Question Not getting Bounced Emails

[Vcize]

I have basically the same problem as the user here: http://www.dragonbyte-tech.com/f100...-exists-but-i-don%B4t-get-bounced-email-8481/

I contacted my host to make sure I was using all the correct IMAP settings. I entered a non-existant email address for a user, added them to a mailing address, and sent out some test mails to them. I do not get an email in my bounced email account and I do not see anything in the bounced email logs.

Based on the feedback from the other thread, I tried sending the email to a made-up gmail account so I would get the "bounce" response back immediately, but still no luck.

 

[Fillip H.]

IIRC the issue on that person's forum was that the Bounced Mail Handler was not set up correctly.

Have you changed the Bounced Mail Handler setting in vBulletin's Email Options, and correctly filled out the SMTP settings in vBMail? Also ensure that the setting to enable bounced mail handling in vBMail is enabled.

 

[Vcize]

Yes, bounced mail is enabled and the settings are correct according to my host.

Would the bounced mails still show up in the bounced mail list even if the mail settings aren't configured correctly? There is nothing showing up there so if so that might help me narrow it down to the settings.

 

[Fillip H.]

Can you try manually running the Collect Bounced Mail scheduled task in vBulletin? It will alert you if there are any errors connecting to IMAP.

 

[Vcize]

Can you try manually running the Collect Bounced Mail scheduled task in vBulletin? It will alert you if there are any errors connecting to IMAP.

This is the result, which looks fine..

DragonByte Tech: vBMail - Collect Bounced Mail

Mail Collected

Done

I suppose it's possible that the mail isn't actually bouncing, but I'm sending it to askjhfkjahskjf32@gmail.com which I really doubt exists..

ETA: When I try emailing that address directly from my personal email account it gets bounced back to me almost immediately.

 

[Fillip H.]

Can you use your hosting control panel's webmail service to check the inbox of the bounce@yourdomain email account you created?

If so, and you can verify it's currently empty, try manually sending an email to that account and then run the scheduled task. It should say Message Collected: 1 (or some other number).

 

[Vcize]

Can you use your hosting control panel's webmail service to check the inbox of the bounce@yourdomain email account you created?

If so, and you can verify it's currently empty, try manually sending an email to that account and then run the scheduled task. It should say Message Collected: 1 (or some other number).

It said the same thing that it did in the post above when I ran it when the inbox was empty.

However, it did empty out the inbox (deleted the test message I had put in there).

 

[Fillip H.]

So it said nothing about collecting new messages...

At this point I'll need FTP and AdminCP to investigate further so:

Could you please create and PM me with a temporary FTP and AdminCP account?

For security reasons, we recommend you create a new FTP account only for DBTech support, then disable or delete it after we have both confirmed the issue has been solved and there are no further issues.

The same applies to AdminCP accounts; they should ideally be temporary accounts created for us only. If we have created an account on your site already, you can optionally boost that account to Administrator and then de-admin this account once the issue has been solved.

If you use a .htaccess password protection for your AdminCP directory, it is recommended that you create a new authorised user for DBTech and remove this user once the issue has been solved.

Please test any temporary accounts you create to ensure that the FTP account has access to the forum files, and that the AdminCP account can access the administrative controls for the product we are assisting you with.

Ensuring this is all in order before submitting the information will significantly speed up the process of assisting you. We will alert you via PM if there's any issues with the login information you have provided.

When sending the PM, for your security you should also un-tick the "Save a copy in my Sent Items folder" checkbox. When the access details have been received, we will delete the PM from our inbox. Ensuring you have not kept a copy of the PM reduces the risk of security breaches.

Thank you for helping us debug our products and allowing us to assist you, we appreciate it

 

[Fillip H.]

Update: The issue was that the "Bounce Email Address" in vBulletin Options -> Email Options had not been filled out. This is a required step for vBMail's bounced mail collection to work, because it's what tells the receiving email server which address to notify if an email bounces.

For instance, if you send an email to example@example.com and the mail server at example.com wants to return "no person at this address", it will first look for a "Return-Path" header and if one is not found, it will use the email address in the "From" header.

The vBulletin Option in question sets the "Return-Path" header to a different address than the "From" header, which means mail servers that return bounced mails will send it to your bounced email catcher, whereas actual humans that click "reply" in their email clients will still be able to respond to you

I've corrected this on your site and you should now be able to get bounced mails correctly