[Pro] Help please... CONTACT form stopped working..

Hi guys,

Thanks in advance for any important help. A student of mine told me about 3 weeks ago that she sent me a message - I never got it and just thought she was confused. Again she came to me this morning and said the same and we checked my CONTACT form on my site and it seems to work fine (no errors showed) when she did it and even bumps her to the thanks page, but I never got the email message and now I am wondering how many other important messages i have missed.

I cannot think of much that has changed but I did change to a VPS server about 6 weeks ago (not sure if related).

The last email message I got was on April 11th from a parent.

Here is the page… thanks so much!

Barry


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When you test the form (sending to yourself) do you get the message? When this student sends you an e-mail from the same address she used to send the form, do you get the e-mail? Many deliverability issues are related to a specific user or ISP that has been flagged as sending spam. You need to rule out that this particular e-mail will send to your in-box.

Also check your spam folder(s) on your hosting provider’s side and your Mac(s). If any of those flagged it, you may never see it without a deliberate search.

I gave up years ago letting the sender set the e-mail address, and just send the message including the e-mail address instead. It’s one extra click to reply to the e-mail, but the result is that I can whitelist that one sending address and not worry about getting the message. You can configure both Send Form and PHP Feedback Form Actions to do this.

Walter

On May 12, 2014, at 8:10 AM, Hoffkids wrote:

Hi guys,

Thanks in advance for any important help. A student of mine told me about 3 weeks ago that she sent me a message - I never got it and just thought she was confused. Again she came to me this morning and said the same and we checked my CONTACT form on my site and it seems to work fine (no errors showed) when she did it and even bumps her to the thanks page, but I never got the email message and now I am wondering how many other important messages i have missed.

I cannot think of much that has changed but I did change to a VPS server about 6 weeks ago (not sure if related).

The last email message I got was on April 11th from a parent.

Here is the page… thanks so much!

http://www.hoffkids.com/contact.html

Barry


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hmmm…
I did do a test earlier but made up an email (ex email@hidden) and it never went thru. The girl’s never went thru as we know.

But I just did another test with another working gmail account of mine and IT DID send me the message. So I know it still works.

I will ask Melissa (student) to email me from same address and see what happens.

you lost me in this part Walt…

“I gave up years ago letting the sender set the e-mail address, and just send the message including the e-mail address instead. It’s one extra click to reply to the e-mail, but the result is that I can whitelist that one sending address and not worry about getting the message. You can configure both Send Form and PHP Feedback Form Actions to do this.”

THanks,

Barry


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There are options on both Actions to set a specific sender address, and not use the address added by the user when they fill out the form. Look at the documentation for whichever Action you use, and you will be able to set a single address (one of your own, usually) to be the From: sender in the e-mail. Then you can carefully control the delivery, because there is no variation in who does the sending from message to message.

Walter

On May 12, 2014, at 8:48 AM, Hoffkids wrote:

"I gave up years ago letting the sender set the e-mail address,


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yes right now I have it on…

use: A specific email address

Hey Walt,

Still kinda lost on this.

I tried 2 more tests. Made up a gmail email address in my contact form and the message comes thru my contact form to my inbox no problem.

Put an @aol.com and tried an @yahoo.com address there for the contract form and they both never make it to me.

do you know why? I can only imagine how many messages I may have missed.

Barry


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more data…

works:
@gmail.com
@hotmail.com
@made up an address.com

not working
@aol.com
@yahoo.com

just realized that the student that told me about this is using yahoo too!

can’t figure out why my contact form will not allow mail from aol and yahoo


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It’s not the contact form per se, it’s your e-mail account. Try using a different account to accept the form submissions, and see if you get different results. If you’re using Gmail, try a different service like Dot Mac or whatever they’re calling it this year. It sounds like an overaggressive spam filter at work here.

Walter

On May 12, 2014, at 9:17 PM, Hoffkids wrote:

more data…

works:
@gmail.com
@hotmail.com
@made up an address.com

not working
@aol.com
@yahoo.com

just realized that the student that told me about this is using yahoo too!

can’t figure out why my contact form will not allow mail from aol and yahoo


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  1. Would contacting my host company (ipage) be of any use here to fix problem?

  2. If what you said is true, where are these emails going and why can I not even see them in some sort of spam folder?

I will try what you said to figure it out too,

thanks,

Barry


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update:

I just changed the GMAIL account that the email comes to me from the contact form thinking maybe the spam filter you mentioned was especially high for THAT particular gmail email account…

Exact same result for another GMAIL account. @aol and @yahoo addresses never got to me but others did!

onward…


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If you rely on getting e-mail, you need to consider carefully who you use to host your e-mail. I don’t have any specific recommendations for you here, but I went from having this handled by my ISP to using a company that specializes in mail hosting (easymail.ca). That’s all I have them do, and that way I’m not relying on comcast or one of my several Web hosting providers to do the same thing when they’re busy doing other things. There are quite a few mail-only providers out there, and they range in price and features. Regardless where you host your mail, I recommend that you use MailRoute for spam filtering. I went from deleting hundreds of spam messages a day to a handful. When something does get trapped incorrectly, it’s the work of a few clicks to liberate it and mark the sender as trustworthy (whitelist).

Walter

On May 13, 2014, at 6:25 AM, Hoffkids wrote:

  1. Would contacting my host company (ipage) be of any use here to fix problem?

  2. If what you said is true, where are these emails going and why can I not even see them in some sort of spam folder?

I will try what you said to figure it out too,

thanks,

Barry


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update:

I changed my receiving email from gmail to another one (my school email) to test. I went to my contact form and sent mail from YAHOO and AOL addresses and they ARRIVED!!!

so I have deduced that it is GMAIL blocking email from yahoo and aol on my contact form but my wife who has yahoo can send me something.

I need to stay with gmail and I wish I could figure out why they are taking my yahoo and aol emails and blocking them out.


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