Changing the Webmaster Email Address

Alec Durbervilles · September 20, 2016, 05:09:02 PM

I'm having a problem. My email notification system stopped working recently and I traced it to a bad email ([email protected]) that makes all mail undeliverable. I went into the Admin panel under Server Settings and tried to change the Webmaster Email Address, but it won't allow me to change it. Then I thought I would go to the original Webmaster's profile (she has been inactive for over two years) to change her email address there. That change took but it didn't cause the old email address to change in Server Settings under Webmaster Email Address.

I'm not a programmer and I'm not all that savvy in website stuff, but I managed to go into my webhost's control panel and pull up the file manager to look through some of the files. In the root, I found the settings.php file where the Webmaster Email Address is stored and, sure enough, the changes I made to the previous webmaster's profile were there (the new, and hopefully good email address is listed) even though the old one still shows up in Admin under Server Settings. More importantly, the site's email notification system is still using the bad email domain. All the emails are kicking back as undeliverable.

It affects us in a couple of ways. Members who choose to be notified by email whenever someone responds to a comment or a PM are not being notified. Also, we've installed the Mentions mod, which sends people an email whenever they're mentioned in a post. That's not working either.

How do I force the system to accept a new email address for the Webmaster?

Alec Durbervilles · September 20, 2016, 09:01:15 PM

Some additional information: The bottom of my home page says I'm using version 2.0.6

but I've tried to install newer versions and they always fail. For example, my package manager shows this at the top.

It won't let me uninstall it but it also doesn't give me a green dot telling me it's installed. I've assumed until now that my difficulties with updated versions occur because of all the mods my now absent partner installed. There are 42 mods installed and many people have told me it's a wonder the site works as well as it does.

My site is 64shadesofgrey.net [nofollow] and I'm not sure how to know what version of PHP and MySQL I'm using. Also, I can't find a phpinfo.php page anywhere. Might it be named something else?

Kindred · September 20, 2016, 09:14:37 PM

Well, you can't install 2.0.10 until you install 2.0.7, 2.0.8 and 2.0.9 first, in that order...

And I had a site with 150-200 mods installed... It still worked fine

Alec Durbervilles · September 20, 2016, 10:21:02 PM

What you say makes sense. I didn't show it on that screen grab but I tried to install 2.0.7 through 2.0.10. None of them worked. I don't know when the system stopped letting me change the Webmaster Email address because the notification system only stopped working recently. I had never tried to change it until now.

Alec Durbervilles · September 21, 2016, 02:53:27 PM

We've somehow gotten off track. My pressing problem is that I can't change my Webmaster's Email Address and it's causing my notification system to fail miserably (and for a reason that should be very easy to fix). Kindred, is it possible that my inability to upgrade past 2.0.6 is what is keeping me from changing my own Webmaster Email Address? Is that email address stored anyplace else besides the file settings.php?

As for upgrading past 2.0.6, this is what my Package Manager shows.

Notice how even though my version shows as 2.0.6, the Package Manager thinks 2.0.7 is installed (it has a green dot and doesn't say "install mod" on the right). The upgrade to 2.0.8, 2.0.9, and 2.0.10 all lack the green dot but none of them say "Install Mod." The also lack the "Uninstall" link on the right. I think that's simply because it won't let me take any action at all until 2.0.7 is completely installed. But how do I do that? Do I need to uninstall 2.0.6 first?

Kindred · September 21, 2016, 08:41:34 PM

no... it does not think that 2.0.7 is installed, because if it did, the option would be there to UNINSTALL

However... no - your inability to change the webmaster address is not related to your version.
And, AFAIK, the webmaster address is not taken from settings.php -- it is stored in the database and is configured from the smf admin section

Alec Durbervilles · September 21, 2016, 09:26:59 PM

That's the weird part - In Admin under Server Settings, it lets me type in a new email address but as soon as I hit "Save" it simply reverts back to what it was. A little while ago, I found a second version of settings.php in a kind of shadow directory that seems identical to the main site directory under the public_html directory. When I changed that version of settings.php, the change did indeed show up in Admin Server Settings. But it still didn't fix the problem. My site is still not sending notification emails.

Sir Osis of Liver · September 21, 2016, 10:01:01 PM

If you can pm forum link, admin and ftp access, will have a look.

Kindred · September 22, 2016, 12:18:29 AM

Alec, SMF has no "shadow directory"

Illori · September 22, 2016, 05:17:16 AM

Quote from: Kindred on September 21, 2016, 08:41:34 PM
However... no - your inability to change the webmaster address is not related to your version.
And, AFAIK, the webmaster address is not taken from settings.php -- it is stored in the database and is configured from the smf admin section

SMF only has the webmaster email address stored in Settings.php unless you are using a mod to make it use another address that is stored in the database. it uses the address in Settings.php in this location also for database errors as then SMF usually cant access the database to get the address.

Arantor · September 22, 2016, 07:09:14 AM

The stock code looks for a setting in $modSettings in preference to what the webmaster email is.

I think it's $modSettings['mail_from'] off the top of my head.

Deprecated · September 23, 2016, 07:58:37 PM

Without entirely understanding your problem I wonder if my mod "Improved Webmaster Email Settings" might help you.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1465

Alec Durbervilles · September 23, 2016, 08:37:19 PM

Sorry for the long delay. I've fixed the problem but it wasn't elegant or pretty. I kept searching through the files looking for the email address that wasn't working and found it in a second instance of "settings.php" in the shadow directory that I mentioned earlier. When I changed it directly in the php file, it changed in Admin as well and, more importantly, my site's notifications started going through again. Kindred, you say that SMF doesn't use any kind of shadow directory and I believe you. I think it was simply my first Webmaster's initial setup that did it. It's like she installed two versions of SMF. The troublesome part is that sometimes one instance is used and other times the other one is used. I can't just delete the extra version without breaking all kinds of things.

Now my only issue is that I haven't been able to upgrade past 2.0.6 and I don't know why. Eventually, that will start to cause problems. Maybe it already is.

Kindred · September 23, 2016, 08:49:38 PM

well, the two instances would explain your problems with upgrading as well

I suspect that your directories are incorrect in some cases -- fixing that will make sure that the correct instance of SMF is used, updated and editable

Sir Osis of Liver · September 23, 2016, 09:21:03 PM

If both installs are connected to the same database, that's bad, but easy enough to fix, and then upgrade to 2.0.11.

Quote from: Deprecated on September 23, 2016, 07:58:37 PM
Without entirely understanding your problem I wonder if my mod "Improved Webmaster Email Settings" might help you.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1465

Probably the worse thing you could do in a situation like this is install a mod.

Alec Durbervilles · September 24, 2016, 11:32:39 AM

I guess my questions would be 1) how can I tell if both installs are connected to the same database, and 2) how can I fix it?

Kindred · September 24, 2016, 12:23:56 PM

check the server settings/database details...
either in the settings file directly or in the admin

how to fix it?

go to the one you want to keep... run repair_settings.php and set the correct paths and urls
then delete the files in the one you want to get rid of.

Alec Durbervilles · October 01, 2016, 05:25:02 PM

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm going to mark this as solved. My new problem - that I can't get my system to upgrade to 2.0.7 - is perhaps worthy of a new topic. Kindred, I wasn't able to follow through with your last advice. It's probably user error but I don't have a file called "repair_settings.php." It's possible the "PHP 5.5 compatibility issues" mentioned in the notes in my package manager are the problem. It has a link to a patch but it appears to be broken, giving me a 403 error instead. I'm going to fish around here for previous topics before posting a new one.

Kindred · October 01, 2016, 07:20:58 PM

http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Repair_settings.php

Alec Durbervilles · October 01, 2016, 09:49:03 PM

After writing that last comment, I fished around and found it. I uploaded it to my server and ran it. But it still didn't make it so that I could upgrade. Even with repair_settings.php's directory suggestions, both versions were being used. I'll run it again, but first I want to make sure both of my directories are identical before forcing everything to point to the same one. Maybe that will do it.

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Changing the Webmaster Email Address