Erratic Email sends in join script

[showman]

Hi, I'm hoping that someone can tell me if there is a known issue with sending emails within a script that would cause it to send most of the time, but occasionally just bypass the send altogether?

I've got a members site that processes joins on an email verification process.. i.e. They fill out a form, I send them an email and they click the link to verify... When they verify they automatically get a payment screen with a link to the various payment processors. The biggest majority of the time this script works fine. (in my opinion it always works, but the members may not)...

Out of the last 80 joins, I've had 3 instances of someone saying they never received the email, and they along with their referrers are looking at me as if it is in the script... Maybe it is, but I don't know where to start looking because most of the time it works fine..

Can you help me ?? I can paste in a snippet of the email portion of the script if that would help..

Thanks in advance..

Doug
😕

[diego25]

You can just give them the statistic: 96.25% (77/80) of the members received the e-mail, so it's not a problem with the script. It may be a problem with their ISP's mail server.

Well, actually, it may be because your e-mail headers are suspicious, so their mail servers discard your mail. Send an e-mail from the script to yourself, and analyze the headers. Make sure there's a valid From: field, etc...

Diego

[showman]

Thanks for your reply Diego25.

I've been using this same basic email script for a long time..

I build the body of the email:

$validate = $mainurl . "validate.html?mem=$email&pc=$passcode";

$body = "
$firstname,\n\n
Thank you for submitting your membership request to $sitename.
Before your membership can be approved, we need to verify your email address and complete the payment transaction. To do this please follow the link below. Once your email has been validated you will be provided with your Username and Password.

To Validate Your Email please click the link below (if it is split onto two or more lines, please copy the URL and paste it into the address bar on your browser.

$validate

Thank You,
$signname
$sitename
";

mail($email, "VALIDATION REQUIRED: $sitename", $body, "From: $admin_email\nReply-To:$admin_email\nX-mailer😛HP/".phpversion());

That is pretty much it... I sometimes have 3 or 4 consecutive emails stacked. One to the new member, one to the referrer, one to the admin, etc..

Here is a sample of the headers:

To: [e-mail]
Subject: VALIDATION REQUIRED: eLearn.The-Feeder
From: [e-mail]
Reply-To:[e-mail]

It all looks fine to me, and I fail to find an error... was hoping that if there were any known issues, someone here would know.

I've read alot of the different threads in this forum, and the folks here seem to genuinely care and want to help...

I'm sure I'll be spending some time here, and trying to contribute myself as I can...

thanks
doug

[diego25]

Here is a sample of the headers:

To: [e-mail]
Subject: VALIDATION REQUIRED: eLearn.The-Feeder
From: [e-mail]
Reply-To:[e-mail]

Is that printed directly from the PHP script, or did you get that from the e-mail message itself (i.e. from your e-mail client went to View -> Source)? 'cause sometimes mail servers add their own headers too, so I'd recommend you check the e-mail's source code through an e-mail client.

Diego

[showman]

Diego25

It came directly from the email... Properties / Details..

Here is the entire set of headers.

Return-path: <[e-mail]>
Envelope-to: [e-mail]
Delivery-date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 18:56:42 -0500
Received: from nobody by nitro.xyzdns.net with local (Exim 3.36 #1)
id 18el1W-0001GE-00
for [e-mail]; Fri, 31 Jan 2003 18:56:42 -0500
To: [e-mail]
Subject: VALIDATION REQUIRED: eLearn.The-Feeder
From: [e-mail]
Reply-To:[e-mail]
X-mailer😛HP/4.2.2
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 18:56:42 -0500

The thing is that when they alert me to not receiving the email, I can go to the members login screen where I included a link incase they needed to receive another validation email (which nobody uses).. enter their username, and click the link and it will send them the validation email with no problem at all ... Using the same routine..

Makes no sense to me, and personally I'm convinced that they are just missing the email or discarding it with other mail or something.. But I can't convince the members that it could possibly be something they are doing wrong..

Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to address this for me.. If you see anything that looks wrong with the headers please let me know... Maybe I'm missing something.

Doug

[diego25]

Well, I was going to say that the "Received" field is different from the "From" field...but if your routine works the second time you send it, then I don't know what's wrong 🙁

Again, I'd just show the statistics to them and tell them that it's not your fault since more than 96% of the e-mails work...You could raise the fact that it could be their ISPs who discarded their e-mail...

Diego

[showman]

OK, that makes sense to me... That is probably what I should have done to begin with, rather then to question the validity of the code..

Thanks again for all your help..

I'm sure I'll be back with other questions, and hopefully some answers for others.

Doug🆒