Raptor, please don't push!

I can't get the EZ version to function at all with 3.7.2. I get the bounced mails, but they don't have the requisite links that EZ is supposed to insert. I tried both the header and the insertion at the bottom of the message -- no luck. The coder doesn't respond to the post I presented on the subject.

So I'm back to this one, but it's not fully reliable either. It doesn't appear to be parsing even a fraction of the actual bounces.

Milad, any help here?

Peace,
Gene

This is beta 1, you're expecting too much from the first beta.

I worked on beta 2. but din't finish it yet. Some commercial projects have higher priorities.

So please be patient.

I just want it to work. :)

Do you have any ideas yet when beta 2 will be finished?

Peace,
Gene

Deal with it. He isn't Hans Reiser, he didn't murder his wife. So don't get so bent out of shape.

I do have one suggestion. If a message is going to bounce properly, the messages sent from vBulletin wouldn't even be accepted by the destination host. Typically if an email no longer exists, the message is bounced during the SMTP transaction.

Instead of your current method of verifying bounce messages. Why don't you either re-write the vBulletin sending function or place a hook before the message is to be sent. And have a script resolve the domains mx record. Then connect to the destination mail server and confirm the message is valid. You pretty much just have to issue a HELO, MAIL FROM, and RCPT TO. You don't even have to send a message through.

This definitely cut down the time and resources used to determine if an address is legitimate. You would obviously have to setup the pop account as well to catch mail servers that are accepting mail and then bouncing it (which is bad and shouldn't happen).

Furthermore, the process of the bad mail addresses would happen during regular mail operations.

Thanks for the great mod.

That's bad approach. you don't need to send a "Hello" email whenever you want to send an email.

You dont send a "HELLO" email message. You just connect to the SMTP server for the domain name and send some regular SMTP commands to verify if the email exists.

Ill show you how it can be done manually.

Find the MX record

[comm@taco:/home/comm]> dig hotmail.com mx

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hotmail.com. 3600 IN MX 5 mx4.hotmail.com.
hotmail.com. 3600 IN MX 5 mx1.hotmail.com.
hotmail.com. 3600 IN MX 5 mx3.hotmail.com.
hotmail.com. 3600 IN MX 5 mx2.hotmail.com.

Connect the the one of the MX records (I've *** out my email address):

[comm@taco:/home/comm]> telnet mx2.hotmail.com 25
Trying 65.54.245.40...
Connected to mx2.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 bay0-mc10-f11.bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail to Microsoft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at http://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in California and other states. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:53:02 -0700
HELO test.example.com
250 bay0-mc10-f11.bay0.hotmail.com (3.6.0.91) Hello [64.40.106.55]
MAIL FROM: j***@gmail.com
250 j****@gmail.com....Sender OK
RCPT TO: n*****@hotmail.com
250 n****@hotmail.com
DATA
354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
^]
telnet> Connection closed.

As you can see the mail was accepted after the DATA command. So this was successful.

Now lets see one thats failed on an address that didn't exist.

[comm@taco:/home/comm]> telnet mx2.hotmail.com 25
Trying 65.54.244.168...
Connected to mx2.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 bay0-mc6-f8.bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail to Microsoft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at http://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in California and other states. Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:56:44 -0700
helo test.example.com
250 bay0-mc6-f8.bay0.hotmail.com (3.6.0.91) Hello [64.40.106.55]
MAIL FROM: ****@gmail.com
250 *****@gmail.com....Sender OK
RCPT TO: badmail1231233123@hotmail.com
550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
^]
telnet> Connection closed.

As you can see the SMTP session fails! Easy test and you don't need to send a message to the server or process bounce messages. This is the same process used in the following module that works very well:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=144590

Your wasting your time and resources on use a POP3 account, just use the above method. While your at it you can also re-create the above module for 3.7 since it hasn't been coded over to 3.7 and it would be fairly easy.

I don't presume to know why this particular product doesn't work, and I'l accept your logic. For now, I'm using EZ Bounce which, while requiring some manual labor (and a plugin mod until the coder added it himself), does what it supposed to do. And it works with 3.7.2PL2.

Peace,
Gene

This won't work accurately as many email servers out there accept all mail, process it then kick back bounces for the invalid ones. microsoft exchange works this way for example, may Lotus Notes as well.

so just because a helo passes does not mean it is valid address, the seperate pop account is probably more accurate.

TooTall52