Forgot password emails and registration emails not working

[portalpacific]

Hello! I'm totally new to dealing with my own forums. I have my forum up at hxxp:miningmojo.com/community [nonactive] and am having problems. I changed the password to my admin account. Logged out, attempted to log back in and it said my password was wrong.. (which i wasn't) then it asked me to retrieve password so i put in my email and it said it would send reactivation link or something similar. The email never came.. So i put in my security answer and it said it was wrong which it wasnt..

So then i made a new user account with another email and i never go the email after signing up..

I could be missing something.. Am i suppose to set up this email stuff somewhere?

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Chalky]

First of all, welcome to SMF 

I just registered with your site to see if I received an email but it just logged me straight in as soon as I registered.  You need to change that or you'll be spammed to death within a couple of days.  Check out http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Spam_-_my_forum_is_flooded_with_spam,_what_can_I_do  for advice on how to protect your forum.

Ok, I logged out and requested a password reminder.  Ten minutes or so later nothing has come through.  Have you managed to recover your admin account yet?  If not, have a read of http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/I_accidentally_lost_my_admin_account!_What_can_I_do.  One of those suggestions should get you back in 

Once you're in check Admin > Maintenance > Mail and see what your settings are.

[portalpacific]

Hey ChalkCat! Thanks for the help! I have not recovered my admin yet. I re-named myself, changed my password and added a security question right before i logged out. I then attempted to log right back in and I was rejected from every attempt. I followed your link and it all seems pretty confusing so i guess ill have to tackle it tomorrow as im about to go to bed. I will probably have more questions then.

As far as protecting my forum i assumed all that would be automatic with installation as all iv changed is a few color properties. I will also look into that in the morning.

Thanks for the help! Hope your around tomorrow too! xD

[Chalky]

Yes, I'll be around tomorrow after work, but don't be afraid to holler anyway as there is usually someone around who can help.  That wiki page on recovering your admin password is definitely best read when not tired, but if you back up your database before you start (in cPanel or phpmyadmin), at least that way you can easily get back to where you were if things go wrong.  Personally I would try the very last suggestion first, which is just resetting the password for your original admin account.  If that fails, try the first option after "Other Approaches" to give admin status to the new user you created.

Sleep well, speak tomorrow 

[kat]

From experience, the option at the very bottom's probably the easiest one to do. "Resetting an admin users password".

At first glance, that one looks OMG!! But, it's MUCH easier than it looks.

[SwedishMarch1964]

Turn off account activation altogether. In phpMyAdmin, or in a single-purpose script, run the appropriate query for your version of SMF. Afterwards, be sure to set account activation back the way you want it.

[kat]

If he can't get into his forum, he can't turn account activation off...

At least, not without further messing around in phpmyadmin.

[Chalky]

Account activation isn't set. I got straight in when I registered.

[portalpacific]

Hmm.. I think im just going to delete everything and start from scratch.. The directions are for people who understand anything about php. I am only decent with css.

Once iv figured that all out again ill come back for more help to try and set up the email verification.

[margarett]

That is not true. No one told you to touch a single line of code...

For the second issue, activation, that is plain SMF configuration. And that, you can follow using the WIKI links provided...

[portalpacific]

Hmm well resetting was much easier and i didnt have any content up yet. (the wiki instructions was focused around messing with the code in php documents or something to do with the php files.. Everytime i touch a php file it goes nuts on me haha. Either way it wasnt understanding it)


I now have to figure out why my emails arent working.. Looks like i have to set an email up? Beh i knew using gmail my whole life would come to bite me in the butt.

[margarett]

To quote myself, something I wrote today:

... all the shared hosts that I have worked with included a "general" e-mail address (to which you can access from cPanel itself), created out of the box when the domain+hosting plan was created. This mailbox was the destination of all bounced e-mails, be it returned e-mails or "self-blocked" emails (eg: because I exceeded the number of emails per hour).

E-mails don't just "disappear"... There has to be a log somewhere
If SMF don't log anything, then it was able to deliver it to PHP and PHP delivered it to some SMTP server (or else the "mail" function would return an error and SMF would log it). From there on, it should be somewhere on the server's logs and, usually, SMTP bounces the mail back to the sender account: that "general" account. That's why you should find it more or less easily...

You don't need to set up an email out-of-the-box. To use PHP's mail function should suffice...