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, size=293, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200504150129.j3F1TWUK007362@spidercreations.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

Apr 14 20:29:32 spidercreations sendmail[7362]: j3F1TWUL007362: from=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, size=300, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200504150129.j3F1TWUL007362@spidercreations.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

Apr 14 20:29:33 spidercreations sendmail[7362]: j3F1TWUM007362: from=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, size=290, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200504150129.j3F1TWUM007362@spidercreations.net>, proto=ESMTP, relay=spidercreations.net [127.0.0.1]

Apr 14 20:29:33 spidercreations sendmail[7810]: j3F1TWUM007362: to=<steve@bad9988776mm.edu>, ctladdr=<bounce@scubashackct.com> (502/500), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=30290, relay=bad9988776mm.edu, dsn=5.1.2, stat=Host unknown (Name server: bad9988776mm.edu: host not found)

Apr 14 20:29:33 spidercreations sendmail[7810]: j3F1TWUM007362: j3F1TXUI007810: DSN: Host unknown (Name server: bad9988776mm.edu: host not found)

Apr 14 20:29:33 spidercreations sendmail[7810]: j3F1TXUI007810: to=<bounce@scubashackct.com>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31314, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

Apr 14 20:29:33 spidercreations sendmail[7585]: j3F1TWUJ007362: to=<steve61294@gooddomain.com>, ctladdr=<bounce@scubashackct.com> (502/500), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=esmtp, pri=30294, relay=mx3.hotmail.com. [65.54.253.99], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent ( <200504150129.j3F1TWUJ007362@spidercreations.net> Queued mail for delivery)

Apr 14 20:29:34 spidercreations sendmail[7650]: j3F1TWUK007362: to=<steve.mcgough@gooddomain.com>, ctladdr=<bounce@scubashackct.com> (502/500), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:02, mailer=esmtp, pri=30293, relay=gsmtp185.google.com. [64.233.185.27], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (OK 1113528561)

Apr 14 20:29:38 spidercreations sendmail[7716]: j3F1TWUL007362: to=<stephen.mcgough@gmail.com>, ctladdr=<bounce@scubashackct.com> (502/500), delay=00:00:06, xdelay=00:00:06, mailer=esmtp, pri=30300, relay=gsmtp185.google.com. [64.233.185.27], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (OK 1113528565)

Not sure if all of that helps. Checked and the bad address was not bounced off the list.

try setting up a forward to a regular, checkable email address

Not sure how to do that.

This might beyond me. If you'd like to take a look, let me know. It's probably something minor, but very annoying.

Steve

[steve]

bump.

Dean,
I know it's the weekend - but if you have any more suggestions... I'm at a loss.

I plan to remove all of the cgi and .procmailrc files this weekend and starting over with that part.

Steve

[DW]

I suspect $HOME in its entirety needs to be capitalized.

A standard forward to an email address is done by replacing this line:

| $home/webadmin/divenassau.com/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi

With this:

! some@address.com

Submit an Other ticket or, if you have one open already, update it with a note.

Regards