Suddenly not working...

[gigispaulding]

I've got a employment application posted on a client's website. It's been working for well two months just fine. But, for some reason, now, it's not working. To test the form, I've filled it out, and it gives me the good_url page as if everything has gone through just fine.

I haven't changed any of the pages/script at all. No server changes that I'm aware of, either.

I checked the testmail file (just because I'm baffled), and it works just fine on the server.

Any ideas what this could be??

Thanks in advance for your help!

[russellr]

Hi,

Obviously, something must have changed. If you're on shared hosting, then I would suspect the hosting provider has changed something on your server without telling you.

Do both the testmail scripts work?

[gigispaulding]

I am on shared hosting and was informed that they'd upgraded to php 4.3.11 a couple of weeks ago. But, from what I understand, Formmail is compatible with php 4 and higher, so I doubt that's it.

I have a feeling it's an email issue... like maybe the HTML email that's being sent is being pegged as spam. I added my own business email to the form and the formmail.php file, and I get the HTML email without a problem at all (I'm working off of a completely different server.)

Russell, thank you so much for the quick response. I really do appreciate being able to "talk out loud" about the issue and receive feedback.

Oh.. and yes... I tested both testmail scripts. They worked just fine.

Hmmm... the mystery continues!

Again, thanks for your reply Russell!

[russellr]

Hi,

Sounds like you know how to debug this problem. If both testmail scripts work, then I think FormMail is definitely sending the mail OK.

[gigispaulding]

Okay, the plot thickens. I've basically been blaming the fact that the form isn't working on hyper-vigilant spam filters and such. But, even after going through all the spam filter settings, the email just simply isn't being received.

However, I started poking around in the header of some old form emails that I'd received, and *think* that I've found the cause for not getting the emails passed the email server. Here's an example of a header (with all personal info changed to something generic):

Return-Path: <nobody@server99.hostingcompany.com>
Received: from server99.hostingcompany.com (server99.hostingcompany.com [72.9.000.000])
by host.hostingcompany.net (8.13.1/8.12.6) with ESMTP id j3LJFZ23048744
for <testing@myemail.com>; Thu, 21 Mar 2005 14:15:35 -0500 (CDT)
(envelope-from nobody@server99.hostingcompany.com)
Received: from nobody by server99.hostingcompany.com with local (Exim 4.44)
id 1DOh9A-0002f1-CJ; Thu, 21 Apr 2005 15:15:32 -0400
To: appline@site.org, testing@myemail.com
Subject: Online Employee Application
From: test@test.com
MIME-Version: 1.0 (produced by FormMail 6.02 from www.tectite.com)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="BODY3f24168e7aca2faef9e3919eaacc55b3"
Message-Id: <E1DOh9A-0002f1-CJ@server99.hostingcompany.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 15:15:32 -0400
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - server99.hostingcompany.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - mysite.com
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [99 99] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - server99.hostingcompany.com
X-Source:
X-Source-Args:
X-Source-Dir:

As you can see, it's using a return path of nobody@server99.hostingcompany.com
(which is almost exactly what I'm really getting.)

I've poured over the php, but haven't found a way to change it. Any ideas??

Thanks!!!

[russellr]

Hi,

The "From" address is what the form submitter enters in the "email" field.

The sender is usually the same value. But, for various reasons, your server has been honest about the sender being the user "nobody" on your server.

Some spam filter somewhere has probably decided that this mismatch is unacceptable and is rejecting the mail (without telling you!! and this is why I think spam filters are a really bad idea! We don't use spam filters and we don't get much spam - but that's another story.)

So, there are a number of ways to attack this problem. First, make sure you have version 5.02 or later of FormMail.

Next, read the documentation above these FormMail configuration settings:

• $FROM_USER
• SENDMAIL_F_OPTION

And also read the release notes for version 4.03 (this describes the FromAddr feature).

Get your alerts working first. If they are not working, then you're making things hard for yourself.

Use the testalert feature:

http://yoursite/formmail.php?testalert=1

If you don't receive alerts then you need to set $FROM_USER to a valid user on your server. You may also need to set SENDMAIL_F_OPTION (but I don't think so because your server seems to be using Exim instead of Sendmail).

Once you have alerts working, try your form submissions. If they still are not working, then you'll need to use the FromAddr feature in your HTML form to set the sender and From address to a user on your server.

Like this:

<input type="hidden" name="mail_options"
value="FromAddr=you@yoursite.com" />