Moderator/Administrator not receiving Posts Awaiting Approval emails

Started by spike_h, December 20, 2017, 07:48:14 AM

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spike_h

SMF version 2.0.15
email used - PHP

(This topic seems to have been raised several times some while ago and apologies if as a newbie I have missed a posting that answers my problem - if so please point me in the correct direction)

I have recently installed and configured a forum and all is working well with the exception of emails to moderator and administrator for posts awaiting approval.

All other emails (user notification of new posts/replies/reset password/registration approval/etc) and the testmail.php supplied elsewhere on the forum all seem to be working. No errors in logs.
Approval Notifications in Scheduled tasks running hourly.

Moderator in Global Moderators group and permissions for Moderator all set to allow as follows:
Moderate board      
Approve items awaiting moderation
Access the moderation centre
Moderate forum members
(and those settings will be by default for Administrator anyway)

For moderator and Administrator in Profile/Notifications:
'Receive forum newsletters, announcements and important notifications by email' and 'Enable notification when I post or reply to a topic' set to Allow
Dropdowns set to
'For topics and boards from which I have requested notification, notify me:'  Instantly
'For topics and boards from which I have requested notification, notify me of:' Replies and Moderation

Have I missed something here - it all seems to be as it should be.
Any help much appreciated....


Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Please just to make sure, see Admin -> Maintenance -> Scheduled Tasks -> Approval Notifications and make sure the task is enabled.
If it is - then see Admin -> Maintenance -> Scheduled Tasks -> Task log and check when the task was last run?
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

spike_h

Hi and thanks for the response.

Yes approval notifications is enabled, the task is enabled and in the task log the process is logged as running hourly as per my settings.
However the time taken is zero seconds, from which I assume no data was found to send!
I have also noticed from the task log that the daily notification summary time taken is invariably zero seconds. (This may be due to users having their notification parameters set to 'instantly')
All other mail functions seem to working perfectly

I am totally puzzled.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

The time taken may not tell much really.

Next, please check Moderate -> Preferences -> Change settings

Do you have "Notify of items awaiting approval" checked?
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

spike_h

Hi again
Yep, checked, and notify of topic reports set to 'always'

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

No, not topic reports - Items awaiting approval. The last option on that page.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

spike_h


Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Now I'm really running out of ideas to check in the settings side of things to be honest.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Illori

maybe if the email template was modified in the wording it may send. i have heard of some email providers stopping emails from being received due to wording of the email getting it flagged as spam or worse.

spike_h

You and me both!
I was fairly confident that I had the settings correct.
I am now thinking to install a clean version from scratch, but of course it will need to be attached to the same database - if the error is in a data table then I will be no further forward....
Thanks for your help anyway

spike_h

Quote from: Illori on December 21, 2017, 02:02:39 PM
maybe if the email template was modified in the wording it may send. i have heard of some email providers stopping emails from being received due to wording of the email getting it flagged as spam or worse.

Hi and thanks. Worth a look.
Strange though that all the other mails are getting through

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

I think that's worth a shot, perhaps also worth trying if it would reach you easier with a longer interval... At this point, with no errors one can only guess.
But if you do find a fix, let us know too :)
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

spike_h

Just tried a couple of tests by creating a new test post as user.
I then logged in as admin, went to scheduled tasks and selected 'run now' for the task. That worked fine, the emails went to the queue and then sent correctly and were received within a minute.
I did the same for the daily summary and that worked too.

The problem must be with running the task against a schedule.
I realise that there is no cron job against the clock and the schedule needs an event to trigger it, but surely a user just logging on or a guest viewing the forum should do it?
Any ideas??

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#13
As far as I know, the tasks should only be logged as run if they were in fact triggered and run. This seems like an odd issue. Do the other scheduled emails all work nornally? This is really the only one misbehaving?
Perhaps try giving it some more time, create unapproved topics and posts, and wait more than one scheduled interval to see if anything happens.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

spike_h

No - other scheduled emails (daily summary/weekly summary) do not appear to be sent - as admin I do not receive them - although they are logged as such.
All non-scheduled emails work (registration, newtopics/posts, forgotten password etc)

And yes, have created test topics/posts and given it as much as 12 hours to see if it works, but no luck.
Other scheduled tasks are logged as having run - cannot be sure they actually have, although 'download simple machines files' sometimes has a time taken of 1-5 seconds so I presume it is doing something.

Illori

is your forum a public forum or private forum? the scheduled tasks need users to be active on the forum at or near the scheduled time for them to actually run, if no one is on the forum using it even spiders or guests the task will not run.

spike_h

Hi
Many thanks for the info - it is a small private forum.
When you say active 'on or near' -just how near? And does the task not run next time there is activity after the scheduled time?

If the system does not resend the notification once sent, then maybe I could set the schedule to a much shorter time? (EG 15 mins)

This would seem to be a SMF limitation for small users, unless there is a way (a mod?) of running the notification immediately after a new topic/post requiring moderation is added (as phpBB3 does)

Arantor

If they are logged as having completed in the log, the task itself run. This suggests either there is a problem with the preferences of the users, and/or they're disappearing into spam filters.

spike_h

Thanks for your comment
User preferences checked and OK.
I have been wondering regarding spam filters, although certainly not picked up in email spam folders and the sender address is listed as safe sender/safe domain and in the user address book. If spam filtering is the culprit then it is not getting past the incoming mail server.

My other thought is that the forum is hosted on a sub-domain, and the administrator email address is not one from that domain. I have known in the past of mail failures due to this - a possibility maybe??

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Do you have the possibility to try this? It's worth a check to see if that is the cause.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

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