Vortech Whats Going On!! Email Issues & OSCommerce

[nickp]

My mail form has mysteriously started working again without changes. Is this permanent or temporary?

[jetzkr8]

Funny, funny, funny. I have one oscommerce install that did not require anything to make it work. There is another that required modifying the catalog/includes/classes/email.php and catalog/admin/includes/classes/email.php files to hard-code the from address into the script code before things were back to before status quo.

I think this also effects phpBB. I need a solution for phpBB, if anyone has looked into it.

Yeah, Vortech is a good hosting service, but the way this is implemented causes disruptions. Yep, their action is for the good of all, but soemthing that will change and disrupt something that is already working fine must be handled more delicately. The problem EXISTS for all php/asp scripts that do not adequately include the proper from address. OSCommerce and phpBB are definitely involved. So are phpList and many other scripts.

While osCommerce may not be perfect, the fact is thing were running fine until Vortech changed the rules. Changes like these are/have not handled well by Vortech, this case and some issues in the past. Resellers have been put through anxiety to discover things that were known to work, suddenly disrupted. There needs to be more diligence when introducing changes such as this.

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by jetzkr8

I think this also effects phpBB. I need a solution for phpBB, if anyone has looked into it.

PHPBB doesn't require code modification.

In the admin area of PHPBB under General Admin -> Configuration then down near the bottom there is a space to enter the Admin Email Address for the board. That is the email address that gets used as the From: and the Reply-To: for all emails sent by the forum.
If you are the admin and you then go into your personal profile and change your personal email it will not affect the email entered in the Admin config area. The name is just a little confusing.

I have two PHPBB forums online here and both are functioning normally in all email aspects.

[ramjet]

This malfunction of signup/recommend us/send-to-a-friend scripts also affects Postnuke. One site I'm running hasn't worked for days. A trouble ticket resulted in a recommendation of where i could go to learn to recode this open source CMS system
which worked fine before.
The problem being i don't know code from my elbow. I have a client running Mambo, I'm too afraid to ask him if its still working as I wouldn't know how to help him anyway.

I for one have been trying to get a response on this issue, but it seems we're all on our own... we are now all hosted on the only host in the world where these sorts of open source programmes don't work as is. Joy.
I suspect as others have suggested that the shite hasn't hit the fan yet as not many people are aware that half their customers scripts are now rendered useless without recoding. This equates to lost business and massive expense for those who need to hire coders to find in a massive set of scripts all the effected areas.
In my opinion Vortech should mass mail everyone to tell them to advise their customers to check all parts of all programmes and scripts they have running.
Frankly Brad your spam solution has not been a solution at all.
Vortech have worked through most issues in the past, but seem to be a bit silent on this one.
I'm still waiting for word on what i should do to get Postnuke running again as it was, recode doesn't work for me, as i'm sure it won't for most people.
The sooner everyone (not just the Forum users) are informed of this, the sooner you'll see the scale of it i feel... otherwise its just going to string out over weeks as people twig one-by-one.
Please don't get me wrong... good on you for tackling spam, but that solution wasn't one. Better to admit it early on, return it to how it was so the scripts work again, and try something else IMO.
Who would want to host with someone where OS commerse or PHP Nuke or Postnuke or Mambo can't be installed anyway?

[ramjet]

just to add to the above, the sign-up mechanism on Mambo is out of action too, as i guess are its other email-using features. There goes another customer i'm sure whwn he finds out.
I can't tell him anything until Vortech address this issue, so i'll just stay quiet.

[treeves]

Not on web hosting account sign ups, but OSCommerce store owners and customers are not receiving any of the automatic notifications normally generared by OSCOmmerce, ie, new signups, account information, purchases, order updates, etc.

If the client is not receiving order updates, and the store owner is not processing orders because he received no order requests, there's potential for trouble.

I have three and although the hard code fix listed above seemed to take care of the issue for me, but I would think that there are hundreds, if not thousands of OSCommerce enabled sites that are not fixed, and is opening up someone for alot of liability.

[Garreg]

Ramjet your thoughts are the very ones I've been banging on about.......I raised these very same concerns in a couple of threads - all without any answer.
I had one script fixed - only because I 'insisted' that 'I' didnt break it and therefore it was not my responsibility to - up until then I was told basicly "Its not our job to support this kind of thing" (editing code).

Lets hope theres a resolve 'soon'

[jetzkr8]

Originally Posted by Light Speed

PHPBB doesn't require code modification.

In the admin area of PHPBB under General Admin -> Configuration then down near the bottom there is a space to enter the Admin Email Address for the board. That is the email address that gets used as the From: and the Reply-To: for all emails sent by the forum.
If you are the admin and you then go into your personal profile and change your personal email it will not affect the email entered in the Admin config area. The name is just a little confusing.

I have two PHPBB forums online here and both are functioning normally in all email aspects.

I have a phpBB 2.0.11 version and it has not generaetd an email for either person who signed up as well as the administrator, who is set to activate all new signups.

I am just wondering how long this issue will drag on. It seems many sites are silently not working the way they used to, and until someone discovers them, the issue still exists.

[jetzkr8]

Effects Mambo as well. Just took the liberty of signing up a new user and right on the head, the email supposed to be generated is not.

I strongly am beginning to feel this is a Vortech issue to resolve. It is unreasonable to expect a reseller who has hundreds of installations to do the thing on his own. The coding for these internationally acclaimed applications is not perfect, but things were running fine until Vortech upgraded it's SPAM measures.

I suggest Vortech make adjustments to allow emails generated automatically from websites to go through. However leave the email limit as 2000 per address and tackle issues that arise one at a time. Surely Vortech servers cannot be abundent with SPAMers. At the same time, maybe pursue the "from" address issue slowly so resellers have enough time to at least find out how to remedy the situation.

It is resellers who will have to face irate customers who demand an explanation, especially when things have been known to be working fine. It is worse if resellers, like RAMJET, who have no knowledge of coding, are tasked with recoding applications one-by-one. I am just fortunate I do not have any really "heavy" users and have few acounts. Otherwise this is definitely a nightmare for me. Worse, people think everything is working fine. Just wait till they find out emails that are supposed to be sent out automatically are not being sent out!

[tkraffty]

Yup - The LAST thing I want is to be a "webmaster" for these clients. I'd much rather prefer they use the available options to set-up their own sites, and just leave me to provide the hosting and related support.

Coding/development is NOT hosting-related support for most people (my hosting clients don't pay enough in one year to cover a single day's work at my normal development rates)...

So, for me, I would rather choose to disable any of these third-party software apps (except phpBB, which seems to work fine) than be forced to become an unpaid webmaster to all these clients.. But at that point (without any cool gizmos or software to offer, with easy plug-in activation), the value of my business offering pretty much goes to zero.

But even if I have a client who's a bit more proficient and capable of atleast installing his own "off the shelf" applications, we apparently now do not support the most common and popular ones... and it's ridiculous to expect every hosted client have adequate coding skills and/or money to hire a developer, in order to get these popular programs to work...

I'm seriously wondering if anyone aside from Brad there at Vortech has any real-world experience in business or in hosting. Maybe there should be some requirement that the techs there actually BE resellers themselves. Otherwise, the demands of these technical changes on us are becoming too great. (had the same problem during the dot-com years, where I regularly encountered IT guys who loved to flip switches, change and/or upgrade things without telling anyone - and especially without considering the possible business ramifications. When it came down to whether we had service patch umpteen-gazillion-dot-e, or the possibility that that patch installation could put us out of commission for part of a day, we choose to wait on the patch and/or spend a few extra days testing things before doing anything taht might disrupt business.

Sorry Vortech. Spam or no spam, I have to agree with the others too - I think this is a bad call which warrants a different, and more thoroughly considered solution than the ones we've been given so far

[jetzkr8]

MAMBO installations:

I just tried a work around. In the MAMBO admin login panel, select menu Site>Global Configuration. This is actually modifying the configuration.php file and you have to make sure the file has appropriaate write access permission, denoted by a green "writeable" message when the screen opens up. Otherwise a red "unwriteable" message is prominently displayed.

Select the "mail" tab and select "SMTP" as the mail transport system. You need to also fill up the smtp information in the fields and save the configuration.php file

This seems to be a workable solution to this unwanted SPAM related issue. The same thing works for phpBB installations. In the configuration section from Admin panel, setup appropriate SMTP information and the emails will start sending out again.

FYI, the above is being modified on Unix servers.

[mresell]

I have to say I am baffled by the inconsistent problems w/ the scripts. Some saying they work others not. Does seem to be creating more problems than it is worth. Tkrafty, I seriously doubt a Tech is doing anything they were not told to do. Altho, making informed decisions is always vital when it affects so many. Ultimately, I would think Brad is responsible for the policies.

[craigdunlop]

I think in regards to Hsphere packaged solutions, such as Oscommerce: surely it is up to Vortech or HSphere (whoever is responsible) to ensure this works as it is intended within the Hsphere control panel. If it doesn't then it should be removed.

I wish when critical changes to the system are made that major web apps could be tested with documentation on fixes posted prior to implementing the change. Just changing the "from" address within the admin GUI in some of these applications still does not work.

I do hope that this change to the system will be worth it???

One last question: Will scripts take more time to mail out now? Just asking as some of mine were taking well over 30 minutes to arrive yesterday, is this normal?

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by craigdunlop

One last question: Will scripts take more time to mail out now? Just asking as some of mine were taking well over 30 minutes to arrive yesterday, is this normal?

Isn't all the mail being funneled through one mail server now? Seems that would make a backed up queue happen more often

[tkraffty]

I've been a bit harsh/gripy today, but I always kiss and make-up after a while

Just two more thoughts... (1.) I didn't mean to say the IT staff are overzealous and/or doing stuff without permission - but rather meant to describe certain personality types that need to be taken into account when operating a facility and service like this. I have the same type of concern about a bunch of programmers who run software companies like Psoft - who don't think about the real-world impacts of things they don't consider to be a problem, such as expecting us to download 500K of javascript just to view the latest CP Skin

The same can be said of people who know so much about server hardware, that it is easy - and very common - for them to forget that real users, non-technical types, and businesses are on the other end of their decisions every day. ...Just wanted *that* to be kept in mind while the rest of these procedures and changes take effect. What might make perfect sense to an IT guru can quite often totally ruin a reseller's day, and doesn't necessarily have any of the intended benefits.

(2.) Lastly, I see above someone else mentioned a 30 minute delay in receiving e-mails. There have been a few mentions of this in various threads ever since the latest filtering was turned on. I'm also seeing delays or nothing from web scripts, and messages sent to me by normal channels are delayed or in some cases returned with a "no disk space" error. So, I'm concerned there hasn't been enough investigation of this issue which seems to be impacting more than just a few resellers/customers. Even though it's a bit vague, nebulous and some people might not have noticed yet, i think there's still something going on which may be impacting communications... Maybe that topic could be split off into another thread, just to the v-folks can gather feedback all in one place.

Other than that, I'm done griping. *smack* *hug*. If it turns out even the best software out there needs to be hand-holded to work here, then I'll just have to adjust my processes and/or business objectives accordingly. I don't want to be priced out of business, or lose these cool value-add features which provide a competitive edge in some cases, or even be forced to spend several hours per week per client on things I'd consider NOT hosting/support related.

Lastly ... the Direct Marketing Association is evil, pure and simple... I'm seriously worried because of them and the lack of any substantive government action, it won't be too much longer before e-mail and even browsing the web simply becomes too burdensome and restricted for most folks. I mean, ...just look at all the filters, challenge-response systems, blacklists, Inbox Rules, desktop Anti-V, script blocking, pop-up blocking, firewall software we need to use these days. While it's a boon to whoever writes that code, it still doesn't keep my mom from accidently opening another one of those "your bank needs you to confirm your account info" phishing scams.

OK... now I'm *REALLY* done griping.