Email suddenly stopped working

[meljen]

My domain and attached email for my shop is Godaddy. I use liquid web for hosting. I have had my email set up with my domain email ([email protected]) for just over a year now, with almost no hitches at all, except that this happened once before. I heard that godaddy has hidden limits on emails and some seem to get lost for no reason, which is really REALLY frustrating.

I use an email puller for my various email accounts (thunderbird email client). It's never had problems, except when I change my email passwords, which I didn't, and I would have received an error. I double-checked by directly logging into my godaddy email from their website. Oddly enough, a couple emails have come through over the past few days, but none from my shop. However, I am receiving Paypal notices of customer orders... just no invoices or anything else.

I am really worried about what might be going on. I thought of calling godaddy, but I have friends who were given the run-around regarding email troubles. So I figured I would check here first. Here are my email settings in my zen cart. Like I said before, this has been working fine for just over a year, and I have not touched any settings since I first set up my shop.

E-Mail Transport Method smtpauth
E-Mail Linefeeds LF
Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails true
Send E-Mails true
Email Archiving Active? false
E-Mail Friendly-Errors true
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) [email protected]
Email Address (sent FROM) [email protected]
Emails must send from known domain? Yes
Email Admin Format? HTML
Send Copy of Order Confirmation Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Create Account Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer GV Send Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Copy of Admin GV Mail Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer Admin GV Mail Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Copy of Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Customer Admin Discount Coupon Mail Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To - Status 0
Send Copy of Admin Orders Status Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To - Status 0
Send Notice of Pending Reviews Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List
Contact Us - Show Store Name and Address 0
Send Low Stock Emails 0
Send Low Stock Emails To meljensdesigns######################
Display "Newsletter Unsubscribe" Link? false
Audience-Select Count Display false
SMTP Email Account Mailbox [email protected]
SMTP Email Account Password **********
SMTP Email Mail Host smtpout.secureserver.net
SMTP Email Mail Server Port 465


As you can see (even though it's being hidden with hash tags in this post), I use a gmail address for email copies so I can see invoices and whatnot coming through, to HOPEFULLY help prevent the hidden email limit that godaddy has. Previously I had all emails set to [email protected] and there were just too many emails sent, I guess.

I'm not even getting invoice copies. Nothing is being sent to me at all, except notices from Paypal when I'm paid.

Any help would be appreciated.

*edit* It's important to note that I cannot move email/domain providers right now, though I hope to soon as I am very tired of godaddy. I simply need help to make sure my emails can get through until the move can be done.

[DrByte]

1. Are your *customers* getting the emails? Or is it just isolated to *your* email inbox?
2. While GoDaddy "might" have some so-called "hidden" limits, I doubt you'd be hitting such limits unless your store is sending out over 500 emails per hour. And if it's doing that then you've got a bigger problem than what you describe (ie: perhaps you've been hacked and they shut off your email because your store is actually spamming thousands of emails a day). So, a call to GoDaddy should be your first step: find out what the status of your account is, and get them to watch the outgoing emails you're sending to see them happening.
3. Is your store generating an error message when trying to send out emails? ie: have you tested placing an order and letting it try to send the email after the order is completed? Does an error message appear on-screen? If not, then chances are the store is actually *sending* the email file, and thus it's not a problem with GoDaddy accepting the email for delivery, but rather it's in the delivery process that happens after they accept it ... ie: the *receiving* server is rejecting it for some reason ... in which case you need to track *that* down with the support folks on the receiving account.
4. Have you tried the email-testing tool I mentioned here? http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...79#post1196279
5. Have you read the email troubleshooting guidance here:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...Email_Problems
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...Of_Lost_Emails

[lhungil]

... I heard that godaddy has hidden limits on emails and some seem to get lost for no reason, which is really REALLY frustrating. ... I use a gmail address for email copies so I can see invoices and whatnot coming through, to HOPEFULLY help prevent the hidden email limit that godaddy has. ...

All the emails are still being sent from the "godaddy" email address and will count towards the "sent" limit.

You appear to have the "email status" set to 0 for a number of the messages. This tells Zen Cart to NOT send a copy... It sounds like you may have wanted the opposite (set to 1)...

If you have a "testing" customer account w/ your gmail email address, you can try using "Tools" -> "Send Email" to send an email to your "testing" account and see if any errors / issues are reported (SMTPAUTH usually will report if the email server declines accepting the emails).

Also would not hurt to read the following articles if you have not already: Email Problems and Lost Emails.

You have noted your website is no longer hosted on GoDaddy... It appears your web hosting provider (liquid web) has an email server configured for your domain (as a fall back). Have you asked your web hosting provider if you can use their email server to send out messages? If you can... This would avoid the limitations placed upon outgoing emails by GoDaddy... Although you would need to spend some time configuring an account on the hosting providers email server (or asking your web hosting provider to help) and telling Zen Cart to explicitly connect to that specific email server and account...

[meljen]

Thank you both for the reply. The good news is that my godaddy email isn't completely blocked. I'm still receiving emails - but then again I guess that would happen. This is very puzzling to me. Thank you for mentioning the articles, I will review those, and I will also try to directly send myself an email from the shop admin.

I tried a test order and no invoice was sent to me. I've double-checked my junk mail settings on all of my email addresses, and my domain email is set as safe.

As for some of the email settings set to 0, that is done on purpose, though I see a few in there I could stand to change to 1. I sell digital products, so several of those options don't apply to me. But thank you for double-checking that.

[meljen]

Okay, so I did a test email to myself in the admin.

This is what popped up:
ERROR: Failed sending email to: "Melissa Jenkins" with subject: "Test email" SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host.
Success Notice: Email sent to: mnjenkins########################## (1)

Not sure why it was showing the red error and then the green success message. I think I should also mention that when I tried placing an order, as well as emailing myself, there was about a 15 second wait for anything to happen. I'm guessing this is because of the 'cannot connect' problem when it's trying to send an email or invoice.

So now I am not sure what to do - I can't imagine my SMTP settings changing over the weekend. I am wondering if godaddy has blocked my email for some reason. I'll go read those articles.

[meljen]

You have noted your website is no longer hosted on GoDaddy... It appears your web hosting provider (liquid web) has an email server configured for your domain (as a fall back). Have you asked your web hosting provider if you can use their email server to send out messages? If you can... This would avoid the limitations placed upon outgoing emails by GoDaddy... Although you would need to spend some time configuring an account on the hosting providers email server (or asking your web hosting provider to help) and telling Zen Cart to explicitly connect to that specific email server and account...

My website isn't hosted by godaddy, but my domain is. I get my email through that. I don't believe liquid web offers a free email to go with their hosting, but I can check. I am going to also call godaddy.

*edit* In order for my to retain my [email protected] email address, which my customers have used for a couple years now, I would have to migrate my domain & email to liquid web. But that's a discussion for another time, as the thought of doing that breaks my brain.

[meljen]

GOOD NEWS - it works now. I called Godaddy and they ran a check and said that the mxrecords were having an issue - that the error they were seeing was 'invalid hostname'. So I had to go into my zen cart admin and change the SMTP port to a different port and it worked. I did a test email to two different email accounts and it sent out and went through immediately.

Have no idea how this happened, but there ya go. Thanks for the help. Glad it was a quick fix.

[lhungil]

... In order for my to retain my [email protected] email address, which my customers have used for a couple years now, I would have to migrate my domain & email to liquid web. But that's a discussion for another time, as the thought of doing that breaks my brain.

There are ways you could leave your email hosting and address at GoDaddy and use different email server for your website applications to actually send out email. No migration needed. I've needed to do this for a couple clients over the years (different hosting providers involved). But as you were able to get everything up and working, as you said, that would be a discussion for another time :)

I only mentioned the possibility because the 2nd fallback email server listed in your MX records points to your website IP address at liquid web. If you do not have an email server (relay or backup) at liquid web you may wish to remove this email server from your MX records.

GOOD NEWS - it works now. ... I had to go into my zen cart admin and change the SMTP port to a different port and it worked.

Thank You for giving us an update and letting us know you needed to change your outgoing email settings (per your email hosting provider)! Gotta love when things change without notification (or the notification was lost enroute) :)

[DrByte]

What port number did they have you change to?

[meljen]

They had me change it to 80. I believe it was 426 or something along those lines beforehand. I don't have my notes on-hand right now. It's really odd that things broke out of the blue, as I haven't changed anything for any email settings anywhere on any of my hosts/etc. for more than a year. It just randomly broke a couple days ago.