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Mail problem when sending to AOL

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 4:57 am
by EricGen
Hi,

I have a script that send a mail to customers of the site. It seems that everybody gets it except AOL. To send the mail I do:

Code: Select all

$headers  = "From: Picwines <orders@mydomain.com>\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Sender: <orders@mydomain.com>\r\n"; 
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHP\r\n"; 
$headers .= "X-Priority: 1\r\n"; 
$headers .= "Return-Path: <orders@mydoamin.com>\r\n";
...
mail($to, $subject, $out, $headers);
Could it be some anti spam or something like that? If so what can I do? I use these to send order confirmations and passwords, so they're not spam

Thanks

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 5:18 am
by oQEDo
If it gets to everyone else but gets bounced by AOL then it is most likely anti spam software which AOL's mail servers are sunning.
I had the same problem and had to contact my PHP host and inform them that the mail server which was user for sending PHP mail() was on a spam list and could they find out why.
It took months but eventually the spammer had his account disabled and the mailserver was removed from the spam list.

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 7:05 am
by EricGen
Thanks. I'll see with my hosting company then

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 9:28 am
by jowestla
how are you relaying? Through your local server or directly through the relay-server of your provider? Does the relay-server for outgoing mail resolve properly? Do you have a DNS-Entry for the server attempting to deliver mail to aol?

in most cases the mail is refused because the relay server is uknown to the world in DNS matters.

Simple workaround for postfix:
Add a transport-map entry for aol delivering all mail to aol through the relay-server of your provider

regards

jochen

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 9:36 am
by EricGen
Hmmm. I don't really know the answer to that. I will ask my hosting company.

What is the procedure for this transport map? This is all new to me
Thanks

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 10:05 am
by jowestla
1.) Send an email to yourself and analyse/post the message heders in the
email you receive. You will see the first Mail-Relay-Host in there.

Next questions:

where is the script hosted your are talking of. Internally (in your companie's network) or externally (outside)

if you are hosting externally, forget all my hints, then it's your providers mail administratros job

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 10:08 am
by EricGen
Yes, the script is hosted externally. I'll link with their support now then
Thanks for your help

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 2:41 pm
by PaTTeR
Another one - check your sender e-mail - this e-mail must be valid.
If you use mail() function and set 'From: sender@host.com' with headers passed to mail() in real e-mail headers you have 2 senders ('From' header) one from headers seted in mail() function and another one - http user (on UNIX like systems) or value from php.in (on Windows systems).

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 2:48 am
by EricGen
I'm not progressing much unfortunatelly. What about the headers I send (see 1st post in the topic) Are there headers missing? I've been looking for specs on mail header fields but couldn't find much about them, any pointers?
Thanks

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2003 8:33 am
by EricGen
The issue's now sorted. My hosting company told me they've done a small change to the email configuration and it now works. Thanks everybody for your help