Webmaster Email is Erratic

ET wrote:I hear ya on dropping AOL - An over priced product for what is offered, but some people really enjoy it - Who am I to judge?

What is there to enjoy about AOL crap. Overpriced blocks half the known worlds email servers Did i say overpriced. Oh and ps I also have some gmail accounts to give away. 50 of them to be exact. If you want one contact me at sanchez498(at)gmail.com

I'm still working on this. On messages that DO get through, AOL gives access to some very complete header information. If I could see that info on one of the messages that gets blocked, I could probably figure out what is wrong.

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On using AOL... I access it through a cable modem and it serves me extremely well. The one overriding reason I keep it is that I don't want to change my longstanding email address(es). Other reasons include:

It is easy to use and as solid as a rock.

It has reliable dialup capabilities if my high speed provider goes down.

It can be accessed from anyplace in the country with a local phone call.

It is extremely immune to hacking.

Phone-based tech support is superb (though online & email support are lame).

It hasn't ever been acquired by a company that requires me to change all my email addresses, my way of operating, etc., and this record is likely to continue.

Its spam control is very good, and constantly improving/evolving. (My wife gets zero spam--none. I get a certain amount of it because of the places I visit. AOL handles almost all of it.)

It is frequently updated, and has armies of people working to make it better. (God is on the side of the big battalions.)

Basically, it does everything I need it to do, with very few drawbacks.

It DOES block Guestbook messages, but that seems to be a side effect of titanium-strength spam filtering.

If AOL is blocking guestbook emails what other emails are you not getting? I always recommend a decent POP server email with Spamihilator which is the client side spam filter I use.

LSander wrote:

It is easy to use and as solid as a rock.
It has reliable dialup capabilities if my high speed provider goes down.
It can be accessed from anyplace in the country with a local phone call.
It is extremely immune to hacking.
Phone-based tech support is superb (though online & email support are lame).
It hasn't ever been acquired by a company that requires me to change all my email addresses, my way of operating, etc., and this record is likely to continue.
Its spam control is very good, and constantly improving/evolving. (My wife gets zero spam--none. I get a certain amount of it because of the places I visit. AOL handles almost all of it.)
It is frequently updated, and has armies of people working to make it better. (God is on the side of the big battalions.)
Basically, it does everything I need it to do, with very few drawbacks.
It DOES block Guestbook messages, but that seems to be a side effect of titanium-strength spam filtering.

You for got one thing with AOL crap.
Its way OVERPRICED My cable internet isnt really that much more than what AOL wants for dialup.

BTW I am not saying don't use AOL as your ISP (although there are plenty of reasons not to) I am saying don't use them for your email. As I stated above, and you touched on, if they are blocking the guestbook entries what other LEGITIMATE emails are they blocking you from getting? This is why I use an email provider with POP access and I use a spam filter on my computer so I don't get an inbox filled up with spam but I can see ALL the emails I get sent and fish any real ones out of the bin.

Other than these guestbook notifications, I'm not aware of a single other email that I have ever failed to get. Surely if this were a problem, SOMEBODY who sent me an email that I didn't react to would have somehow inquired about it.

And let's not forget -- the Advanced Guestbook is an informally supported freeware application that has a lot of problems with people hacking it. It's a great application, but we (or at least I) can't get too upset when a big dog like AOL doesn't uncritically accept its output.

I just don't understand the people who knock AOL. I've tried many online services since the mid-80s, and most of them are no longer around. In this century, I haven't found any that make it worthwhile to switch away from AOL. There are less expensive services, but in my experience, they (and AOL) give you just what you pay for. And when AOL falls behind in any area, they catch up pretty quickly with whomever might be ahead of them.

I am an ex AOL user and here is why I don't like it
1 - You HAVE to use their software
2 - Their software infests your system like a virus and is a pain to remove
3 - The limit what you can actually do online (I'm a programmer and need more than web sites and email)

As to your comment about them not getting taken over and emails changed this is partly true. They tend to do the taking over and then succeed in killing off what they buy. Exampls are Netscape and Winamp, both projects that AOL purchased and both projects that are now dead.

ANYWAY back to the email problem. I was recently notified that cPanel rejects some emails sent from the guestbook due to malformed headers (funny how mothing else rejects them). I have fixed this problem in 2.3.2 but guess I may as well put the mod here so you can test it. Open add.class.php and findfirst this we need to do is change the from address if no address was supplied. Inchange the nobody@$host to something like guestbook@yourdomain.com. This should stop any emails coming from stupid addresses like nobody@62.39.122.33. Now basically you want to replace all this with thisThis should make the emails headers a bit more like they should be.

And let's not forget -- the Advanced Guestbook is an informally supported freeware application that has a lot of problems with people hacking it. It's a great application, but we (or at least I) can't get too upset when a big dog like AOL doesn't uncritically accept its output.

Actually it isnt rejecting Guestbook. If you use an email addy from your webserver. That is what it is rejecting.

JTD makes an excellent point - a good way to find out if AOL is rejecting email from your server is to go into your website's mail program and send an email to your aol address to see if it goes through!

If it arrives in your AOL email, then you will know that it is not your server that is being blocked. If it doesn't go through, then you will know that all your efforts with changing the guestbook notification process would be useless!

Unless carb wants to make an SMTP mod so you can configure guestbook to use any email addy you want to use.

JTD wrote:Unless carb wants to make an SMTP mod so you can configure guestbook to use any email addy you want to use.

Duh it already can. If they provided an email address then the email you recieve comes from the address they supplied otherwise it comes from nobody@THEIRIPRESOLVED hence you change the $FROM_EMAIL to whatever you would like to receive emails from. I have mine set to something to bypass spam filters.

I'll try the fixes and let you know. Like so many computer things, this problem is really very small (I can always just check my Comcast email for notifications), but one can't rest until it's fixed.

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On the AOL stuff, Carbonize said:

I am an ex AOL user and here is why I don't like it
1 - You HAVE to use their software
2 - Their software infests your system like a virus and is a pain to remove
3 - The limit what you can actually do online (I'm a programmer and need more than web sites and email)

1 & 3: By having cable modem Internet access, I get around HAVING to use their software and its many limitations. AOL is also less expensive if you "bring your own access". If I could only have one means of Internet access, it would NOT be AOL.

2: They are much less virus-like than they used to be. Every time there's a new version, they put a bunch of stupid shortcuts on your desktop and they put one of their icons in your system tray. These are easily removed, though. Getting rid of AOL entirely, or of a version remaining on the computer, is just a matter of going into Control Panel and removing the program. Other than that, AOL is pretty well-behaved on this score.

My main objection to AOL these days is the inane content of their welcome screens. There's a lot of coverage of movies, TV, rock music, and other stuff that I'm just not interested in these days, and there isn't any way to get rid of it. They've got a "Small Business" welcome screen that has a little bit less of that stuff, but it's only a minor relief.

It's fixed! (At least as far as I can tell.)

I made your suggested changes, plugging in guestbook@host44.ipowerweb.com in the "nobody@$host" slot.

Then I made a variety of posts and private messages, with my guestbook email address set either to an AOL address or to another address that automatically forwards all messages to AOL.

Everything worked, with the exception of one message which seems to have been lost. That may have been due to an error on my part.

If the poster includes an email address in his post, the notification is "From" that address. Otherwise, it is from guestbook@host44.ipower.web

The subject of all notification messages is "New guestbook entry", whether the notification is of a posting or a private message.

After my extensive testing (a dozen messages, in different permutations), I changed "guestbook@host44.ipowerweb.com" to "guestbook@ussrankin.org" in the "nobody@host" slot. I posted to the guestbook, and the notification was received by AOL with no problems. I conclude that that's an acceptable address to have in there, but it remains to be proven by repeated use.

Bottom line: THE NEW CODE WORKS. Thanks for all your help.

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For future versions...

It would be most excellent if private messages could be identified as such in the subject of the notification message.

Private messages don't include Location, Homepage, or Picture, even though they are asked for in the form that creates the private message, and they DO appear on guestbook posts. It would be best if these items were either included in the private message, or if the form somehow showed that they weren't included.

That's it. I'll let you know of any further developments.

Regards,
Lou Sander
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
USA

Open [b]lib/add.class.php[b] and find on the next line changeJust remember to put your text in quotes.