Email notification no longer works

[Valerie]

Hiya - I'm bumping this as I've got no solution for it. I tried a full web refresh and it didn't work.

Hi Guys

On Sunday our email notification for new orders stopped working. I'd made no changes to the database, the email address hasn't altered and the hosts for the email address say nothing's changed. I've tested the email address and it's fine. I've altered the address in actinic to another address of mine and it still doesn't work. I just get no email confirmation on orders and I used to get them all the time... Boxes are checked, and the customer still receives email.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Love

Val

www.detoxyourworld.com

[jont]

May be worth changing the SMTP server in the network set up to "localhost" - without the quote marks - this solved a similar problem when my host made changes to their settings.

[Valerie]

it already...

says localhost. Any other clues?

Love

Val

[Countrygirl]

Hi Valerie
It would be worth asking your host what the SMTP setting should be. I found my settings in the FAQs on the host website. localhost did not work for me.

It doesn't really make a lot of sense why it has stopped working but it is worth a try to find out if there is an alternative setting for this.

Best wishes
Anne

[Valerie]

This is worse than I first thought

Not only is that email notification not working, it also seems to be displaying some old version of the site. Some products have reverted to how they were a few months ago, and as I'm finding them, I'm having to delete them, upload them then undelete them and reupload to get them to display correctly. As we have over 600 products, this is a potential nightmare. What on earth could have happened, and why can't a full web refresh have resolved it? This is a major deal!!!

Please help asap, someone!

Love

Val

[pinbrook]

I would ftp to your site, delete the acatalog folder, and then do a site refresh

[Valerie]

Is this really the best thing to do at this time? I'll have to do it at midnight or something so few customers are affected. Is there anything I have to look out for, or do I just remove everything, then reupload? This is a bit beyond me and my techie who created the site in the first place is on holiday...

Love

Val

[wjcampbe]

It sounds as though your host might have had a problem and reloaded their server from a backup (including your old files). If the products have not changed much, then you might wait for a quiet time, but if there are discontinued products showing on site, or incorrect prices, or a large number of new products missing, then it is really in your best interest to take the plunge and do the cleanup now.

[Valerie]

Thanks Bill. The hosts are insisting they've had no probs with the server, and they say my best course of action is to ask Actinic!! :-)

I'll give it a go later, but can someone confirm to me:

In the FTP window there are the following folders:

acatalog
cgi bin
logstats
snapshots

and the following files

actinicwebsitetest.html
index.html
index_temp.html

...do I just remove "acatalog", I don't faff with the cgi or anything, do I? And will it affect the attributes? I'm wondering if I should just rename acatalog incase it all goes horribly wrong? What do you think?

Love

A confused Val

[Bruce]

I would suggest just opening the 'acatalog' folder and then delete all its contents, you can do the same for the cgi-bin too. Once done in Actinic go to Web | refresh Website.

Kind regards,

[Valerie]

Hi

I deleted the folder and uploaded the new one (as a web refresh) and I'm waiting to see if the email works right now -- BUT one of the product items that I'd corrected (re my other mails) reverted back to an older version again! I'm just in the middle of deleting it, uploading it and then adding it back again, which resolved it before.

This is really concerning me, that Actinic seems so broken. I can't keep tabs on our 600 products to know if they're all OK or not, I only noticed this one by accident.

Can anyone tell me why Actinic's behaving like this and if there's a solution? I've only had it since spring last year, and I'm not impressed right now.

Love

Val

[Valerie]

Hi

We just had a new order through, and no email notification, so removing and uploading the acatalog did nothing, except break it a bit more...

Love

Val

[pinbrook]

BUT one of the product items that I'd corrected (re my other mails) reverted back to an older version again!

it seems that it is not the webserverat fault but it is your copy of actinic. If you completely removed everything from the webserver, then the only thing to put the old products online is your refresh.

Try compacting the database and do another refresh.

I'm just in the middle of deleting it, uploading it and then adding it back again, which resolved it before.

how are you doing this? via the actinic tree or via html

[Valerie]

I'm doing it via the content tree. I'm a bit scared to try anything else. Deleting the old files has caused the customer numbers to revert to zero. I think compressing the db may remove all my "deleted files" (and I keep them to use as templates and for offers that come and go. I think I'll wait til my techie gets back from his holiday and ask his advice. Have still got the right hump with Actinic for misbehaving like this, though!

Love

Val

[Valerie]

Hi

Just to let you know that my techie resolved the old products displaying. He noticed that Actinic had created several (100!) .html pages in the site folder, and they were being uploaded and overriding the actual database information. Very odd. I removed them, and problem solved. Still no email notification, though -- any other ideas?

Love

Val