Mail sending randomly

Hello,

I created a contact form and it the emails are being sent.... sometimes.

I configured the global configuration of Joomla with an email associated with the website domain. I confirmed it's sending emails via the mass mail feature.

In the form, I have the From email set to info@ and then I used my personal hotmail for the To. Sometimes the emails come through to hotmail and sometimes not. Mostly not. I then changed the To email to contact@ and then through testing only one email came through. I changed back to Hotmail and then tested again. Two tests came through right away and then they stopped. I changed to my gmail, one test came through right away. The next one did not.

I turned on Debug and I see an error in the attached file.

I have also deleted the cache with each change that I have made.

I also have the form configured to save to the database. And all form submissions are recorded there.

Any ideas why it's so random? Is it the hosting company?

Thanks, Chuck

Hello Grizzled,
I'm not a Chrono professional, but after checking your new post, I think that the following links may help:
I use GoDaddy and my emails aren't sending
P.S: I'm just an automated service😉

Hello,
It seem changing to the suggested setting in the GoDaddy FAQ would block incoming emails.

We have the business emails set up with teh webs hosting company so we need the emails to come and go.

Thanks, Chuck

Hi Grizzled,

Mail sending from ChronoForms is pretty much binary - they are all send or all not sent. If you are getting intermittent results then the missing emails are being blocked somewhere after they are sent, usually by the mail service rather than your web-host (though they may be the same). The most frequent causes are in the FAQ, its also possible that the email subject or content raises a spam flag somewhere.

Bob

Hello,

I was on the phone for an hour with BlueHost. They looked into the mail issue and they could see that mail was leaving Bluehost and being accepted by Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo but the form email still is not coming through. They are baffled and had their senior techs look into it. They said to call Gmail and see if they could identify something in the email that is blocking the email. It's just a simple contact form. BlueHost also verified that IP address is not blacklisted, and I checked myself.

Any idea as to why, the form would not be allowed to go through?

Here is a link to the form...
http://www.shelterdesigns.net/contact.html

Thanks again, Chuck

Hi Chuck,

Please drag a Debugger action into the On Submit event, then submit the form and post the debug - including the 'dummy emails' results here. That might give some clues - there's nothing very useful to see from the form itself.

It sounds as though BlueHost have confirmed that the emails are being sent so - somewhere after that - they seem to be being flagged as dubious and dropped.

Bob

Hello,

Here are screenshots of the On Submit Debugger. Maybe there is a clue in here as to why they are not sending.

Thanks again for all the help,
Chuck

Hi Chuck,

All looks good in the Debugger output - was that email received OK?

I assume that you have checked the spam folder for the contact@ mailbox?

Bob

No, we don't receive any emails. It doesn't matter if I use contact@, info@, my hotmail, yahoo, or gmail address.

Nothing comes through. Emails send through the mass mail of Joomla. Emails send from our custom Yurt calculator. A couple hours now with BlueHost shows no errors on their end.

I guess the only option is, is to try another form Component and see if I can get a form to go through.

Thanks for all the help,
Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I'm unclear - are they all failing or just some (as in the subject)?

By all means PM me the site URL, the form name, and a SuperAdmin login and I'll take a quick look.

Bob

I am also having this problem, since about May 23 or so. Never had it before in a few years of using Chronoforms on a few of different sites. Not aware of any changes on the email side (client is using Microsoft Exchange). From about May 23 - June 2, emails still occasionally were sent, but most were not. Database save worked fine so we did receive the form inputs.

From about June 3 - June 15, we got no emails at all. From June 16 through today (June 24), we are back to getting a few emails (1/3 or fewer of the forms submitted).

I am working on a new form for the same client; on that form, I successfully received 2 emails this morning (US - eastern time) and then the 3 forms I have tried since then have not resulted in emails. I added a debug action to this new form, and the Error section shows nothing and the debug section shows that the emails (2 actually - 1 to "user" and 1 to "admin") were successfully sent, similar to the results that Chuck (above) got.

I am using a static "from" address that matches the domain; my to and from addresses are not the same; my domain is not blacklisted...

What should I try next?

Thanks...

Forgot to mention that I am using Chronoforms V 5.0.11.

I have a partial update. Spoke at length with tech support at the hosting provider (this tech was a lot more knowledgeable than the previous one I spoke with!) It turns out that the domain I am working with has 2 SPF records, one for the hosting provider and one for outlook.com. This client originally had email through the hosting provider and then switched to Office365.com (set up by someone else, not by me) but still using the domain name.

It is bad to have 2 SPF records, I was told - it looks like you're a spammer. We've always had it this way, and form email always worked fine up until about May 23, and then started only working sporadically. Apparently in the past, it was like the Pirate Code in Pirates of the Caribbean - "just guidelines." But now more mail systems are enforcing the rules (but I guess, not all of them, or at least not all the time, allowing some emails to get through).

The fix, according to the hosting provider, is to combine these 2 SPF records into 1; essentially, get one SPF record that says "you should accept email from either of these 2 sources for this domain."

Once I have the syntax correct for this revised SPF record, and try it out, I'll post again to say if it really worked.

Further update. SPF records were changed, and 48 hrs. later (they said 4-6 hours to take effect) we are still only getting about 10-30% of the emails. Chronoforms debugger shows that the email was sent, Hostmonster (sister company of Bluehost mentioned by someone else in an earlier post) says their outbound server shows it was sent, but the email is not received. In one case, the mail was being sent to another account at a different domain also on Hostmonster. Then I tried switching the "to" address to gmail, and still, it didn't go through.

Any suggestions as to what I should do next? Has anybody had this problem with another hosting company? It started for us somewhere around May 23-25... anybody have an idea of what could have changed then?

I had originally had "Append IP Address" in the Email setup action, Advanced tab, to "yes." (Getting about 10-30% of email forms then). Just now, I changed it to "no" and submitted 3 test forms. Got the email every time. Changed it back to "yes" and the email did not come through. Changed it back to know, and for 3 more forms, it did come through. Also changed it to "no" on a form on a second site that is having issues, and both emails came through. Several forms were submitted earlier in the day and email was not received.

That may not be enough tests to reach a conclusion yet... but does this make any sense? Why would including the IP address in the email suddenly start causing problems after 5/24 or 25? Did the spam or privacy rules change?

I don't really need the IP address, so I'm fine with leaving this set at "no," but would surely like to understand what is going on.

Thanks.

Spoke to Bluehost, yet again. When I explained that it seemed like my emails were going through if they didn't contain an IP address, they said they thought that probably had been the issue.They said that the spam rules had recently tightened and that they are now blocking (apparently not quite all the time) emails with IP addresses. It would be nice if their help text that gives tips for "preventing your email from being considered spam" included this...

If other companies are going to follow suit, you might want to remove the option to send IP address in the form email or at least default it to "no."