SendGrid will stop working for SellerDeck

[Paddington Bear]

To use SendGrid in SellerDeck, one needs to use the login/password method of authentication, rather than the API key, as the SellerDeck Password box will not accept the long stringed API key. This is a very useful workaround and makes SendGrid usable in SellerDeck.

On November 18th, SendGrid have said they are going to stop supporting this workaround (in the name of security) and users will have to use the 'apikey' and API Key combination instead.

Does anyone know how to get around this?
Perhaps there is some code that will make the Password box in the Network Setup dialog accept and process the API key?
Or have I missed something?

You can read about it here (though the specific date isn't mentioned in this article, it is in the email)

Thanks,
PB

[NormanRouxel]

Fix via an User Variable for the api key.

In Web / Network Setup put apikey for the user name and dummy for the password. OK out.

Go to Design / Library / Variables. Right-click Site and choose New Variable.
Set it up as per below (replacing Top Level Value with your key).


OK out.

In your site folder, edit file SmtpLibrary.pm and look for the line:

    return ($sPassword);

Replace it with:

    return (GetSMTPUsername() eq 'apikey' ? '<actinic:variable name="SendgridApiKey" encoding="perl" />' : $sPassword);

Save that file and update the site.

Warning: If you update SellerDeck to a new release, file SmtpLibrary.pm will be replaced with an original one and you'll have to re-do the above edit.

If you need to change the key you can do that via Settings / Site Options / Properties / Site / Sendgrid API Key.

You can disable this key and use the network setup password by setting Username to anything other than apikey.

[Paddington Bear]

Thank you for this Norman. I will have a play with it when I get a chance.
I suspect that some people won't come searching for this until the deadline hits and they find their emails no longer work.

[Mike Hughes]

Thanks Norman,

I now have the API Key working with sendgrid.

Oddly I couldn't get the first method to work. Every time I changed the sSMTPPassword sData value from dummy to the API Key I found Sellerdeck would crash immediately on opening. Changing it back to dummy (or even something similar) would fix the problem. This is with V18.4.

The second method using the variable worked fine for me so I've left it that way.

Mike

[NormanRouxel]

Mike, I hadn't closed SellerDeck when testing that and I see crashes too when restarting SD using the overlong key. I've deleted that method from my earlier post.

I've also updated the tweak to allow it to be disabled by setting Sendgrid API Key to null.

[Mike Hughes]

Very Cool!

Or maybe even better would be to code it so if the username is 'apikey' then it uses the sendgridApiKey value, otherwise it doesn't and will just use the username and password settings.

Mike

[Buzby]

Just off topic slightly

What are the advantages of using Sendgrid rather than your own server?

[Mike Hughes]

What are the advantages of using Sendgrid rather than your own server?

Nothing if you have your own server with your own mailserver.

If you're using your webhosts shared server then they're often abused by spammers leading to poor reputation and blacklisting that affect email deliverability.

Also quite a few webhosts now lock down their email servers so they no longer work with Sellerdeck.

Mike

[NormanRouxel]

code it so if the username is 'apikey' then it uses the sendgridApiKey value, otherwise it doesn't

In that case the edit to SmtpLibrary.pm would be:

Look for the line:

    return ($sPassword);

Replace it with:

    return (GetSMTPUsername() eq 'apikey' ? '<actinic:variable name="SendgridApiKey" encoding="perl" />' : $sPassword);

I've updated my original post to use this.

[Paddington Bear]

Works perfectly well for me, thank you (haven't tried the added code - think I'll quit while I'm ahead.)

PB

[KarenBM]

Thanks for the code Norman, I don't have SmtpLibrary.pm in V14.03. Where do I modify the code? Many thanks

[NormanRouxel]

Karen, for V14 try the patch as per post #2 but edit file ActinicSMTPAuth.pm instead of SmtpLibrary.pm.

If you need to use an SMTP port other than 25 then changes will be needed to ACTINIC.pm and TestSettings.pl. They're somewhere on this forum.

[NormanRouxel]

Everyone: I've amended my post #2. I was erroneously using == instead of eq in the Replace it with: Code line.

[KarenBM]

Thank you Norman, will report back.

[KarenBM]

It worked perfectly, thank you Norman