Users not receiving confirmation emails. Used to work just fine.

[Hensmon]

I've had three separate users now tell me they are not receiving confirmation emails when registering. This has never been a problem in the 3+ years, I have run the forum, so something has changed (I've done nothing). My transport method is the PHP built in system.

Could it be cloudflare related? I recently used this service to help solve site crash issues do to memory. Could some rule or set-up there being doing this?

Could it be related to the persistent 500 error issues I have been having? My memory/cpu is too low and traffic (bots) has been overloading my site. Does this have a downstream effect on email messaging too? All issues of sign up so far have been from Gmail accounts, but that might be a coincidence..

For now I have turned off the email confirmation step, but realize this is not a long term solution. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Digital Doctor]

shared hosting ?

 

[briansol]

do you have dkim set up ?

 

[Alpha1]

What are the email domains of these users?

Do you have bounce processing setup correctly?

What are the bounce message notifications for these email addresses ? You can find it in your bounced email log.

If you get to many bounces and do not process these correctly then your sender reputation gets destroyed and email will stop arriving.

 

[eva2000]

I've had three separate users now tell me they are not receiving confirmation emails when registering. This has never been a problem in the 3+ years, I have run the forum, so something has changed (I've done nothing). My transport method is the PHP built in system.

Could it be cloudflare related? I recently used this service to help solve site crash issues do to memory. Could some rule or set-up there being doing this?

Could it be related to the persistent 500 error issues I have been having? My memory/cpu is too low and traffic (bots) has been overloading my site. Does this have a downstream effect on email messaging too? All issues of sign up so far have been from Gmail accounts, but that might be a coincidence..

For now I have turned off the email confirmation step, but realize this is not a long term solution. Any help would be appreciated.

Average email list decays by 25% per year. Meaning up to 1/4 of your email each year could end up with bouncing emails due to invalid email accounts, inactive accounts that get deleted or even accounts that run out of free disk space.

Over 3yrs, without cleaning your email list, you have up to 58% bad emails! Turning off email verification will make it worse too. I did run through a bunch of email verification providers I use at https://github.com/centminmod/validate-emails and pricing comparison.

Gmail accounts can be deleted for inactivity and bounce if disk space quotas are hit. Check Xenforo admin bounce email log for clues and ensure you setup bounce and unsubscribe emails properly in Xenforo email settings. Try manually logging into your bounce and unsubscribe email accounts to check for issues and if you are receiving emails.

Ensure you have valid SPF, DKIM, DMARC and reverse PTR dns records for your sending email domain and server. Check by sending forum email to https://www.mail-tester.com/

You mentioned Cloudflare move recently, make sure you aren't orange cloud proxying sending mail server hostname i.e mail.hostname.com etc as you will mask your reverse PTR record IP address and only show Cloudflare's IP address and not your sending mail server's IP address.

 

[eva2000]

If you get to many bounces and do not process these correctly then your sender reputation gets destroyed and email will stop arriving

Yup Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are alot stricter now https://dmarcreport.com/blog/microsoft-outlook-steps-up-email-security-with-new-policies/

 

[Hensmon]

do you have dkim set up ?

No Idea what this is I'm not super technical, only good at design. That's why my forum looks great but is always breaking

shared hosting ?

Yes it is. I host with Audentio.

 

[Hensmon]

@Alpha1 so far it has been gmail accounts I have seen issues with, but maybe other providers too. I have min. bounces and number of days with bounce both as 3. Min. days between oldest and newest bounce as 5. I don't have any handlers turned on. No entries in the email bounce log.

Based on that I assume this is not a reputation issue? Or could it still be?

 

[Hensmon]

Over 3yrs, without cleaning your email list, you have up to 58% bad emails! Turning off email verification will make it worse too. I did run through a bunch of email verification providers I use at https://github.com/centminmod/validate-emails and pricing comparison.

I've never cleaned my email list, and yes, it's filled with spam. Is there a way for Xenforo to help me bulk delete, or is something I must do manually. My bounce log is completely empty

 

[MySiteGuy]

@Alpha1 so far it has been gmail accounts I have seen issues with, but maybe other providers too. I have min. bounces and number of days with bounce both as 3. Min. days between oldest and newest bounce as 5. I don't have any handlers turned on. No entries in the email bounce log.

Based on that I assume this is not a reputation issue? Or could it still be?

At the very least, run your host's origin IP address through a multi-rbl lookup:

Multi-RBL Check | The Anti-Abuse Project

www.anti-abuse.org

MultiRBL.valli.org - Blacklist, Whitelist and FCrDNS check tool

Free multiple DNSBL/RBL lookup and FCrDNS check tool. Test the IP (IPv4 or IPv6) of your mailserver on more than 200 blacklists and whitelists.

multirbl.valli.org

 

[Alvin63]

Have you checked your daily limits for emails? When I had an issue like this I was going over daily limits (with all the notification emails and whatnot). The solution was switching email to SMTP and increasing daily limits. Is the email via the server?

 

[Alpha1]

@Alpha1 so far it has been gmail accounts I have seen issues with, but maybe other providers too. I have min. bounces and number of days with bounce both as 3. Min. days between oldest and newest bounce as 5. I don't have any handlers turned on. No entries in the email bounce log.

Based on that I assume this is not a reputation issue? Or could it still be?

Email bounces are a multifactored matter, but if you do not have proper bounce processing setup then your bounce logs will stay empty, your not managing your bounces and therefore keep sending to dead email addresses. Email providers will then block your email. With large email providers like gmail this can become obvious, while with smaller email providers you will never learn about it.

Based upon the limited information available, it seems to me that this is likely a matter of your sender reputation being bad and email providers blocking your email.

I've never cleaned my email list, and yes, it's filled with spam. Is there a way for Xenforo to help me bulk delete, or is something I must do manually. My bounce log is completely empty

@DragonByte Tech 's addon has all the features you need to clean your email list. You can start on it immediately if you want.
And there are various bounce handling improvements coming up in the next release.

[DBTech] DragonByte Mail

Nov 29, 2017

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I am working on a benchmark of various email validation services and am testing these against 300k email addresses and manually evaluating the results. Some validation services are better / cheaper than others. While the tests are not done, I'm getting a clear idea of what direction the results will be.

Various of them have really nice black Friday offers now which you can find on their sites. I have also received some discount coupons for some of them. If it is allowed on xenforo.com I will share these publicly with the results of the benchmarks. I'll have to check if its allowed, because I don't want to post anything spammy.