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+5 votes
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AHHH!

 

I have been having the worst time using scripted email sends on my host, which otherwise has been a very helpful and accommodating web-host!  I finally accepted their recommendation to change my mail servers IP addy because they suspected it was black/gray-listed.  This helped, but I via php code, such as that incorporated into the core Q2A s/w I send to GMail acct's and land in the inbox with all kinds of warnings about possibly being spam and requiring email authorization 1024-bit DKIM or something along those lines (I'm mail-server illiterate).  My host says that (understandably) everyone has problems landing emails in the email inbox, but what about the thousands of emails that get in mine, whilst 4-10 are in the spam folder and deleted every 10 days!

 

Hotmail places it in the "Junk" mail box

GMail Places it in the INBOX! (Woo Hoo!) But there are all kinds of red icon warnings saying it might be spam and that I have not encoded my email to the required std. DKIM 1024-bit.

AOL totally ignores it like no confirmation or other type of email was ever sent!  Geez!

Yahoo does just like AOL..., basically nothing!

 

Am I being ignorant to some obvious reality that you might either point out directly or suggest?!  Because I'm basically $50 in the hole for getting a new mail server IP addy and barely any better off, trurely - and my host now says:

 

[Updated: March 23, 2016, 7:56 pm by Support]

Hi,

Unfortunately, there is nothing further we can do about this. There is no way to guarantee all mail (especially mail from a script) will not be delivered to a user's spam folder. Even dedicated mail services that cost hundreds of dollars per month struggle with this. I would experiment with different subject lines, message structures, etc to see if you can get it to go through that way. There is nothing further we can change on the server that will force Hotmail to put your mail in the inbox.

Best regards,

Anthony
[ABC-XYZ.com mail support]

 

They don't believe, understandably, that some OS project have a enormous number of member (I assume) that can use the mail functionality that is implemented using this software!  So, what do I answer?  I'm sorry to place the question back in your lap, but I don't know what else to say (other than "liar, liar, pants on fire" - which I doubt will get me anywhere!)  Please help me, because if I can't get this basic functionality to work rather routinely, then I can't use Q2A, as I'm sure makes sense to you!  What is the deal?  Am I alone? 

 

Please!crying

Q2A version: 1.7.3

3 Answers

+4 votes
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Best answer

Unfortunately this is common. All the big email services are very untrusting of new servers sending email and there are all sorts of validation hoops you need to go through, and it still might not work. See this post from Coding Horror for the list of things you need.

Are you using SMTP to send email? That's usually more reliable as it will go through your host's server and should be more trusted.

If your host doesn't provide SMTP, there are several third-party services you can use. I use Mailgun which I've found to be very good. You get up to 10,000 sent free emails each month which is enough for most sites. Some others I've heard good things about:

  • SparkPost - apparently you get 100,000 free emails per month which is pretty great
  • SendGrid
  • Postmark
  • Amazon SES
  • Or do a search for "transactional email" and you'll find more.
 
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Thank you!  I am working my way through the suggestions in the first post at the moment.  I AM in fact using SMTP though my web host.  I just paid them to have the mail server's IP address changed earlier in the month, as someone (or more likely some malware) hijacked my account, effectively stealing my password, so my host could not know it wasn't me.  They bulked mailed 3200 emails that I can see a record of in a two day period.  So the old mail IP addy was black or gray listed.  Now the new one at least lands SOME emails into the mailbox of some accounts, even if it is in the spam/junk folder!  Hopefully some of what you have recommended will help.  

Thanks again!
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Alright, am I totally retarded to believe the technical support at AOL that I questioned about this matter over and over and over, ad nausium!  I mean I can't understand this, but I am a dead-head when it comes to email servers, which I've surely already mentioned!  I was forcibly convinced by some tech guy named "Paul" that I had a real difficult time understanding, and was embarrassed by having to ask time-and-time again for him to repeat, but I take no prisoners!  So I did what I had to get the message across...He apparently is resenting something to do with my AOL acct, including the p/w and security question, both of which I should immediately change tomorrow when I can sign in again t, he said.  But, he is absolutely convinced that something to do with this change will allow my completely unassociated domain/host/mail-server to suddenly start allowing AOL to not see my scripted emails from some random domain as being spam!  Does that make any sense?  I can't really believe the guy from my perspective, but he said "absolutely, posihootly, remedy the problem!  I feel violated!  Should I?  It seems very wrong, but I will update you on any miraculous phenomena that present themselves to me!  Anyone care to wager a few bucks on the odds of this fixing anything?

I will place $50 on it not changing anything....anyone interested in some action?!  LOL!  No, but seriously?!  LOL!

I'm still waiting on hearing back from my hosting company about the first item on the list from the first link that you (Scott) sent me!  So I figured that I could interrogate the individual email providers in the meantime!  I'm not so worried about Paul's reputation when he tells me the kind of things that he has!  Am I the idiot here?
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edited by
Scott  - I'm out of hair to pull out over this email BS (bad stuff), I've done everything in the link you suggested, and FAR, FAR more*, so I'm willing to just do whatever is necessary, or else I basically need to abandon the whole project!  I've jumped through every possible hoop to no avail!  My webhost recommends Google's email svcs ($5/month/user/email) as their 'weight' along with their high authentication processing means few inbound email servers will block them or even mark them as spam.  Q2A's email seems excellent to me in the 'email department', so I'm tempted to go with Mailgun, since I see they offer 10k emails per month for free!  I will certainly be below that threshold, AT LEAST in the beginning!  That seems like a wiser choice to me.  would you say they are reliable and you have no real problems?  IOW, once it's set up you need not do anything but check it occasionally (and pay if you're >10k users, of course!), I hope!  And, why are they offering the free svc for <10k emails?  I trust they are not a not-for-profit company, LOL,  - and the word "free" obviously throws up all sorts of red flags in my mind!  I realize you're not speaking for them, but I'm simply asking you as a customer of theirs...




* - several days of repeated tech support human-voice-to-human-voice, high-level (not just techs, but usually senior level administrators) of competent tech support as possible with every major email ISP (AOL, HOTMAIL, GMAIL, YAHOO, etc.)  Jumping through every authentication or other hoop and requesting every change that they desire, and marking every email that was occasionally accepted as "NOT SPAM" from my spam/junk folders.  And all of my p/w's are changed and highly-secure, in case it was malware that was using my PREVIOUS IP as a free-for-all apparently, and yes I did deep scans, to no avail on every computer I use to access my webhost's account!  I changed the PTR to better point to the the webhost, MY_USERNAME'S-SERVER.MYWEBHOST.COM, which "dig -x " resolves to from the email recipients IP addy, reportedly via the view source style coding.  Also having someone more knowledgeable than I try changing my MX, A, and TXT, etc DNS records, still my (as is seemingly unavoidable) RECYCLED new IP addy for my outbound email is not black/gray-listed, but I ALSO can't get it white-listed, and it reports back as having a "BAD"-reputation, the worst possible mark tagged by most ISPs!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  I've tried every form of authentication recommended by all common ISP's that deal w/email, and nothing gets me from being BLOCKED, set aside tagged as spam (very rarely am I so Lucky) which literally wets my pants!  If someone would somehow set up a more universal email standard (understandably hard, considering spammers), they would be the next frickin' Bill Gates/Steve Jobs, no?!  I never "give-up" on any problem, but I'm considering the price of my time at this point and weighing them against the chaos of email in this case!  I've not slept in almost 3-days now, so I apologize for my tone!  This is quite a serious problem for a realistic site to maintain realistic-ness, the ability to get a single freaking email across to someone that wants it to be accepted (but may not know how to set rules/filter/adjust spam setting!  I realize it's not this OS s/w's problem really!  I concur!  But it's admittedly enough to drive otherwise serious contributors away in some cases (who knows how many?!)  Like I am always bent on seeing something through,but I don't believe that everyone shares my attitude!    (again, not a negative comment being stated here, just universally)!
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"why are they offering the free svc for <10k emails"

They have many users who send more than 10k emails so that pays for the others. If you look at the pricing it's only a cents for thousands of emails so it's not costing them much for the first 10k. Having a free offering gets more people to sign up and if/when their site gets popular they will earn money from them.
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I use mailgun in my main domain. Q2A is in a sub directory. Where i have to add mailgun credentials for q2a site ?
+1 vote
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Actually I do run my mail server with my Q2A and though initially there was this issue of mails going to SPAM, once I did all the recommendations which were found online, my mails are getting delivered to INBOX. I'll detail all the things but if I remember the important things are

1. MS record
2. Reverse DNS
3. DKIM

And that was it. Also I enabled TLS for postfix and opened the IMPS and SMTPS ports and thus get emails on my phone. Installing squirrelmail enables web view too. Though this interface is not fancy like GMAIL, it is stable and does a decent job. I'm happy and no need to pay anyone. Most importantly there is no spam mails being sent from my server -- in postfix we should ensure no unauthorized senders as many spammers always try to send mails from random servers.
0 votes
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Fix this already!
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And they did!
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