com_connect - form and contact mailer

colak · 2024-01-04 16:37:15

Bloke wrote #336286:

Gmail? Hotmail? Or your own domain as destination?

If you alter your com_connect tag’s to attribute and comma-list another email account, try that. If a message arrives there, then it’s to do with the receiving end not trusting the message.

After that, it’s the usual diagnostics:

Check the email headers for SPF and DKIM passes, or anything that might give a recipient server cause for rejection.

Tinker with Txp mail Prefs to set the sender address header to your own domain, etc.

Contact your host and ask for assistance why some messages fail and others don’t.

(last resort) Backup and upgrade to 4.9.0-dev so you can take advantage of SMTP direct sending. Assuming you have a third party you can use as a base for sending.

If messages don’t get to the second account either, then you might have to dive into your server log files (or get your host to help with looking at them) to determine why the messages aren’t getting out.

They are sent to a gmail.

I’m currently working for a deadline on the 8th and I’ll be checking your suggestions once 100 pages leave my comp.
Thanks so much Stef.

colak · 2024-01-16 08:45:23

Bloke wrote #336286:

(last resort) Backup and upgrade to 4.9.0-dev so you can take advantage of SMTP direct sending. Assuming you have a third party you can use as a base for sending.

This will not be an option because of our newsletter which has close to 3000 subscribers. DreamHost only allows 100 Recipients/hour for SMTP mail. We’ll need about 30 hours to send all the emails.

phiw13 · 2024-01-17 05:05:05

colak wrote #336285:

Since updating to PHP version: 8.0.30, using txp v4.8.8, and com_connect v4.7.0 the emails never arrive in my inbox. Any ideas?

Is it possible that PHP 8.3.0 is to blame ?

gaekwad · 2024-01-17 12:39:45

phiw13 wrote #336397:

Is it possible that PHP 8.3.0 is to blame ?

colak mentioned PHP 8.0.30, which is the most recent cut from the PHP 8.0 branch – and likely the last since it is now our of security support.

Bloke · 2024-01-17 17:13:55

colak wrote #336389:

DreamHost only allows 100 Recipients/hour for SMTP mail.

I may have read that wrong but isn’t that if you use their server for SMTP sending?

I was talking about bypassing DreamHost entirely and authenticating directly to Gmail, effectively using Gmail as an SMTP relay point.

Of course, you then may still hit Gmail’s sending limits (whatever they are).

Pete, do you have anything to add to this, given your experience with servers and mail services?

colak · 2024-01-17 17:51:10

Just to let you know that a solution may be at hand, thanks to Stef. I hope that, if it gets solved, he’ll share the basics of what we need to look out for. For now, it is believed that it has to do with DMARC.

phiw13 · 2024-01-18 07:05:28

gaekwad wrote #336398:

colak mentioned PHP 8.0.30, […]

sorry – completely misread the version number :-(

gaekwad · 2024-01-18 13:31:48

Bloke wrote #336400:

Pete, do you have anything to add to this, given your experience with servers and mail services?

Be careful of using free, third-party email services for bulk SMTP. Use a service like Sendgrid or Amazon SES that’s designed for the task. If you want to self host, have a look at Sendy. Those free services are OK for transactional stuff like a contact form, but steer clear of bulk sending.

Google and Yahoo go through waves of raising the bar for sending bulk email from external domains, there’s a whole mess of SPF, DKIM, DMARC and other DNS requirements that are set as hurdles. Paid accounts are usually a bit more permissive, but the ToS for most cloud-based email don’t allow bulk mailing. The most recent changes (2023Q4 to date) are causing some aggro as the barrier to entry is going up and up.

If you’re a non-profit, you may find some email marketing services offer reduced rates – but really, don’t screw around with a free email provider or you risk getting canned.

Sending email is trivial, it’s the receiving part and not getting into trouble doing it that takes the time & energy.

Bloke · 2024-01-18 13:40:36

Good advice, thank you. Figures that “free” providers limit things. I’m all for dedicated sending services. They offer good features. But the charges as things scale get eye watering very quickly.

Pat64 · 2024-01-19 10:45:09

A personal thanks to Stef.
Your plugin com_connect solves a recent problem with Gmail (no messages received sent from North America…). The from attribute offers me to set another address to correct this bad behavior.
Thank you lot.

gaekwad · 2024-01-19 11:38:33

Two things that appeared on my radar today:

Beginning September 30, 2024: third-party apps that use only a password to access Google Accounts and Google Sync will no longer be supported

Forward Email

Bloke · 2024-01-19 12:07:10

Interesting finds. That Forward Email service looks grand till you dig into the terms. For SMTP, they’re rate limited to 300 a day and they state:

You are only permitted to use our outbound SMTP service for transactional emails. You are prohibited from sending marketing email (e.g. promotional, bulk, or commercial email to a list of contacts with the same content). This includes examples such as a newsletter or a bulk announcement email.

So, no good for Yiannis in this instance.

I’ve been looking at Sendy. Seems to be a self-hosted drop-in for MailJet, MailChimp, MailerLite, etc. Which is fine if you’re creating campaigns and brand marketing in their dashboard. It has an API for subscription management and the ability to send that way too.

For Yiannis, he’s using Ben Bruce’s Postmaster at present to mail out Txp articles about events to 3k+ subscribers. That keeps all subscription handling and emailing in-house via com_connect, uses its own tables for list management, etc. and mail() to throw the content to subscribers.

Switching to 4.9.0 and using SMTP still means he’s rate limited by his host or any other host that allows SMTP.

One option is to export the subscriber list to Sendy and wire up com_connect to send (un)subscribe requests in that direction. Then just use the Sendy dashboard to create emails to pimp the URL to Txp articles about each event. I think that’ll work okay.

However, Sendy relies on AWS for its back end message sending. And claims that AWS costs just a dollar per 10K messages (I thought it was more expensive than this but their pricing page is gobbledegook).

So if the Sendy dashboard isn’t of interest, is it possible to hook up Txp to use AWS directly? So he can continue to pimp articles via Postmaster and just offload message delivery to Amazon SES?

In the AWS dashboard, the usual API key pair (public/secret) can be created, but I’m not sure if they can be plugged directly into the user/pass fields of our SMTP implementation in 4.9.0. Do we need to go through some intermediate step to get a transaction token, à la OAuth 2.0?

Just exploring options here. Anyone have any experience with Amazon in this regard?

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#433 2024-01-04 16:37:15

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Bloke wrote #336286:

#434 2024-01-16 08:45:23

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Bloke wrote #336286:

#435 2024-01-17 05:05:05

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

colak wrote #336285:

#436 2024-01-17 12:39:45

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

phiw13 wrote #336397:

#437 2024-01-17 17:13:55

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

colak wrote #336389:

#438 2024-01-17 17:51:10

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#439 2024-01-18 07:05:28

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

gaekwad wrote #336398:

#440 2024-01-18 13:31:48

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

Bloke wrote #336400:

#441 2024-01-18 13:40:36

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#442 2024-01-19 10:45:09

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#443 2024-01-19 11:38:33

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

#444 2024-01-19 12:07:10

Re: com_connect - form and contact mailer

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