Form Builder is not sending all emails

[mr.bacan]

Hi everyone, I've been facing an issue with Form Builder lately, not all forms sent are arriving to the destination email addresses. The average delivery ratio is 3 out of 10. I've tested the module in 3 different hostings and even in a local Xampp installation and it behaves almost identically.

To test if the form is processing the data I added a "Write results to flat file" and here the form processing ratio is 10/10, indicating that the form is working, but why it is not sending all the emails? I've configured the CMSMS Mail Settings to use Mail, Sendmail and SMTP having exactly the same results in all cases.

Here I'm leaving my System Information

----------------------------------------------

Cms Version: 2.1.6

Installed Modules:

AdminIPLock: 1.0
AdminSearch: 1.0.2
CGExtensions: 1.54.1
CGFeedMaker: 1.0.20
CGSimpleSmarty: 2.1.6
CGSmartImage: 1.21.8
CMSContentManager: 1.1.4
CMSMailer: 6.2.14
Captcha: 0.5.5
DesignManager: 1.1.1
FileManager: 1.5.2
FormBuilder: 0.8.1.6
FrontEndUsers: 2.3.2
Gallery: 2.3.1
JQueryTools: 1.4.0.1
MenuManager: 1.50.2
MicroTiny: 2.0.3
ModuleManager: 2.0.5
Navigator: 1.0.3
News: 2.50.6
Printing: 1.1.2
Products: 2.25.3
Search: 1.50.2
Showtime: 3.4
SiteMapMadeSimple: 1.2.8
ThemeManager: 1.1.8
TinyMCE: 3.1.4
nuSOAP: 1.0.2


Config Information:

php_memory_limit:
max_upload_size: 50000000
url_rewriting: mod_rewrite
page_extension: .html
query_var: page
auto_alias_content: true
locale:
set_names: true
timezone:
permissive_smarty: false


Php Information:

phpversion: 5.4.43
md5_function: On (True)
json_function: On (True)
gd_version: 2
tempnam_function: On (True)
magic_quotes_runtime: Off (False)
E_ALL: 22527
E_STRICT: 0
E_DEPRECATED: 0
test_file_timedifference: No time difference found
test_db_timedifference: No time difference found
create_dir_and_file: 1
memory_limit: 128M
max_execution_time: 30
register_globals: Off (False)
output_buffering: 4096
disable_functions:
open_basedir:
test_remote_url: Success
file_uploads: On (True)
post_max_size: 50M
upload_max_filesize: 50M
session_save_path: /tmp (1777)
session_use_cookies: On (True)
xml_function: On (True)
xmlreader_class: On (True)
check_ini_set: On (True)
curl: On


Performance Information:

allow_browser_cache: Off (False)
browser_cache_expiry: 60
php_opcache: Off (False)
smarty_cache: Off (False)
smarty_compilecheck: Off (False)
smarty_cache_udt: Off (False)
auto_clear_cache_age: On (True)

Server Information:

Server Software: Apache
Server Api: cgi-fcgi
Server Os: Linux 3.12.74-20170619.148.ELK6.x86_64 On x86_64
Server Db Type: MySQL (mysql)
Server Db Version: 5.6.32
Server Db Grants: Found a "GRANT ALL" statement that appears to be suitable


Permission Information:

tmp: /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/tmp (0755)
tmp_cache: /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/tmp/cache (0755)
templates_c: /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/tmp/templates_c (0755)
modules: /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/modules (0755)
uploads: /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/uploads (0755)
File Creation Mask (umask): /home2/clientlo/public_html/edvstudio/tmp/cache (0755)
config_file: 0444

----------------------------------------------

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

[twwitt]

I am having a similar problem with Formbuilder email results not being delivered (and not being in my spam folder either)...however I seem to ONLY have problems, it seems, with those that come from people with AOL.com email addresses.

I've read a couple of things online about how some email companies are changing their policies about how things get sent from mail servers...and I think I understand that in forms it has to do with AOL (and maybe others?) not liking the Email "From Address" Field?

If this is the case, does anyone know how I should create an email field in Formbuilder so that the results actually reach me, i.e. if it's an aol.com user??

Anyone experienced this?

[DIGI3]

Make sure the from address is on the same domain as the server. Start with a simple test form and don't use any dispositions that populate the 'from' field.

[twwitt]

Can you explain what you mean by "don't use any dispositions that populate the 'from' field" ?

[DIGI3]

Dispositions are the fields you add to formbuilder. So ones that have a user fill out their email address which may populate the "from" address field, for example, could be the culprit.

Try a form with just a text input or something, and submit that. See if the messages go through. If they work fine, then it's probably one of the email fields and may need to be handled a bit differently to compensate for stricter email server settings.

[calguy1000]

To summarize.

It is bad practice to allow a user with an email address like user@otherdomain.com to use your web and email server (mydomain.com) to send emails as if the email was coming from his own account. It is known as "relaying". Most web servers won't allow this by default, and some web servers check incoming mail to ensure that the sender of that email corresponds with the domain that is sending it. Incoming email servers can bounce the message back to the domain or email server administrator (depending upon how the sending email server is configured).

Domains and even IP addresses that allow relaying can be blacklisted. Many email servers check the incoming IP address or domain name against blacklists to see if they will even talk to the machine that is trying to send an email to them.

However, you can allow users to send emails using your server FROM an address like something@mydomain.com and have a REPLY-TO header of user@otherdomain.com Then when the receiver of the message hits the reply button the response text will be sent back to user@otherdomain.com properly. This is the recommended practice.

It is common practice in web forms to have the 'FROM' address set to something like noreply@mydomain.com, the REPLY-TO field is set to the user who submitted the form, and the TO field is any valid email address for an administrator.

Hope this clears it up.

[twwitt]

Thanks. That was a very helpful explanation. I had previously - in the Email "From Address" Field -- had that input populating the "From" email address header (I didn't really pay attention to this optional drop-down before!), which was causing those with AOL email addresses (and perhaps others) to not be delivered. I simply changed it to populate the "Reply-to" email address header instead. Now it seems to be working. Thanks!