Auto Post Google Alerts

I will no longer be supporting this hack as 3.6.x supports feeds, making this hack obsolete.

This hack will automatically post to a forum of your choice, as a user of your choice, any Google alert received. In fact, it should work for any alert service.

If you do not know what Google Alerts are, see this page:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Requirements:

A POP email box to receive Google Alerts.

Install is simple. Upload the PHP file, install the product, define the settings in adminCP, test, and set up a scheduled task in the adminCP then:

Click Install

You can limit who can post alerts by restricting domains allowed to email the POP box. I advise you use a secret, previously unused POP box/email address. Any mail in the POP box that is not in the domain list is deleted, otherwise it is posted.

I will offer support as I can here, or in the forum at my website at www.worldwidecreations.com

This modification is FREE of charge, but if you wish to reward me for my work, and encourage future modifications by me, please donate below:

[valentine]

Can't get this to work, yet I'm adamant that my settings are correct.

No offence, but why say it's supported when it doesn't appear to be (or at least not for some time, anyway).

Uninstalled!

[TheMusicMan]

^ What exactly doesn't work? What are you experiencing?

[valentine]

Nothing at all - when I go to run the script manually, nothing happens - it doesn't process anything. I've tried changing permissions on the file, running it in different folders - everything I can think of, all to no avail.

[TheMusicMan]

When you run vbox does it say 'Loading Directly'??

[valentine]

do you mean if I try to access the script from the browser? If so, it doesn't do anything - its like the script isn't there. Very weird.

Likewise, if i 'run now' from admincp/scheduled tasks, nothing happens - the window doesn't say anything at all, just sits there on the scheduled tasks page with the eggtimer flipping itself over and over. However if I change settings inside vbox.php it throws an error when I go to run the task manually, so it is there...

[Jafo232]

Sounds like it is timing out. I am thinking you are using an invalid POP server setting. It should just be the domain name of the POP server, or localhost should work if the mail server is on the same machine as the web server.

Another possibility is there is a huge amount of mail in the POP box. Empty it.

[valentine]

Yeah that's what I thought too - I'd created an POP3 box specifically for it.

However, it's using exactly the same settings as Outlook and Outlook Express, which will poll and pick up the Google Alerts fine - so I can't figure it.

I presume that "pop3.mydomain.net" (which is what I use in O and OE) works - there doesn't need to be any additional text?

[valentine]

Also, i guess I have vbox.php in the right location?

My forums are at http://www.netnuptials.net/community - so the location for the script is ./vbox.php, right?

As I say, all my settings are the same as they would be for my email client - again, I assume this is correct?

I'm pretty baffled as to why it doesn't work to be honest - seems like a pretty simple script and I wouldn't normally bother - but I actually think it'd be quite useful, certainly for someone like me who has a pretty new forum.

EDIT:

Having left the eggtimer running for a while, I've got this error:

Warning: imap_open(): Couldn't open stream {pop3.netnuptials.net:110/pop3/tls/novalidate-cert} in /vbox.php on line 24

Warning: imap_num_msg(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /vbox.php on line 26
done processed 0 of mails

Done

Any ideas?

[Jafo232]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost.php?p=887823&postcount=4" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showp...23&postcount=4</a>

[valentine]

Yeah I tried that, but I did edit it with DW8 so this time I've used Wordpad and I now get the following (although it does produce this result straight away, rather than taking an age to do so like before)

Warning: imap_open(): Couldn't open stream {pop3.netnuptials.net:110/pop3 in /vbox.php on line 24

Warning: imap_num_msg(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /vbox.php on line 26
done processed 0 of mails

Done

Thanks for your help so far - I'm sure I'm just being a bit thick.

EDIT: There is no 'Loading Directly' script before this - just what I've written here.