24 replies to this topic

[stumax]

Hi guys,

I'm busy setting up my site with v2.3.1 on my local PC, all working well so far. One problem I'm having is getting email to work. My web hosting is with mydomain.com and my email hosting is with my ISP, Optusnet. Is that likely to cause problems? Should I use the email provided by mydomain? That may actually work better for me if I can get Thunderbird to import email from that server into a separate folder, however, my email address would change, and we all know that's a pain, especially as I've been in business for a while and all my customers know my current email address, but I guess if it's just for the site to send me email orders it would be OK. Also, should I be able to test email functionality whilst building the site on my local PC or does it have to be uploaded to the server? So far I've been unable to get it to work, despite setting the various mail server settings and even putting login info in sendmail.ini. I tried using SMTP and sendmail, same result: no success. Do I have to do anything special when making changes to the various .ini files? With the username and password in the sendmail.ini, do they have to be inside quotation marks or just plain? If anyone could help I'd be very grateful, this had had me up until 2am all week trying things.

Stu.

[DunWeb]

@stumax,

If you are using WAMMP or XAMMP to configure your website on your local machine, the email function very rarely works. Your hosting account normally controls your email sending.





Chris

[stumax]

Thanks, Chris. I am using XAMMP, so I guess I'll just have to take a giant leap of faith and hope it works when I upload it. If I upload it and have it non-active, should the email work then?

Stu.

[geoffreywalton]

xampp comes with an email package called mercury thay you can configure to get working but it is not easy/intuitive plus you need .........

So don't even go there.

If you have a host email will work.

OK so when you set up an account or place an order, you get an error message and you can't see the email layout but you can sort out the rest of your site.

If your site is "inactive / hidden" on your live server emails don't care.

Cheers

G

[Jack_mcs]

stumax, on 27 January 2012, 10:42, said:

Hi guys,

I'm busy setting up my site with v2.3.1 on my local PC, all working well so far. One problem I'm having is getting email to work. My web hosting is with mydomain.com and my email hosting is with my ISP, Optusnet. Is that likely to cause problems? Should I use the email provided by mydomain? That may actually work better for me if I can get Thunderbird to import email from that server into a separate folder, however, my email address would change, and we all know that's a pain, especially as I've been in business for a while and all my customers know my current email address, but I guess if it's just for the site to send me email orders it would be OK. Also, should I be able to test email functionality whilst building the site on my local PC or does it have to be uploaded to the server? So far I've been unable to get it to work, despite setting the various mail server settings and even putting login info in sendmail.ini. I tried using SMTP and sendmail, same result: no success. Do I have to do anything special when making changes to the various .ini files? With the username and password in the sendmail.ini, do they have to be inside quotation marks or just plain? If anyone could help I'd be very grateful, this had had me up until 2am all week trying things.

Stu.

It seems you are talking about two different things here. If you want email to work on your local PC with XAmpp, you just have to make some changes to the ini file. I don't use XAmpp any longer but, when I did, the emails worked fine, though you had to make those changes. Searching the XAmpp support forum should provide the needed steps. That's outgoing emails, of course, since incoming makes no sense in this context.

[Ninety-one Maro]

Ok, time for me to be the dummy here. I don't know if I am using XAmpp or not. I have no clue how to tell. I am running our site off of a dedicated PC here. None of our outgoing or incoming emails are working. Nothing at all.

[Jack_mcs]

Ninety-one Maro, on 16 March 2012, 00:23, said:

Ok, time for me to be the dummy here. I don't know if I am using XAmpp or not. I have no clue how to tell. I am running our site off of a dedicated PC here. None of our outgoing or incoming emails are working. Nothing at all.

XAmpp is a package one installs to create a local server on a computer for testing. It is not meant to be used as a server for the web, if that is what you are trying to do. If you have it installed, there will be a directory someplace named xampp. Try using your Windows search to find it.

[Ninety-one Maro]

Ok, nope I don't have it. Yaaaaa. But still, no emails. Nothing leaving the site, and nothing coming into the site. Thought that since the email is close to the actual domain name, we change the email address, and still nothing. It is confusing the heck out of me. Since I don't know code at all, and only learned what I have been researching, this is getting hard to fix. I've even gone and installed mods for the Contact Us page, to hope that would fix some things, but it didn't, so I put the original ones back in.

[spooks]

There is something you could try, but only if you have access to a server based email account.

Install the latest Database_backup_manager I just uploaded, that adds phpMailer for emailing the backups, if you can get that to work, you can send any emails (with further modification)

I am considering creating a new email package around that.

Edited by spooks, 16 March 2012, 01:09.

[Ninety-one Maro]

lol, that brings up another issue. Seems when I go through my admin control panel, and click on the backup, there are no buttons in there for me to create a backup. Did I just get a bad copy of osCommerce or something?

[spooks]

Did you add the button images that come with Database_backup_manager , though even if you did'nt the buttons should be obvious.

You did replace the database.php file in admin?

[Ninety-one Maro]

@spooks

I have not replaced the backup file in the "admin" area.

As for the email, and why it isn't working. I am still lost and have not figured it out. Here are my current settings:

Admin Control Panel:

E-Mail Options
E-Mail Transport Method = smtp
E-Mail Linefeeds = LF
Use MIME HTML When sending emails = false
Verify e-mail addresses through dns = true
send emails = true

Under My Store:
e=mail address = ronisringsnthings@xipline.com
e-mail from = ronisringsnthings@xipline.com
send extra order emails to = another email address @xipline.com

Is there something I am missing. As I have stated, none of the web site email functions are working. When someone creates a new account, there is no email that is sent to them (which there is supposed to be). When trying to use the Contact Us page, there is no email coming into us. When we send an email through the web site, the customer's are not getting them. Also, we are not getting any emails when orders have been placed, and cannot send emails with order updates. Something is really going on here, and we have been getting orders almost daily. I need this fixed, please help!!!!!

[spooks]

If you do replace backup.php in admin you will then be able to create backups & if backup files are in place you can then select to email them, which will test if emailing through phpMailer


Re your settings, mime is just for html & attachments, not needed for plain text

E-Mail Linefeeds LF on Linux, Windows may need CRLF

Edited by spooks, 22 March 2012, 12:12.

[Ninety-one Maro]

@spooks

What would I replace the backup.php with? A blank file?

[spooks]

No, with the file that comes with Database_backup_manager I mentioned before

You need 5.0 as 5.1 doesn't use phpMailer

Edited by spooks, 23 March 2012, 01:34.

[Ninety-one Maro]

Ok, I've downloaded it, and installed it. Problem is, the domain name to our web site expired, lol. Gotta get that worked out now.

[Ninety-one Maro]

@spooks

Ok, I got it downloaded and installed. It does look different, however, I still cannot do backups. Just realized that the backup folder is not writeable. How do I do that? Remember, I am running this on a Windows computer, from my home.

[spooks]

You don't say which version of windows!

For Vista, right click on the folder, select properties and the "Security" tab, another box pops up, select "users" and give them "Modify" and "Write" permissions on top of what's there before.

Otherwise Auto Backup http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/8374 setup creates folder and check's everything and tells you what needs doing.

[Ninety-one Maro]

Ok, I got it working, thank you. Well as far as the backup. But the email function is still not working. This is the last thing to work out for now. I gotta get the email working, I am losing customers right now. We have had great sales in the past two weeks, but had to take the site down for a week so far, because of the email not working. It was working when we first loaded up the site, but then just stopped. I don't know what is going on.

Any help would be great.

[spooks]

@Ninety-one Maro

Have you tried entering the smtp authorization param's for a email account on your domain ?

I thought you said this problem was on XAMP, are you now saying no email on a real server too?