Again, I am "challenged" in this department...

If you've tested, undertand, or can elaborate on any of the stuff below, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

>
> Sending E-mails
> Mailing Method: sendmail SMTP
>
> Why should Admin choose sendmail or SMTP?

'sendmail' will work on all systems. 'SMTP' will not work if the
'Net::SMTP' module is not installed or the server does not run an SMTP
daemon. But I believe that 'SMTP' will work on most systems.

> Does Admin need to enter info for both, if only using one?
> Sendmail Path:
> SMTP Host:

No. "Sendmail Path" is for 'sendmail' and "SMTP Host" for 'smtp'.
The script tries to guess the correct values automatically.

>
> Checking E-mails
> Check: Bounces Subscriptions
> What is "Subscriptions" and what does the script check?

A user may subscribe via e-mail. To do this, she must send the
subscription e-mail with approrpiate "Subject". If you enable
"Subscription checking", you will find the subscription 'mailto:'
link in "Subscription Form" of the list.

>
> MBOX Path: Is this created by Admin or is MBOX installed on server?

MBOX is a file on the server where incoming mail is stored. It's not
created by admin.

MBOX is not recommended because of many possible problems.

> POP3 Host:
> POP3 User:
> POP3 Password:
> POP3 Authentication: Plain APOP
> What is the difference and why choose
> one or the other?

With APOP, the password is sent encrypted.
The choice is needed because some servers may support the 'Plain Auth'
and others may support 'APOP' (or both methods).
Many e-mail programs have the same choice.

> Delete Messages: None Processed All
> What are differences between
> "Processed" and "ALL"?

Processed:
The script will not delete a message which is not bounce or subscription
request.

All:
The script will delete all messages.

From: root@secure.y86.net (Cron Daemon)
To: admin1@secure.y86.net
Subject: Cron <admin1@secure> /home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/cgi-bin/gbomb/zinebomb.cgi /cron/
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/home/virtual/site1/fst>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=admin1>

ZineBomb - ERROR:
cannot log in POP3 server
Context: localhost
Reason: Bad login
Did I do something wrong ??

Tasari
Internet Marketing Warrior
http://airline-tickets.bestsecrets.com/airline-tickets.html

"Hello Tasari,

Here is interesting information...

Manage your account

Unsubscribe from the list"

I saw that in the subject the path isn't correct.. you see that "/cron" at then end had spaces before it.. is this normal ??

Just trying to figure this out

Tasari
Internet Marketing Warrior
http://airline-tickets.bestsecrets.com/airline-tickets.html

I believe sendmail is a Linux/Apache mailhandler. I don't know much about this. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is another method for sending mail. As I don't know anything about sendmail, I can't really compare the two.

When trying to use SMTP: After subscribing using a form, I am taken to the page asking me for password, first name, etc. After I fill in that form and click OK, I get this message:

cannot connect to SMTP server
(mail.geeklogs.com)

I believe this is because my smtp server requires authentication to prevent it from being used as a relay by a spammer.

Sendmail works on my server without a problem. Because of all the various things going on with smtp, I would only recommend that experienced administrators use it.

>
>>
>> Checking E-mails
>> Check: Bounces Subscriptions
>> What is "Subscriptions" and what does the script check?
>
>A user may subscribe via e-mail. To do this, she must send
>the
>subscription e-mail with approrpiate "Subject". If you
>enable
>"Subscription checking", you will find the subscription
>'mailto:'
>link in "Subscription Form" of the list.

I tried using the email link in the form at http://www.geeklogs.com/test.html. It puts in a horrendously long subject line, but mail subs aren't working and I believe the problem is along the same lines as Tasari's. I get the following error emailed to my domain admin address:

ZineBomb - ERROR:
cannot log in POP3 server
Context: mail.geeklogs.com
Reason: POP3 at <64.191.54.79>

Perhaps there is some server setup needed to allow zinebomb to login. I have tried both both plain and APOP, neither worked. I can login to the same POP account with a regular email client.

>
>>
>> MBOX Path: Is this created by Admin or is MBOX installed on server?
>
>MBOX is a file on the server where incoming mail is stored.
>It's not
>created by admin.
>
>MBOX is not recommended because of many possible problems.

No idea what MBOX is so no comment.

>
>> POP3 Host:
>> POP3 User:
>> POP3 Password:
>> POP3 Authentication: Plain APOP
>> What is the difference and why choose
>> one or the other?
>
>With APOP, the password is sent encrypted.
>The choice is needed because some servers may support the
>'Plain Auth'
>and others may support 'APOP' (or both methods).
>Many e-mail programs have the same choice.

This is my theory. Based on this description and the needed info, it appears that the script is going to login to the specified POP3 account (which should be the Robot email account) and parse the subject lines. If it finds a specific subject line for a subscription, it will subscribe that email to the proper list. If it finds an undeliverable type subject, it marks it as a bounce.

Because the script can't login to my POP3 account, email subs aren't working. I don't know anything about Linux so I have no idea how to figure out why it can't login to my account.

Also, the subject line created in the form code for the subscribe by email option is incredibly long. This is the one for my test list:

Subscribe to the list 'Technology News'

>
>> Delete Messages: None Processed All
>> What are differences between
>> "Processed" and "ALL"?
>
>Processed:
>The script will not delete a message which is not bounce or
>subscription
>request.
>
>All:
>The script will delete all messages.
>

Your programmer's answer is a little ambiguous, so I thought I'd word it another way.

Processed - the script will delete ONLY the messages that are bounces or subscription requests from your mail server (the robot email account).

All - the script will delete all messages from your mail server (the robot email account)

With the 'Processed' option, you can have the script delete bounces and sub requests while still being able to use the same email address to receive other messages. Helpful if you want your subs to be able to simply reply to your messages and contact you. With the 'All' option, if your subs reply to the newsletter, the script will delete it and you'll never see it. If you want your subs to be able to get in touch with you, you'll need to provide them another email address.

Nick Surran
AgentBlack Search Engine - He finds what you need

I'm going to get Kirill (the programer) in here to handle the email/pop/mbox questions. It may be a day or two.

This stuff seems to be the only issues really holding us back...

I've not setup ezinebomb yet, just had a quick look at the /admin/config.html template.

I'm not a great fan of using Sendmail because of the difficulty of processing bounces. On my own server using Listmail, if I use sendmail to mail my lists and any of the emails bounce, they do not get sent back to the script. Basically, the emails get bounced to the default server name.

ie: serverwhatever.aplushosts.com and not whatever@theezine.net

Unless you have access to go in and make changes to Sendmail itself. There are other ways that it can be done, but involves the mailer scripts being setup to force the email address.

SMTP: The best way to send email in my opinion.

To keep it really simple I have found this way to be the best setup.

Have one email address setup as the sender of all the lists.
Make sure you are able to put in the SMTP domain, the username of the email account and the password. A maximum amount to send per hour is very handy too.

ie: 2500 per hour before logging out and logging back in automatically to carry on sending. Does not clog up the server too much and keeps other email accounts flowing. The number to send per hour is best set by the user. No runaway script for hosts to get hot under the collar with.

Have one email address setup as the bounce account, not your catchall email address. Ideally this bounce email address should be sent in the message headers as a "reply-to".

Have a cron setup to check that email account once every 24 hours to process and delete.
Make sure you are able to put in the SMTP domain, the username of the email account and the password.

The reason I mention usernames and passwords for the emails is that a lot of servers will not let you email via scripts without them. I know mine does not, as I found with ARP3. It's a security thing.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to you guys that celebrate it.

While you are eating your Turkeys, I'll get these scripts setup and do the email testing.

John

An addition to what I've posted above.

If there is just one account to process subscriptions, unsubscriptions and bounces, and the cron is set to check every 5 - 10 minutes, then most likely people will run into problems with all those processes going on.

I'll wait until your programmer comes in Kurt, but I'll still run tests on the script as it is.

John

>From: root@secure.y86.net (Cron Daemon)
>To: admin1@secure.y86.net
>Subject: Cron <admin1@secure>
>/home/virtual/site1/fst/var/www/cgi-bin/gbomb/zinebomb.cgi
>/cron/
>X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
>X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/home/virtual/site1/fst>
>X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
>X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=admin1>
>
>ZineBomb - ERROR:
>cannot log in POP3 server
>Context: localhost
>Reason: Bad login
>Did I do something wrong ??
>
>Tasari
>Internet Marketing Warrior
>http://airline-tickets.bestsecrets.com/airline-tickets.html

Just "fire at will". Again, I wouldn't do the first test on all 40,000.

I'll be gone for a couple of hours today, but other than that will be monitoring this board closely.

One thing is the format when importing email addresses. Each user will need a password and account number. I could do this pretty easily using my Mac (better text control features), then "moving" them to the WIN and using ReplaceBomb.

If you need help, post the format of the email info you have, and I'll try to come up with a search/replace technique to add the needed info.

I could do your list in 10 minutes, but not sure "sharing" you email list is our best choice.

I've just noticed that I need to add passwords and account numbers.

It will take me a little longer to fix that up, no problem though.

By the way, the script installed without any problems and it is sending the test emails to me via SMTP.

Point to add to your Readme: The data directory is chmod 777 and the LCK and DAT files in there are to be chmod 666

(I hope on the right thread?)

I am reciving these mails and I dont have a clue what the problem is. I dont use the mail responder / newsletter, Any ideas.

On 2004/08/22 06:02:08 AM, root@cherry.kiosk.ws wrote:
> ZineBomb - ERROR:
> cannot parse XML
> Context: /home/wizard78/www/cgi-bin/blogbombx/data/cache/user-62.xml
> Reason:
> not well-formed (invalid token) at line 155, column 5, byte 4075 at
> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux/XML/Parser.pm line 187

Thanks

Chris

>I am reciving these mails and I dont have a clue what the
>problem is. I dont use the mail responder / newsletter, Any
>ideas.
>
>
>On 2004/08/22 06:02:08 AM, root@cherry.kiosk.ws wrote:
>> ZineBomb - ERROR:
>> cannot parse XML
>> Context: /home/wizard78/www/cgi-bin/blogbombx/data/cache/user-62.xml
>> Reason:
>> not well-formed (invalid token) at line 155, column 5, byte 4075 at
>> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux/XML/Parser.pm line 187

This means that the feed with id=62 produces invalid XML output.
Try to replace it with another one.

Kirill

Cheers,

Chris

>Hi Chris,
>
>>I am reciving these mails and I dont have a clue what the
>>problem is. I dont use the mail responder / newsletter, Any
>>ideas.
>>
>>
>>On 2004/08/22 06:02:08 AM, root@cherry.kiosk.ws wrote:
>>> ZineBomb - ERROR:
>>> cannot parse XML
>>> Context: /home/wizard78/www/cgi-bin/blogbombx/data/cache/user-62.xml
>>> Reason:
>>> not well-formed (invalid token) at line 155, column 5, byte 4075 at
>>> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux/XML/Parser.pm line 187
>
>
>This means that the feed with id=62 produces invalid XML
>output.
>Try to replace it with another one.
>
>Kirill

I was wondering if you could help me once again:)

I have been getting these mail messages:

On 2004/09/14 10:08:18 AM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
> Wide character in print at lib/Gamma/App/Cron.pm line 209.

I have checked the line 209 in the Cron.pm file

This is what I find on that line:

print MESSAGE $templates->{archive_body};

Not sure where to go from here.

Chris

To add to my problems I have just recieved over 35 of these mails:

On 2004/09/14 04:38:03 PM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
> DBI connect('database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost','wizard78_gbomb',..
> .) failed: Too many connections at lib/Gamma/Database.pm line 35
> ZineBomb - ERROR:
> cannot connect to MySQL
> Context: database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost
> Reason: Too many connections
> ZineBomb - FATAL ERROR:
> Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at lib/Gamma/App/Cron.pm line 128

Thanks again for your help.

Chris

>Hi Chris,
>
>>I am reciving these mails and I dont have a clue what the
>>problem is. I dont use the mail responder / newsletter, Any
>>ideas.
>>
>>
>>On 2004/08/22 06:02:08 AM, root@cherry.kiosk.ws wrote:
>>> ZineBomb - ERROR:
>>> cannot parse XML
>>> Context: /home/wizard78/www/cgi-bin/blogbombx/data/cache/user-62.xml
>>> Reason:
>>> not well-formed (invalid token) at line 155, column 5, byte 4075 at
>>> /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i686-linux/XML/Parser.pm line 187
>
>
>This means that the feed with id=62 produces invalid XML
>output.
>Try to replace it with another one.
>
>Kirill

>I was wondering if you could help me once again:)
>
>I have been getting these mail messages:
>
>On 2004/09/14 10:08:18 AM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
>> Wide character in print at lib/Gamma/App/Cron.pm line 209.

Does the script itself work? If so, you may safely ignore
these messages

Kirill

>Kirill,
>
>To add to my problems I have just recieved over 35 of these
>mails:
>
>On 2004/09/14 04:38:03 PM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
>> DBI connect('database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost','wizard78_gbomb',..
>> .) failed: Too many connections at lib/Gamma/Database.pm line 35
>> ZineBomb - ERROR:
>> cannot connect to MySQL
>> Context: database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost
>> Reason: Too many connections

It means that the MySQL server is overloaded and does not accept
connection from the script. Is your site on shared hosting?

Kirill

I have contacted my hosting company, and we will see what they say.

Thanks Chris

>Hi Chris,
>
>>Kirill,
>>
>>To add to my problems I have just recieved over 35 of these
>>mails:
>>
>>On 2004/09/14 04:38:03 PM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
>>> DBI connect('database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost','wizard78_gbomb',..
>>> .) failed: Too many connections at lib/Gamma/Database.pm line 35
>>> ZineBomb - ERROR:
>>> cannot connect to MySQL
>>> Context: database=wizard78_zinebomb;host=localhost
>>> Reason: Too many connections
>
>It means that the MySQL server is overloaded and does not
>accept
>connection from the script. Is your site on shared hosting?
>
>Kirill

>I have contacted my hosting company, and we will see what
>they say.

Are you still receiving these messages? Does web admin interface
of the script work?

Kirill

The program was working fine until the db overloaded. But I was recieving these mails a day befor the db failed.

The problem bieng that I recieve hundreds of messages. I slowed the cron down. But before I could see if it made a major difference the db went.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Chris

>Hi Chris,
>
>>I was wondering if you could help me once again:)
>>
>>I have been getting these mail messages:
>>
>>On 2004/09/14 10:08:18 AM, root@cherry.ghshosting.com wrote:
>>> Wide character in print at lib/Gamma/App/Cron.pm line 209.
>
>Does the script itself work? If so, you may safely ignore
>these messages
>
>
>Kirill

>The program was working fine until the db overloaded. But I
>was recieving these mails a day befor the db failed.
>
>The problem bieng that I recieve hundreds of messages. I
>slowed the cron down. But before I could see if it made a
>major difference the db went.

Ok, then we need to fix the db problem first.

Kirill