Jump to content
  • Checkout
  • Login
  • Get in touch

osCommerce

The e-commerce.

Should email work when testing on my local PC?


stumax

Recommended Posts

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@@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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

Need help installing add ons/contributions, cleaning a hacked site or a bespoke development, check my profile

 

Virus Threat Scanner

My Contributions

Basic install answers.

Click here for Contributions / Add Ons.

UK your site.

Site Move.

Basic design info.

 

For links mentioned in old answers that are no longer here follow this link Useful Threads.

 

If this post was useful, click the Like This button over there ======>>>>>.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Support Links:

For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc.

Get the latest versions of my addons

Recommended SEO Addons

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

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.

Support Links:

For Hire: Contact me for anything you need help with for your shop: upgrading, hosting, repairs, code written, etc.

Get the latest versions of my addons

Recommended SEO Addons

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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?

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@@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 = [email protected]

e-mail from = [email protected]

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!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

 

You need 5.0 as 5.1 doesn't use phpMailer

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@@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?

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never mentioned Xamp. The problem I am having, is that I am not receiving, nor can I send emails from my web site. Once again, please remember that the server is being ran from a 3rd computer at my house. It is running on Windows 7. If this is my issue, then I can try to get it moved to an actual server site, and see what happens then, but I am a noob and still trying to learn all this stuff.

 

Things I know:

 

When customer's create an account, they are not getting the confirmation email sent to them from my site.

 

When customer's send us an email through the Contact Us page, we are not getting it.

 

When we email customer's through our Admin Control Panel for order updates, they are not getting them.

 

There are no warnings that pop up or anything. I states that it was sent, but still, nothing on either end! I gotta get this fixed, as this is very critical to a web site based business. I need communication. It is a must, but I can't figure it out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The trouble is when you setup your server you must also setup a email service, otherwise it wont work, I assumed you were unable to setup a email service, thats why I suggested the phpMailer option as you only need a working email address to connect with that via smtp and it doesn't matter about a local mail service.

 

If you move to a 'actual server' then clearly that will have a mail service already installed.

 

I don't use windows for servers, don't like them, always use Linux, have you thought of adding Linux to the PC, it would make a better server and then I could give you a single line to install a working mail service.

 

If you go for Linux I recommend Ubuntu 10.10 its easier & more flexible than 11 It can be installed alongside Windows.

Sam

 

Remember, What you think I ment may not be what I thought I ment when I said it.

 

Contributions:

 

Auto Backup your Database, Easy way

 

Multi Images with Fancy Pop-ups, Easy way

 

Products in columns with multi buy etc etc

 

Disable any Category or Product, Easy way

 

Secure & Improve your account pages et al.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unless you have installed a Mail Server on your home computer, then email will not work.

 

Better in my opinion, to spend $2 a month and buy some cheapo hosting. No more problems...

 

Or more expensive hosting if you value your online business highly enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have found a friend that has a server, that he is going to let me use some of the space on it. Hopefully all will be well after that. I will keep you guys informed. Thanks for all that you guys have done.

 

Once I get the email thing fixed, then it is off to work on the site a little more and get it looking better. I have had a lot of people tell me they like it and it is very easy to get around it. Main issue besides the email, is the picture sizing. That is the next step.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...