vB won't send subscription e-mails or activation e-mails

[s10sakota]

Hello all,

My forums at ransclan.com/forums has suddenly stopped sending any kind of e-mail. When a new member signs up, he never gets the e-mail with the link to activate his account.

Also, no one is getting an e-mail from the threads that they are subscribed to.

I just updated to the latest version of vB 4 and it didn't fix the issue.

I'm thinking it's probably something the server did? If so, what do I ask them to change/fix when I contact them? Or, is it an issue with VB?

Thank you all for your help!

[kh99]

Did you try a test, using Maintenance > Diagnostics > Email (in the admincp)?

And if that fails, then check Settings > Options > Email Options and see what "SMTP Email" is set to. If it's 'Yes', then you want to make sure you have the rest of the "SMTP" options correct (contacting your host if necessary). If you have 'No' for SMTP Email, then it could be that your host doesn't allow that and you need to use an SMTP server, in which case you'd have to ask you host about that.

In general, you'd want to ask them if your vbulletin can send out email directly or if they require you to use a SMTP server, and if so what are the settings for that.

[s10sakota]

Thanks Kevin, I just used the maintenance diagnostics function to send the test e-mail. The vBulleitn software indicated there was no problem, but I never received the e-mail.

So then I checked the SMTP Email options and it was set to "NO". I changed it to "YES" but now I don't know how to set the other SMTP options like the SMTP Host. The example it gives is "smtp.gmail.com" so I may have to ask my host (Bluehost.com) what setting to type in the box.

And then with the SMTP username and password, does it just want my forums username and password?

Thanks again-I do appreciate the help!

[kh99]

Any of the settings at the end that start with SMTP will have to be given to you by your host. (Edit: Well, unless you have another SMTP server you could use. But you probably want to ask your host first).

[Lynne]

If the vBulletin email test says all is OK, then vBulletin successfully was able to send the email to your server. Your server is then supposed to send it out. So, I would suggest you ask your host if they changed anything on the server around the time your email stopped working.

Also, what version of PHP is on the server?

[s10sakota]

I'm just logging into the Bluehost.com website now to ask about the SMTP settings. It looks like they are running version 3.5.8.2 of php.

Thanks for the help so far-I'm hoping Bluehost can now get the settings set correctly so they can send the e-mails.

[Lynne]

I doubt they are running PHP 3.5.8.2. Most sites are running PHP 5.3 or above.

[s10sakota]

Lynne, you may be correct. Here's a screen shot of where I got the 3.5.8.2 version number (red arrow). Maybe it's version 5.5.37 as shown by the green arrow?

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/08/32.png (http://s108.photobucket.com/user/marky613/media/php_zpsde8a025c.png.html)

--------------- Added 1407686315 at 1407686315 ---------------

Still no luck. I've emailed the tech support at Bluehost, but they seem to have no idea what I'm talking about. Perhaps I didn't ask them the right questions? Here's their response...

I apologize for the trouble you are having with your email.

The email settings for User@YourDomain.TLD should be as follows:

Email: User@YourDomain.TLD
Username: User@YourDomain.TLD
Password: email password

Incoming mail server: mail.YourDomain.TLD
Incoming port (POP): 110 (SSL off) or 995 (SSL on)
Incoming port (IMAP): 143 (SSL off) or 993 (SSL on)

Outgoing mail server: mail.YourDomain.TLD
Outgoing port (SMTP): 26 (SSL off) or 465 (SSL on)
Outgoing server requires authentication (use same settings as incoming)

*TLD(Top Level Domain)- .com .org .net .biz so on and so forth.

If these settings don't seem to work, try going to http://YourDomain.TLD/webmail and logging in there. Let us know if you continue to have issues, and include what mail client you are using (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail) if applicable

They seem to think I need help with my personal e-mail i get when I use Bluehost as my server.

Can you help me ask Bluehost the right questions about the SMTP settings on the vBuleltin software?

Thanks!

[Lynne]

The image you provided is for your MySQL version and your phpMyAdmin version (phpMyAdmin is a tool to allow you to access your database).

You need to set up the mail on your server and have it working properly. As I said previously, the tests indicate that vbulletin is successfully sending the emails to your server. It sounds like the server isn't sending the emails out because it isn't set up properly. So, use the information the host gave you to set up the email on your server.

[kh99]

They seem to think I need help with my personal e-mail i get when I use Bluehost as my server.

Can you help me ask Bluehost the right questions about the SMTP settings on the vBuleltin software?

Thanks!

Well, Lynne probably helps people with this stuff all the time. But if it were me I think I'd respond with something like "Just to be clear, I'm asking about mail coming from my web server and not my personal email. I have my forum software configured to use php to send out mail directly, but this seems to have stopped working. Is there any reason this shouldn't be working? Should I configure my forum software to use a SMTP server for sending outgoing email?"