No email notification of private messages

[Reel 224]

That's a lot of out of pocket for us to enjoy a great site, I'm willing to help with expense.

Joe

[alantani]

it was that much 7 years ago, then again a couple of months ago.  i'm good, thanks!   

[alantani]

been looking around the various control panels.  if you guys go to your profile and then look at "notifications and e-mail" and "personal message options," you might be able to get the notifications working again.  i was fiddling around with my profile and nothing works.  take a look and see.  you might have better luck than me.  in the meantime, i'm going to check with the software developers and see if they have any suggestions. 

[twotone]

Mine are on, but says you are not receiving notification at the bottom of page.

[alantani]

looks like i have my work cut out for me......

First check your error logs for any indication of what the problem may be. Before you begin to troubleshoot the reasons for your forum not sending out emails, contact your hosting provider to see if they can help or confirm the information you are entering is correct. In many cases contacting your hosting provider will speed up the process of solving your issues.
Check for errors within your forum error log
Common errors you will see within your error log are:
Could not connect to SMTP host
2: fsockopen() has been disabled for security reasons
This error is pretty self explanatory in that your error log is telling you that the SMTP information you have provided is not correct, i.e. cannot connect to send your mail. Check the information again and contact your host to make sure the information you are entering is correct.
The second error message listed above indicates your webhost has disabled the PHP default setting for sending mail from your SMF installation. You will need to contact your host and ask them to enable this for you.
Is my server blacklisted?
Because of the growth of spam these days it is quite possible that your emails are being detected as spam.
The following link will help you find information regarding any potential blacklist your server may be listed on:
http://www.us.sorbs.net/
Using GMAIL SMTP?
If you use Gmail for SMF's SMTP - meaning to send emails from SMF, Gmail will not work in most cases. Gmail will only accept SSL encrypted emails, which most servers do not support.
Server configured correctly for sending mail?
To check if your server is configured correctly for sending mail use the test script below. In the script below be sure to change the $from_email and $to to be valid email addresses to correctly test the sendmail function of your server. If it fails, try using SMTP. IMPORTANT: Remember to remove this test script immediately.
Save as testmail.php and upload it to the root folder of your SMF install where Settings.php and SSI.php can be found, then call it in your browser i.e. yoururl/testmail.php.
If you do not receive an email from your server then contact your host and explain you currently cannot send mail from your forum. During this time you will have to use the SMTP settings for sending mail rather than the (php) default value.
Code: [Select]
<?php
// Add your name between quotes
$from_name = "YourName";
// Add the origin email address between quotes (the same email you set in SMF's Webmaster email address)
$from_email = "from_email@domain.com";
$headers = "From: $from_name <$from_email>";
// You are free to change the body and subject of the test email in the next lines, but the default should work fine
$body = "Hi, \nThis is a test mail from $from_name <$from_email>.";
$subject = "Test mail from localhost";
// Add the destination email address between quotes (the recipient of the test email)
$to = "to_email@domain2.com";
// When running the script, you will see in your browser "Success!" or "Fail...", depending on whether the test was successful or not. DON'T CHANGE THIS
if (mail($to, $subject, $body, $headers)) {
   echo "Success!";
} else {
   echo "Fail...";
}
?>
Again, be sure to delete the test script when finished, or the script could be used to spam the email address used in the script.

[Tightlines667]

Gesh!

Looks like you may have to consider expanding the IT department.

[alantani]

yeah, right now you're kinda looking at it......

[alantani]

found my old post on the SMF site....

new members are not getting a verificaiton e-mail
« on: April 17, 2014, 06:00:38 PM »
Quote
when people register for my site, i approve each one personally.  then they are supposed to get a verification email to activate their account.  i am getting emails from these guys that say that they are never getting the verification emails and still want to register.  am i missing something or is there a problem with the verification email not being send out.  help!  thanks.  alan at alantani.com

[sdlehr]

It might be worthwhile to look for a new home for our group sooner rather than later. But I don't want to lose all the info from the last few years in doing so. Maybe it would be easier to get the software geeks from this simple machines forum to attend to our needs?

Sid

it's $2k for them to move us over to a dedicated server and then $2k yearly for the server and to have someone on their end dedicated to managing it. so yeah, $4 to start, then $2 ever year after.  right now, we are paid up until the year 2026.  i just spent an additional $600 to take us from december 2018 to 2026.  the only recurring cost is $50 a year for the photo hosting software that i pay to SMF Hacks.  after that, we are in theory good until then with no extra expenses for the website.  i'm kinda hopin' to keep it that way.....   

It's kinda hard to justify shelling out thousands of bucks to fix something that pretty much works OK most of the time.... but I worry that we are out-growing this site and its capabilities.....


Sid

[Reel 224]

It might be worthwhile to look for a new home for our group sooner rather than later. But I don't want to lose all the info from the last few years in doing so. Maybe it would be easier to get the software geeks from this simple machines forum to attend to our needs?

Sid

it's $2k for them to move us over to a dedicated server and then $2k yearly for the server and to have someone on their end dedicated to managing it. so yeah, $4 to start, then $2 ever year after.  right now, we are paid up until the year 2026.  i just spent an additional $600 to take us from december 2018 to 2026.  the only recurring cost is $50 a year for the photo hosting software that i pay to SMF Hacks.  after that, we are in theory good until then with no extra expenses for the website.  i'm kinda hopin' to keep it that way.....   

It's kinda hard to justify shelling out thousands of bucks to fix something that pretty much works OK most of the time.... but I worry that we are out-growing this site and its capabilities.....


Sid

Sid; One thing that's been bothering me when the question of growing in numbers is concerning me, and I don't want to come off as a prude or antisocial. Others sites that I have been on or visited are nothing like this site and you could attribute that for the most part to Alan and the choice of Mods, but growing when we have a million hits a month and as far as I'm concerned, it ain't broke so don't try to fix it. That's my two cents worth.

Joe     

[sdlehr]

But Joe, it is broke.... a little.... If I don't check for new discussions at least every other day it dumps a bunch from the list of new discussions and I lose the opportunity to see if I should respond to anything new.... it seems to max out at 4 or 5 pages of active discussions not viewed, then when it exceeds the limit we go back to one page of only the most recent threads. I doubt many other groups on the SMF see this much action... so we might find problems that other groups do not.

Sid

[Reel 224]

But Joe, it is broke.... a little.... If I don't check for new discussions at least every other day it dumps a bunch from the list of new discussions and I lose the opportunity to see if I should respond to anything new.... it seems to max out at 4 or 5 pages of active discussions not viewed, then when it exceeds the limit we go back to one page of only the most recent threads. I doubt many other groups on the SMF see this much action... so we might find problems that other groups do not.

Sid

Sid; I don't quite understand what you are talking about. The PM or Posts? because I do not have a problem with either.

Joe

[sdlehr]

Sid; I don't quite understand what you are talking about. The PM or Posts? because I do not have a problem with either.

Joe

Joe, when I get on the computer and visit this site I click on the top where it says, "Show unread posts since last visit". Theoretically I could go away for a few days (or a few months) and come back, click on this, and it should display all the discussions that have had additions to them since I last clicked on that. What happens is that because we have so many threads being discussed amongst so many members almost simultaneously the list maxes out at 4 or 5 pages and then resets, dumping a large number of unread threads. So if I am gone for a few days there is no easy way to find new comments to old threads because many of the discussions get dumped from the list when it maxes out at 4 or 5 pages. Is there an easier way to follow what is going on here? I'm all ears....

Clear as mud now?

Sid

[Reel 224]

In the past I have gone to my profile to search for a discussion I may have participated in, or if I had a person that I was conversing with Ill search that persons profile and that persons posts. I know the long hand way of getting around the PC 

Joe

[alantani]

What I do is log in and review all the new applications and Google search them for spammers, then go through pm's, then I look at every single new post on the welcome board, then check out new posts and review them individually ONLY if I have time. Most of the time I just have to mark them as "read" and move on to my emails  and other work
It's hectic, but manageable.  One good thing about the notifications being turned off is that I do not have to ping guys back when they answer a notification email and send it back to me by mistake.