osCommerce email problems, I know I'm not the only one!

[mmorgan]

Email is not working correctly on my osCommerce installation. Before you reply, read everything that I have to say.

1) This is hosted on a linux server.
2) Transport is set to "sendmail" and I have tried "SMTP" as well
3) line feeds is set to "lf" and I have tried "crlf" as well
4) Emails are set to "true", they are turned on
5) There is an email address installed for the site owner and for the "from" field
6) The contribution located at http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1595 has been installed and tested.

What I have been able to confirm.
1) the Email address works as a functional email address to send and receive mail for everything BUT osCommerce
2) When sending an email from the test script and osCommerce, email is transported, I get the verification that it has sent.
3) Email will go without any trouble to Yahoo mail and Hotmail as well as other web based email addresses
4) Email will NOT go to ISP hosted addresses such as user@yourdomain.com
5) I have contacted the hosting company and they have verified that sendmail is functioning properly on port 25, but the mail is being rejected with the following error:
xdelay=00:01:06, mailer=esmtp, pri=30329, relay=nymx-2.nyroc.rr.com. [24.92.226.31], dsn=5.6.0, stat=Data format error
Feb 18 11:14:04 ns sendmail[797]: i1IGCvmB000795: i1IGE4mB000797: DSN: Data format error
Feb 18 11:14:04 ns sendmail[797]: i1IGE4mB000797: to=root, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31454, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

Emails go out, but they are rejected.

6) The ISP claims that the script needs tweaking and there is nothing wrong with the server or it's settings.

I need the following:

1) A solution
2) Something specific to tell the hosting company if it IS the server that is causing this.
3) Something specific to do to the code if it's NOT the server.

There are HUNDREDS of posts about this and similar problems all over the internet in forums such as this and no one to date has been kind enough to post the solution if they have found it. I will post the solution if one exists.

I need help and at this point, I need it soon.

Please don't ask if I have things like sendmail and lf set, or if it's set to be on, that was days ago. At this point I know that mail is going to SOME places, why not others? Is there something about the headers that is causing them to be rejected by ISP email hosts? If so, what can be done about it?

Any help will be so much appreciated you can't even imagine.

Thanks in advance.

[michael_s]

mmorgan, this is the first I am hearing of this. I have been using osCommerce for well over 2 years, and done several hundred installs, and sendmail has always worked correctly. No rejections. I cant post a solution for you because I have never seen this before.

It has to be something on your server, or the address you are trying to send to, but it is not any problem that I have seen with osCommerce. I host over 250 osCommerce sites, and none have this problem.

As a test, can you send mail on a different port? If yes, you know it has to do with port blocking. If no, hey, I gave it my best shot.

[mmorgan]

Here is the header that is being rejected by ISP based email, and accepted by yahoo, hotmail and AOL, any clue why this would be rejected?


X-Apparently-To: wildgeeseband@yahoo.com via 216.109.118.187; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:57:29 -0800
Return-Path: <apache@ns.lowghost.com>
Received: from 66.132.166.220 (EHLO ns.lowghost.com) (66.132.166.220) by mta200.mail.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:57:29 -0800
Received: from ns.lowghost.com (dhcp-build-pool149.build.interland.net [127.0.0.1]) by ns.lowghost.com (8.12.8/8.12. with ESMTP id i1JFvSmB032723 for <wildgeeseband@yahoo.com>; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:57:28 -0500
Received: (from apache@localhost) by ns.lowghost.com (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i1JFvSTW032721; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:57:28 -0500
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:57:28 -0500
Message-Id: <200402191557.i1JFvSTW032721@ns.lowghost.com >
To: "mike" <wildgeeseband@yahoo.com>
Subject: [osCommerce] test
From: "mike" <webmail@homedecoretc.com> Add to Address Book
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: osCommerce Mailer
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 80

[michael_s]

That looks like it is being sent to yahoo mail not ISP based.

Have you tried sending to a different email address or a different ISP? I still contend it is a local server config issue. A good way to test would be to install on a different server and try it. What version of osCommerce? Could it be the mail testing mod causing the issue, or was that the reason you installed the mod in the first place?

Is your server sending the mail directly or are you relaying through another server.

What is your server config? OS, PHP version, WebServer, Control Panel? All would be helpful.

[mmorgan]

That was being sent to yahoo mail.. the isp based ones get rejected and the notice is on my first post...

I put up the test mail mod to see if the problem was the php.mail function, and like I said, it mails fine to web based mails.

Here is a header that is sent from osCommerce to the yahoo mail account:

X-Apparently-To: wildgeeseband@yahoo.com via 216.109.118.188; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:01:36 -0800
Return-Path: <apache@ns.lowghost.com>
Received: from 66.132.166.220 (EHLO ns.lowghost.com) (66.132.166.220) by mta104.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:01:36 -0800
Received: from ns.lowghost.com (dhcp-build-pool149.build.interland.net [127.0.0.1]) by ns.lowghost.com (8.12.8/8.12. with ESMTP id i1JH1ZmB001688 for <wildgeeseband@yahoo.com>; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:01:35 -0500
Received: (from apache@localhost) by ns.lowghost.com (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i1JH1ZBv001684; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:01:35 -0500
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:01:35 -0500
Message-Id: <200402191701.i1JH1ZBv001684@ns.lowghost.com >
To: "mike morgan" <wildgeeseband@yahoo.com>
Subject: Try This On for size
From: webmail@homedecoretc.com Add to Address Book
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: osCommerce
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 13


Now as far as versions and such...

Database Host: localhost (127.0.0.1)
Server OS: Linux 2.4.20-19.9.5INLDSmpIPvsDs
Database: MySQL 3.23.58
HTTP Server: Apache/2.0.40 (Red Hat Linux)
PHP Version: 4.2.2 (Zend: 1.2.0)
osCommerce version: 2.2-MS2

There has to be something I'm not seeing here!

Thanks so far for all your input!

Mike

[mmorgan]

I just had a thought... could you send an email from one of your installations so I could compare headers?

Just a thought... also, I think I missed a couple of the questions you asked so here's the other answers...

I can send Email to yahoo, AOL and hotmail,
It has been rejected by every ISP based email that I have tried to mail to inclusing ones on the host server.

Mike

[mmorgan]

AND THE SOLUTION IS....

There were no A records set up for the mail server.
Many sites configure their mail servers to reject mail from hostnames that don't resolve properly, in order to cut down on spam so the headers were being rejected by pop accounts. I put in proper records and VOILA... the emails sent! (actually, they always sent, they just never arrived)

Thanks to everybody that tried to help!

[michael_s]

mmorgan, I absolutely knew it was your server setup. There is simply not an issue with osCommerce email.

Glad you sorted it out. Consider it a lesson learned. osCommerce has been tested by thousands over several years. Your server has not, and is the weakest link in the chain. Always examine the weakest link first.

[alun]

Hi,
For the rest of us having the very same problem can you give a little more info on how to solve this? The were no A records set up for the mail server doesn't mean that much to me I'm afraid.
Thanks,
Alun.

[alun]

I know that I this is really very annoying and the last thing anyone really wants to do is answer this for me but I have spent days / weeks looking into this problem and not got anywhere. I have the same problem as above, have emailed my hosting company who keep coming back with the really useful stuff about the settings in the config file like I haven't tried every single permutation therein about 500 times to get the shop to work.

Someone out there has a little bit more info on this. Can you please tell me a little bit more about how I set up "A records for the mail server".
I know a little bit about the store but that phrase means nothing... someone anyone please? what does this solution actually mean??????? How do I implement it. A hint???