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Email won't send on domain

  1. webdevstudios
    Member

    For some reason Gravity Forms will send a notification to any email except for one that is on the same domain as gravity forms. I can get notifications to send to whatever@mailinator.com, but if I try contact@mydomain.com (where the contact form is located) the email never shows up. How can I troubleshoot this issue?

    Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday June 1, 2010 | Permalink
  2. This is a web server configuration or mail server configuration issue that is security related. You may want to look at using SMTP to send email instead of using the built in WordPress mail function, it's more reliable.

    Here is an SMTP plugin you can try:

    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-mail-smtp/

    You will need to configure the SMTP settings on that plugin and may need to get those settings from your web host.

    Posted 13 years ago on Tuesday June 1, 2010 | Permalink
  3. If you're using a google hosted account you'll want to use the wp-mail-smtp plugin with the following settings:

    Host: smtp.gmail.com
    Port: 465

    SSL encryption

    Username: full e-mail address

    Note that Gmail or Google Apps E-mail, when using SMTP, only allows you to use "From" addresses that you have registered under that particular account.

    Posted 13 years ago on Saturday June 5, 2010 | Permalink
  4. I am having the exact same problem. The form URL is http://69.195.79.101/about/contact-us/. I can set the notification email address to anything other than the same domain as the website domain and it works. If the notification email address is on the same domain it fails. So I installed the wp-mail-smtp plugin. If I set it to send by SMTP it fails no matter what address I set it to ("ERROR: Failed to connect to server: Connection refused (111)." If I telnet to the same SMTP server address (this is an exchange server, not gmail), I can generate the email using a "from" address from the domain, and send it to an address on the domain, and it works. So there is no security issue on the server. I turned off the spam filter to make sure that wasn't the issue. If I set the wp-mail-smtp plugin to PHP, the email will succeed if it is sent to any address not on the domain, but fails if it is sent to an email address within the domain. The debug information is at http://www.pastie.org/1314630. I simply cannot find a reason why this is failing. Please, please help!!!!

    Posted 13 years ago on Sunday November 21, 2010 | Permalink
  5. @HeartlandCenter This is an email configuration issue. Your email is rejecting the email. We had a similar issue with BlueHost and Google Apps hosted email. We contacted BlueHost and they made a correction on their end and that resolved the issue. You need to discuss with your host, explain to them what is happening and it only involves email hosted on the same domain as the site. They need to correct something on their end, most likely a DNS related issue with mail records.

    Posted 13 years ago on Monday November 22, 2010 | Permalink
  6. Thank you for the reply. However, this is Exchange email, hosted on a server in-house and I am the administrator. There is nothing that I can find anywhere that is rejecting the mail - on the contrary there is no evidence that the mail is ever hitting the server. And I can use the same settings and telnet to the Exchange server and send an email successfully. I even turned the spam filter off to be absolutely sure that wasn't a problem. There is no other mechanism on the server that could possibly reject the mail that I am aware of. I even whitelisted everything in the spam filter and in Exchange, even in the relay settings. The DNS MX record properly points to the Exchange server, and all other mail comes in correctly. I don't know of any place the problem could be on my end, but if you have an idea, please let me know!

    Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday November 24, 2010 | Permalink
  7. We have seen problems with Exchange servers rejecting emails, so I wouldn't discount that.

    Here is a simple test. Sign up for a GMail account, setup a test form and have the test form send notifications to that GMail account. Do the notifications arrive?

    This will tell you if the emails are being sent by your web server or not. If the email arrives at your GMail account as expected then it's not an issue of your web server sending the email, it's an issue of your Exchange server accepting it.

    Posted 13 years ago on Wednesday November 24, 2010 | Permalink
  8. As I've said, I've already tested all of that and more. The common theme in this whole thread is that the problem exists only when the website domain is the same as the domain the email is being sent to. That seems to be the crux of the problem.

    Posted 13 years ago on Thursday December 16, 2010 | Permalink
  9. @HeartLandCenter It's a DNS related issue with your web hosting related to using Google for your email hosting. Your hosting needs to be setup so that email is sent remotely rather than locally or automatic (which are two options) so that email sent using PHP is sent out to addresses hosted by your Google Email.

    Contact your web host and explain to them what is going on and ask what setting needs to be changed. Sometimes you can make the change in your hosting control panel, sometimes the web host has to make the change.

    Explain to them that PHP is sending email fine EXCEPT when it tries to send to an email address hosted by your Google Apps account that uses the same domain name as your web site.

    What is happening is your web server doesn't know your email is hosted elsewhere so it is trying to route it internally, so it's never making it out of your web server. This is why users receive emails and you do not, it's directly related to your hosting and mail handling setup for your 3rd party email hosting.

    See this FAQ item on Google which is related to using Google Apps for email hosting:

    http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55299

    Posted 13 years ago on Thursday December 16, 2010 | Permalink