potential forum members not receiving activation email

[rockedge]

while checking out the Puppy Linux chat with HexChat it has come to my attention there are people attempting to join the forum and not receiving an activation email to login.

how does one reach the admin is the question?

[Flash]

That would be me.

Usually the problem is caused by their email client putting the activation mail in their spam folder.

In any case, I can't help if I don't know the name they used when they created their forum account.

[rockedge]

I know its you!
The user name was aledie I think. they said they did manage to send an email to the admin.

[ITSMERSH]

Remember?

This is the problem I encountered, which was solved by the eMail address rockedge provided to me. I tried several different eMail providers, all failed (gmx.de, web.de, gmail.com to name a few).

Nothing in Spam folders also!

[aledie]

@rockedge, Flash: thanks a lot for your support! It works now.

[Flash]

Aledie, I sent you a PM to let you know I'd activated your account. Did you get an email notice that you had a PM?

[aledie]

@Flash, I never received an email notice about the activation (cannot be a problem with spam as in my email account I haven't activated the spam filter, all emails land in my inbox per default).

I just looked my nick up in the murga-linux member's list and saw that it had been activated, the login worked then.

[Flash]

Ah, okay. You answered my followup question, which was: did you get the PM notice email when you didn't get the activation email?

[aledie]

not a single email from murga-linux successfully landed in my inbox since the day I registered (some 3-4 days ago)

well, an exotic email provider, but I also tried to register with my gmail.com address, same ...

[Flash]

I use gmail. As far as I know, I get every email the forum sends me. If you're outside the U.S., maybe your country is blocking the forum's emails because we're a subversive lot. We use Linux.

[mikeb]

I use gmail. As far as I know, I get every email the forum sends me. If you're outside the U.S., maybe your country is blocking the forum's emails because we're a subversive lot. We use Linux.

Hmm gmx.com did not get emails so thats germany out.... I cannot use india.com...seems banned for some reason.... testing my own domain which might be in Romania lol.....

Its lonely out there where we don't salute flags

mike

[rockedge]

who hosts the actual phpBB site and where is the Host?
It appears this mail server is blocking connections to some of these other mail servers. I know that UK and US based ISP's seem to work. That German mail servers are being blocked is strange.

Or the phpBB email generation no longer works 100%.

I have heard the arguments that it would be very hard or impossible to upgrade the forum software. I do not agree and after researching what would be involved it doesn't look that that way.

[aledie]

@web.de - a provider in Germany as popular as @gmx.com mentioned above) is out too... Fortunately many Germans are into bigger dogs, so would just switch back to Suse/Kde...

Should be br-exit!?

[Flash]

who hosts the actual phpBB site and where is the Host?

It used to be in Arizona. I don't know if it still is.

...I have heard the arguments that it would be very hard or impossible to upgrade the forum software. I do not agree and after researching what would be involved it doesn't look that that way.

It would be hard. Nobody said it would be impossible. A few things might get broken and the forum would probably have to go down for days or even weeks. It's a lot to ask of John Murga, especially since the forum seems to be working pretty well with only a few inconsequential quirks and one not so inconsequential one. There's no guarantee that upgrading the forum will fix the activation email problem. We need to figure out the reason for that problem first.

[rockedge]

the upgrade idea is only a potential move. The forum overall is working pretty well.
I have done migrations like this before and with the tools phpBB developers provide to convert the database and it maybe possible to do a database .sql dump and setup the newer forum code without shutting down this one at all until the newer version is ready and the sql dump is imported. Side by side development.

I also think the problem is centered around the mail server that the forum is using to actually send the email. Is it a private server or a commercial host?
anyway that is most likely where the problem is

[dancytron]

I looked at the header of an email I got from the server. I am far from an expert, but it looks to me like it went directly from murga-linux.com to Charter to me.

Received: from murga-linux.com ([45.33.15.200])
by impin001 with charter.net

A traceroute on that ip address reveals:

11 li969-200.members.linode.com (45.33.15.200)

So the hosting is https://www.linode.com/.

So I think the mail server is on the puppy linux account a linode.com and that someone needs to look at the mail server logs on that account and see what is happening.

[rockedge]

good sleuthing dancytron!

looking at those logs would probably reveal what is going on.

[mikeb]

Actually its more likely the recipients server blocking.... hotmail are notorious for it. My dowomain gets it a lot so I use india.com smtp for outgoing.
since countries or major networks often use a common proxy it may be that that is being blocked...rapidshare suffered that problem.
A freeish but paranoid internet we have
mike

[HerrBert]

... there are people attempting to join the forum and not receiving an activation email to login.

how does one reach the admin is the question?

good question!
i had the same problem when using web.de as provider.

but from 'outside' the forum, there seems to be no way to contact any admin...

[8Geee]

Also quite possible the domain/server is blocked due to non-https here, at the forum. The secure-chain breaks at the forum.

Regards
8Geee