Newbie Question re email settings

[Hat]

Hi... just trying out the 30 day demo of Catalog 6.02 and have subscribed to a years of hosting at www.34sp.com (for 15 quid) .. just to initially test out some basic functions of shop design and stock levels etc

Chose these guys based on cost and that they meet the three criteria mentioned

- Web Space
- CGI-bin with Perl 5.02 or higher
- FTP Access to CGI-bin

(http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/hosting.htm)

Yet I am not managing to set it up properly for emails. I've had a scout around the knowledge base etc.. and have been in 34sps irc tech support forum... but to be honest I am getting bogged down

I have configured the common settings so that the smtp server is that of my ISP (smtp.blueyonder.co.uk) as that is what was suggested by 34sp tech support (reason being that my basic package with 34sp doesnt include smtp)

Problems:
1.A customer does not receive a confirmation email when placing an order.
2. I do not (now) receive an email when a new order is placed (I did for a while.. but dont anymore.. probably since messing around with the settings to try and make it work)
3. When I download the orders and try to send an email directly from within the orders.. that fails too.

This machine is on a local domain controlled by a MS small business server.

Can you guys help me out? and what else do you need to know before you can help me?

Many thanks

Hat

[NormanRouxel]

Blueyonder's SMTP server will be (rightly) refusing to accept outgoing mail originating from your hosting company. If it did, the entire world (and all the Spam companies) would be likewise using it.

Ask your hosting provifer if they support Sendmail (or an alternative sendmail like mailer), and if their Perl installation has the Mail::Mailer module installed. If so I have a patch to Actinic.pm that allows this to be used instead of SMTP.

Norman

[Hat]

ok.. that all kind of makes sense to me...

lemme post what happened in the irc channel...

[13:01] <op> Hatster: i believe that module is installed if not it can be
[13:03] <Hatster> ok....
[13:04] <Hatster> Ill get whatevers needed from actinic assuming that module is installed
[13:04] <op> k

so it looks like I need this patch then if that dont work it looks like 34sp need to install the module...



now then.... wheres this here patch thingy then?

[Hat]

ooh.. 10 minutes only allowed on edit messages! eeek

Was gonna say... that he didint say whether they support Sendmail (or an alternative sendmail like mailer)


do they need to do this AND have this module installed... or is that an AND/OR thingy?

[NormanRouxel]

For my patch you'll need ( sendmail or equivelant ) AND Mail::Mailer.

Norman

[Hat]

Thanks very much Norman... I'll attempt tomorrow.

[NormanRouxel]

Forgot to say. My patch works with Catalog but won't pass the network test as that is a completely different program.

If you want to run the network test just blank out the SMTP server but replace it with a dummy entry (like "dummy") afterwards as there has to be something in that field or Catalog won't attempt to send mail.

Norman