Random email problem

[madfitz]

I've just done a clean install of 2.0.17 and I'm configuring boards and testing stuff out.

I have email set on the php default.

I set registration with email activation and registered a test account but no email was received. There was nothing in spam and nothing in the error log.

I changed registration to Admin approval and tried again. User received an email to say the request has been created and is waiting for admin approval.

In the admin center I selected 'approve with email validation' but no further email was recieved, no spam, no error log.

Any ideas why some emails get through but activation/validation emails don't?

UPDATE:

Maybe I was expecting too much? Tried again from scratch and the activation email was received 50 minutes after registration. Is that normal?

[Kindred]

depends on your mail server and how busy the forum is -- since forum maintenance tasks are only run/triggers by people (or bots) being active on the board.

[madfitz]

Ok. Well the forum isn't busy at all. Like I said, it's a clean install that I'm still configuring (I am the only registered member at this point). I'm on a shared server. Could be that I guess?

[vbgamer45]

Could be an issue with shared server.  The mail might be in a queue that takes a while to process.

[Illori]

also who is your host? there are some bad/worse and much better hosts out there. some of the bad/worse hosts may not have the best email servers.

[madfitz]

Thanks guys. I'm thinking it's an issue with the shared server. The host (a small orange) probably won't prioritise things like that.

[vbgamer45]

You can always use an external smtp system as well for your forum.

[Warlock666]

You might want to take a look in the headers of the mail. There you will see between which mailservers the delay was.
I guess it was a combination of greylisting on the receiving mailserver and slow retries of the sending server.