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    Using an alternative SMTP mail server

    Problems with mailservers seem to be on the increase. The latest I have encountered today is Microsoft taking it upon themselves to block swathes of mail servers of the hosting company I resell. Despite the company's best efforts Microsoft are being slow to remedy the situation.

    I have solved the problem by using Mail Jet's free SMTP service. It is free for up 6,000 emails/month, 200 emails/day and has a nice summary page so you can see what emails have been processed.

    1. Sign up for Mail Jet at https://app.mailjet.com/signup?lang=en_GB Use the email address you use in Business Settings Company Details or use another one, you can validate other emails later. Create a password, do the Captcha and proceed. The next pane you enter your details and complete the process. An email will be sent to the address you used for validation.

    2. Top right by your name click the little arrow and choose My Account

    3. Towards the top left click Add Sender Domain or Address

    4. Add your website URL and the email used in Business Settings Company details if you didn't sign up with that.
    The email address will receive a validation email for you to click and confirm. The website validation needs a text file uploaded to the server OR an additional TXT record created in domain management. If you cannot do this contact whoever manages your domain name and hosting.

    5. Caveat: This process takes a little while so do not be impatient. However the domain name often doesn't validate straight away so send a support ticket in Help, Help Desk at the top and ask for it to be done manually. This will take under an hour.

    6. Once the domain name and email have a green 'Active' status it is time to enter your new email settings. Top right by your name click the little arrow and choose My Account. Towards the top left click SMTP and SEND API settings. You will see:
    USERNAME (API KEY): PASSWORD (SECRET KEY): in one row
    beneath that will be the
    SMTP server:
    Enter the server and username and password in network settings in Sellerdeck ticking the Username and Password required box. If you click 'Test' it will pass but will not send out an email from the offline local instance.

    7. Change the email port. Hardly anyone uses Port 25 for sending emails but it is still built into Sellerdeck in ACTINIC.pm - Anyone from SD reading this, the email port should be a configuration variable in Settings, Site Options. Download Notepad ++ - by means the very best plain text editor there is: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

    In the Site folder find ACTINIC.pm, right click and copy and paste so you have backup. Right click ACTINIC.pm and open in Notepad++. Search for $nSmtpPort = 25;
    Change it to $nSmtpPort = 587;

    8. Save and close. Upload the site and do a test order.

    Voila!
    Jonathan Chappell
    Website Designer
    SellerDeck Website Designer
    Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
    Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

    #2
    There's also an $nSmtpPort = 25; in TestSettings.pl which, if changed, will allow the Network Test to use the new port.

    P.S. It would be a 10 minute job for SellerDeck to create an SMTPPort variable and put it into these 2 Perl files, the Help and the Variable Reference Guide. I've been nagging them about this for 6 years or so, so I guess they're not bothered.
    Norman - www.drillpine.biz
    Edinburgh, U K / Bitez, Turkey

    Comment


      #3
      The offline test still wont send an email with MailJet presumably because one has told MailJet the URL and email address from which the email is to be sent and on the local instance it is not sent from there. Having said that, where is it sent from in local testing?
      Jonathan Chappell
      Website Designer
      SellerDeck Website Designer
      Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
      Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

      Comment


        #4
        I've been asked to look after several legacy sites (v10 and 11) because the original company couldn't get the settings right for 20i's hosting. All sites are working under SSL but none are sending email. I've tried localhost (works sometimes) smtp setting and even using socketlabs' external smtp with no luck. Would this be down to the port number ?
        Richard Gosler
        Phoenix Digital Media Ltd
        Dorset, UK

        Comment


          #5
          Could well be port numbers.

          Try 465, 587 for IMAP 587 for POP

          And/or try Mailjet, It seems pretty sound.

          Jonathan
          Jonathan Chappell
          Website Designer
          SellerDeck Website Designer
          Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
          Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

          Comment


            #6
            If it is 20i then you need to use port 587 for outbound email - at least, that is what I use and it works.
            Elysium:Online - Official Accredited SellerDeck Partner
            SellerDeck Design, Build, Hosting & Promotion
            Based in rural Northants

            Comment


              #7
              A P.S. Has anyone else noticed that the forum isn't marking up read / unread threads properly?

              Sometimes a forum is marked as new posts but when entered, there's nothing new there.

              Refreshing the browser clears it but it just returns later.

              I've been seeing this since it went to HTTPS.
              Norman - www.drillpine.biz
              Edinburgh, U K / Bitez, Turkey

              Comment


                #8
                I'm seeing that as well Norman.
                Elysium:Online - Official Accredited SellerDeck Partner
                SellerDeck Design, Build, Hosting & Promotion
                Based in rural Northants

                Comment


                  #9
                  I've been seeing that for the last few weeks too. It's very odd as even this morning the last post section says:

                  Google Schema - Rich snippets
                  by orcahouse
                  Today 02:56 PM Go to last post
                  but you go into the section and see it hasn't been updated in 3 days and the last post was

                  06-Mar-2018 05:20 PM
                  by Mantra Go to last post
                  I was putting it down to caching problems but it doesn't really look like that. More like some kind of a forum bug. Although why a 4 year old version of VBulletin should be showing a new bug is a bit beyond me. Maybe it is a problem with SSL or maybe a redirect issue.
                  -----------------------------------------

                  First Tackle - Fly Fishing and Game Angling

                  -----------------------------------------

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Is it something to do with - when you click on a link you get:
                    Code:
                    https://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?p=355563#post355563
                    instead of
                    Code:
                    https://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?p=355563
                    ???
                    Jonathan Chappell
                    Website Designer
                    SellerDeck Website Designer
                    Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
                    Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The SSL seems OK although it is crossed out on this page:

                      https://www.whynopadlock.com/results...6-53118f92fbd7
                      Jonathan Chappell
                      Website Designer
                      SellerDeck Website Designer
                      Actinic to SellerDeck upgrades
                      Graphicz Limited - www.graphicz.co.uk

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Firefox is showing the forum with the yellow padlock i.e. SSL is in place but there are insecure items on the page.
                        Elysium:Online - Official Accredited SellerDeck Partner
                        SellerDeck Design, Build, Hosting & Promotion
                        Based in rural Northants

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Jonathan has a link to Skype in his profile on the left:
                          Code:
                          <img src="http://mystatus.skype.com/smallicon/graphiczweb" alt="Send a message via Skype&trade; to graphicz" border="0" />
                          Norman - www.drillpine.biz
                          Edinburgh, U K / Bitez, Turkey

                          Comment


                            #14
                            I think mine did as well so I've just updated it.
                            Elysium:Online - Official Accredited SellerDeck Partner
                            SellerDeck Design, Build, Hosting & Promotion
                            Based in rural Northants

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Me too re the Forum being unable to differentiate between new / old posts. I'm fed up doing Shift / Refresh in order to get up-to-date details.
                              Norman - www.drillpine.biz
                              Edinburgh, U K / Bitez, Turkey

                              Comment

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