Emails not sending problem (again)

[PatchworkRabbit]

Age old problem. Customers have been saying that they're getting paypal emails, but not an email from me (and I think this might be related to my General Script Error that people are getting at checkout) so I did the network test and get Connection Timeout.

I was using localhost, Authentication on. Now, this worked when I originally set up the site and have no idea when it stopped working (I never send the inbuilt emails from Actinic).

My webhost (5quidhost) suggested changing to port 587 and using mail.patchworkrabbit.com as the SMTP server but no joy. I even tried switching off my firewall on my PC (though that wouldn't explain why emails from the server aren't going). All other email from the server (via webmail) works fine.


I've tried everything in here:

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=45967

Actinic support also pointed me to that thread and said if it's not in there, then there's nothing they can do (although I would have thought that some advice for the webhost may have been useful?).

I know this is a chronic problem and you must be sick of it, but I think I've tried all the obvious stuff? Can anyone give me any suggestions on where to look next?

Could it be my ISP, for example?? (Although, again, that would only explain the PC error, not the server one).

[Mike Hughes]

This could well be related to the paypal problem being discussed here http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=48279

It sounds like the paypal IPN callback has stopped working for many people. Just like it did in January but this time with a different error.

Mike

[PatchworkRabbit]

Ah, thanks, I'll point the host guys at that and see if it's useful!

Payments are completing fine, and customers are getting their paypal email, just nothing from me. When I do a network test, I get Connection Timeout error.



My customers get a different error, too:

A General Script Error Occurred

Error: Bad input string "SEQUENCE=3&ACTION=Finish&ORDERNUMBER=MG71AP50000151&REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2epatchwork%2drabbit%2eco%2euk%2facatalog%2fcrescent%2dcolours%2dq%2dr%2ehtml&&tx=0Y052433S5372305D&st=Completed&amt=66.00&cc=GBP&cm=&item_number=MG71AP50000151". Argument count 20.

Press the Browser back button and try again or contact the site owner.

[Mike Hughes]

It does look like a different problem. Your error log has plenty of entries along the lines of

Program = MailScri, Program version = 18819 , HTTP Server = Apache/2.2.15 (Unix) mod_ssl/2, Return code = 999 , Date and Time = 2010/09/26 21:03, Internal Errors = Unable to connect to the mail socket (Connection timed out)

Going back to March.

Mike

PS. There are a few similar problems posted with solutions for you to try:

This one looks a prime candidate: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?p=302231

[PatchworkRabbit]

That'll teach me. I was so blooming convinced that the general script error was generated by the email failing that it didn't occur to me to be the other way around.

If only I were limber enough to kick myself in the head

A genuine case of not seeing the wood for the trees. Thanks!


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Update:

Did a test order and, despite clicking the "return to site" button, I didn't get an IPN despite the order going into the Pending tab, so I'm going to assume that's to do with the current and ongoing IPN thread for now. At least I'm not getting the error anymore!

Thanks