PM Email notifications not working

Found an issue with the phpBB system here at NESdev? Use this forum to report problems.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
koitsu
Posts: 4201
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 9:28 pm
Location: A world gone mad

PM Email notifications not working

Post by koitsu »

Received a PM at 2019-07-27 03:09**. Checked my mail server logs -- no SMTP connections from the forum/site for literally a 24 hour span.

Can someone (Memblers?) check things? I suspect whatever kludge was put in place to get Email delivery working on phpBB might no longer work, or maybe someone broke the mail() function in PHP. Not sure.

** Site says "All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]", which is quite an interesting way to say "All times are UTC-0800" or "All times are PST". What's even weirder is how it says "DST", which would really make things UTC-0700, since the west coast of the US honours DST, thus PDT. Maybe people have a hard time understanding timezones because software keeps presenting the information in stupid ways. :-)
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Same here: I didn't get a notification of a private message, nor for a reply in an old thread of mine. And the person I wrote said he didn't notice my message for a whole week, so the notification for him is probably broken too.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Still don't get notifications.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Why does nobody reply here?

I still don't get notifications for forum posts and private messages.

This is the third time that I have to write this now.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by tepples »

DRW wrote:Why does nobody reply here?
Because in this post you wrote:
Those are the biggest idiots of all: People who answer the thread with "Sorry, I can't help you with your question."
The only person who can help you with this is WhoaMan, and nobody has had success contacting WhoaMan.
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Well, in this case, one wouldn't have written:
"Sorry, I can't help you with your question."

One would have written:
"This problem can only be solved by WhoaMan, but nobody has had success contacting WhoaMan."


Which is, by the way, a strange statement. Last time when the same thing happened, Memblers took care of it.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
Memblers
Site Admin
Posts: 4044
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:04 am
Location: Indianapolis
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by Memblers »

I can change the forum settings, but not the actual server. Nor do I have the expertise to set up an independent mail server, without having every receiver shoot it down as suspicious/spam. Because that seems to be what is happening. I did a few tests and received the emails. In Gmail, the sender icon is always tagged with a question mark, and in the past I had to search for it and unflag it, otherwise it was hidden in the spam folder.

We have 2 configurations that kind of work, but not really.
1: local mail on the server
2: bluehost (membler-industries.com)

For quite a while it was set up with a Gmail account, but Google started locking it, having me log in and verify it, but locks it again immediately.
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Memblers wrote:without having every receiver shoot it down as suspicious/spam. Because that seems to be what is happening.
Well, I can guarantee you that the issue is not on the receiver's side. (If with receiver you mean my mail provider.) I have been getting e-mails from NESDev for years. And even if they were marked as spam, I would find them in the spam folder. I've never had an issue where Web.de deletes mails. So, I'm pretty positive that the mails never arrived at all.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
Memblers
Site Admin
Posts: 4044
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:04 am
Location: Indianapolis
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by Memblers »

It surprised me too, but it does say they may "reject it completely". Well, that certainly makes the problem more serious.
https://postmaster.web.de/en/faq-administrator
Does WEB.DE use greylisting?

In case of unmistakable characteristics that indicate a spamming server, we delay any emails sent from a specific IP address, or reject them completely. Please observe our recommendations on sending emails in this respect. If you observe these references, we can rule out delayed acceptance of your emails.
I changed it from (referring to my last post) config (2) to config (1), we can see if that changes anything. Maybe it looks slightly less spammy that way, we'll see if it makes a difference (I doubt it tho).
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

O.k., that's new to me. But still, your mails never made a problem in the past. And last time, the issue wasn't on Web.de's side either.

Are you able to send me a manual e-mail, i.e. not through the forum software, but really by hand, that has exactly the same sender address? Then we can see whether this one arrives in my inbox.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
User avatar
Memblers
Site Admin
Posts: 4044
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:04 am
Location: Indianapolis
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by Memblers »

I don't think I can with the NESdev server, but I possibly could through membler-industries.com (Bluehost). However, if I did the latter it would probably be graded differently, with the send originating from the same mail server. I think why it's being rejected (I'm not an email expert) is because the receiver sees it originated from NESdev, something about the configuration looks suspiscious. If I send it through bluehost, then the receiver checks NESdev's email info and it says that membler-industries.com isn't authorized to send on NESdev's behalf.

I did just now send a test email to you and myself (through the forum software), so we can see if the local mail sending works any better. It makes me nervous testing emails, I have to use the "mass mail" function. If I were to click it wrong, it would send one to EVERYBODY, yikes.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by tepples »

Would From: nesdev-notifs@membler-industries.com be a good solution going forward?
User avatar
Memblers
Site Admin
Posts: 4044
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:04 am
Location: Indianapolis
Contact:

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by Memblers »

tepples wrote:Would From: nesdev-notifs@membler-industries.com be a good solution going forward?
Maybe it would look slightly less suspicious. The term I was looking for earlier is SPF record, that's what's missing in that case. The SPF record lets the recipient know if that From: field is forged or not. The email headers report spf=neutral which seems to be interpreted as nesdev.com (8bitalley.com) replying it will "neither confirm, nor deny". And it seems to do this whether it's local mail, or using a remote server.

Looking at the headers again, there's another "DKIM" authentication that is not working either. It's the first I've heard of it, I can do some research into it and see if I can contact WhoaMan about setting it up.

I've attached email headers from local and remote mail sending, as sent by me through the forum and received by me at Gmail. In case anybody wants to debug these, and has any suggestions. Looking through a random email in my inbox, I also see something called "DMARC". It's remarkable how complicated it is to send and receive email, as the system has adapted to cope with the massive amounts of spam.
Attachments
bluehost.txt
(4.69 KiB) Downloaded 326 times
localmail.txt
(4.25 KiB) Downloaded 326 times
User avatar
DRW
Posts: 2225
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:59 pm

Re: PM Email notifications not working

Post by DRW »

Memblers wrote:I did just now send a test email to you and myself (through the forum software), so we can see if the local mail sending works any better.
Unfortunately, it didn't arrive either.

Was anything with the mail system changed in the past weeks? In case it's really on Web.de's side, it's strange why the mails should be rejected all of a sudden.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
Post Reply