Contact Us emails failing validation

For some a large number of the emails have stopped passing the email validation script and are not being sent. I noticed a ton of myDEBUG logs with this:

Code:

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[27-Nov-2013 10:25:42] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "[email protected]" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from sicassracing.com" (failed validation)

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Not sure what could be causing this... It is happening in both my test store and the live site?
I have tested using several different VALID emails as the from email in the form, I have double checked the
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) address in the admin and the Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List address.
Any ideas where to continue my search are greatly appreciated.
Live site is http://sicassracing.com
Please TESTING as the message body if you do visit so I can tell when and if it sends. THX

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

For some a large number of the emails have stopped passing the email validation script and are not being sent. I noticed a ton of myDEBUG logs with this:

Code:

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[27-Nov-2013 10:25:42] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "[email protected]" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from sicassracing.com" (failed validation)

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Not sure what could be causing this... It is happening in both my test store and the live site?
I have tested using several different VALID emails as the from email in the form, I have double checked the
Email Address (Displayed to Contact you) address in the admin and the Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List address.
Any ideas where to continue my search are greatly appreciated.
Live site is http://sicassracing.com
Please TESTING as the message body if you do visit so I can tell when and if it sends. THX

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What is the e-mail transport method?

It was PHP. I just tried setting it to smtpauth and my test email went through fine.
Thanks, I was looking for something much more complex than that!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

It was PHP. I just tried setting it to smtpauth and my test email went through fine.
Thanks, I was looking for something much more complex than that!

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No problem. :) Helped someone earlier this week with a somewhat similar issue; however, they found out that their email account was full... :)

Still a bit odd that PHP was a problem; however, it is suggested that an alternate method be used anyways...

Looking in to it further I not sure that is the only issue...
The amount of failed emails is extremely high: 266 today, 638 yesterday!
I'm thinking I'v got a spam bot issue! Hopefully switching to smtpauth stops this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

Looking in to it further I not sure that is the only issue...
The amount of failed emails is extremely high: 266 today, 638 yesterday!
I'm thinking I'v got a spam bot issue! Hopefully switching to smtpauth stops this.

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Not likely to stop it, unless the failed emails are all related to the system trying to resend a few messages. What version of ZC do you have installed? 1.5.1 has some anti-bot functionality to it, also there's google recaptcha. But ideally you would want to look through those messages/errors to identify from what page they came from... (New user, contact us, something else, etc...) If you had email archive turned on, then you could easily go through them with a plugin that does that, otherwise if not the plugin by looking through the database.

If nothing else it will allow new emails to get through, the question is how many are expected in the near future...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

For some a large number of the emails have stopped passing the email validation script and are not being sent. I noticed a ton of myDEBUG logs with this:

Code:

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[27-Nov-2013 10:25:42] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "[email protected]" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from sicassracing.com" (failed validation)

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What is your setting for Configuration->Email Options->Email Address (sent FROM)? The error message implies that you've got it set to something like

Code:

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[email protected] <>

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by lat9

What is your setting for Configuration->Email Options->Email Address (sent FROM)? The error message implies that you've got it set to something like

Code:

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[email protected] <>

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Sent from email is set to: [email protected]
I am still waiting for all of my errors from the last four days to finish downloading so I can sort through them... 1868 error files!!!

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

Not likely to stop it, unless the failed emails are all related to the system trying to resend a few messages. What version of ZC do you have installed? 1.5.1 has some anti-bot functionality to it, also there's google recaptcha. But ideally you would want to look through those messages/errors to identify from what page they came from... (New user, contact us, something else, etc...) If you had email archive turned on, then you could easily go through them with a plugin that does that, otherwise if not the plugin by looking through the database.

If nothing else it will allow new emails to get through, the question is how many are expected in the near future...

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Site is running 1.5.1. I am thinking it may be the quick form for the contact us that is in the mega menu header I have up. The errors don't specify what page as it is in the sending of the mail that it fails, thinking that that tells me the built in anti spam is doing it's job.
The issue now is that over the holiday weekend I didn't receive any of my order confirmation emails... strange thing are brewing

interesting... it looks like for some reason the send to email address is missing. Grabbing randomly from the massive amount of errors they all look to be the same:

Code:

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[02-Dec-2013 08:03:27] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from sicassracing.com" (failed validation)

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I am going to yank the quick contact us from the header now, see if that helps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

Site is running 1.5.1. I am thinking it may be the quick form for the contact us that is in the mega menu header I have up. The errors don't specify what page as it is in the sending of the mail that it fails, thinking that that tells me the built in anti spam is doing it's job.
The issue now is that over the holiday weekend I didn't receive any of my order confirmation emails... strange thing are brewing

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Are you still getting the same type of error message as first reported?

I traced through the email code: STOREDIRECTORY/includes/functions/functions_email.php

That error message is provided (failed validation) if it doesn't pass the zen_validate_email function... If the email truely is of a valid type (Ie., properly formatted) and the code has not been changed, then you may have an observer that is looking for: NOTIFY_EMAIL_VALIDATION_TEST that is modifying the $valid_address variable to state FALSE... Check using DTK to see if that notifier is being listened for.

In a search of my files I only found that in one location, the function itself...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

interesting... it looks like for some reason the send to email address is missing. Grabbing randomly from the massive amount of errors they all look to be the same:

Code:

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[02-Dec-2013 08:03:27] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from sicassracing.com" (failed validation)

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I am going to yank the quick contact us from the header now, see if that helps.

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So, iil tell you what I did. I've onlyhadthe modified version of. Themega_manu up foor 12 hours, so I still have some testing to do/see. First, I made it so that the contact us dropdown didn't load (didn't hide it, literally made it not load so there would be no trace of it for anything to reference). Then I added what some have called the honey pot (hidden field added by ZC 1.5.1) between the two form boundaries of the mega_menu dropdown.

With those two basic modifications in place,I have been able to receive a contact us email when sent from either the quick dropdown and if one goes straight to the contact us link. Since then I have also seen that attempts have been made by outside computers to access parts of that process. Mostly they have gone to the success page of the contact us, but there have been no emails sent, no errors logged. It is as if they are simply trying to go to the success page without submitting a query. (Unless that is the next page to arrive at when improperly submitting a request, and if that is the case, the process is working as expected/desired).

I also added some functionality by including the who to contact drop down, but that has no effect on the problem you are describing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

Site is running 1.5.1. I am thinking it may be the quick form for the contact us that is in the mega menu header I have up. The errors don't specify what page as it is in the sending of the mail that it fails, thinking that that tells me the built in anti spam is doing it's job.
The issue now is that over the holiday weekend I didn't receive any of my order confirmation emails... strange thing are brewing

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Two ways you can tell where they were: one post mortem, the other would require adding another plugin to your site. There may be others, but these two come to mindh 1) review your access logs from the server/host, and 2) install the plug-in user tracking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

So, iil tell you what I did. I've onlyhadthe modified version of. Themega_manu up foor 12 hours, so I still have some testing to do/see. First, I made it so that the contact us dropdown didn't load (didn't hide it, literally made it not load so there would be no trace of it for anything to reference). Then I added what some have called the honey pot (hidden field added by ZC 1.5.1) between the two form boundaries of the mega_menu dropdown.

With those two basic modifications in place,I have been able to receive a contact us email when sent from either the quick dropdown and if one goes straight to the contact us link. Since then I have also seen that attempts have been made by outside computers to access parts of that process. Mostly they have gone to the success page of the contact us, but there have been no emails sent, no errors logged. It is as if they are simply trying to go to the success page without submitting a query. (Unless that is the next page to arrive at when improperly submitting a request, and if that is the case, the process is working as expected/desired).

I also added some functionality by including the who to contact drop down, but that has no effect on the problem you are describing.

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Sheesh, didn't realize how bad my cell phone keyboard was getting (space bar primarily but a number of other issues)...

I took a quick look through the SHOPPATH/includes/modules/pages/contact_us and see that if the anti spam action is triggered, then the next direction to go is to the success page and to not try to send an email... So, seems like it is working and that we have "visitors" (bots) attempting to send spam.

Looking at my previous post on a larger screen, I see that I forgot to mention that the contact us dropdown doesn't load when on the contact_us page... (It loads in all other cases.) I did this because it doesn't make sense to have a contact us form on screen and one available in a dropdown as well, it has the potential of confusing other program code such as if recaptcha were incorporated, which I wanted to see if the recaptcha would work with the above changes. (Not planning on implementing recaptcha again, as I've removed it seeing that the honey pot method seems to be working and would like to make things more "accessible" to customers, but there have been others that have been trying to figure out how to get it to work with the drop down contact us option.)

I ended up removing the code for the quick contact form from the header and replacing it with all of our contact info and a link to the contact us page...
Attachment 13444
I haven't had any error logs pop since I uploaded the changes.
I checked for the notifier, same here only location is the email functions file
Now to figure out why I haven't gotten any order conf. emails since wednesday.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

I ended up removing the code for the quick contact form from the header and replacing it with all of our contact info and a link to the contact us page...
Attachment 13444
I haven't had any error logs pop since I uploaded the changes.
I checked for the notifier, same here only location is the email functions file
Now to figure out why I haven't gotten any order conf. emails since wednesday.

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Generally speaking that seems like it will help; however, it defeats one aspect of the default contact us form... not distributing/providing the email address for spiders to pickup and send spam directly... (email address is shown/provided) if it takes the user to the contact us form, great, but I thought the presence of the email address would be something that would be picked up by those searching through for such things...

As for not receiving email for a long period of time? It may require talking with your host to see if they had flagged the account to prevent spam... :/

The actual code for the email address shown is sort of anti spam - info@sicassracing.com ;-)

That's not how you entered it in your admin's configuration, is it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mikestaps

The actual code for the email address shown is sort of anti spam - info@sicassracing.com ;-)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by lat9

That's not how you entered it in your admin's configuration, is it?

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Sort of waiting for a response to that question; however, was also thinking, you were having this issue on both your production and test stores. Did the drop down version of the contact us menu have the same selection list as is available on your contact us page? Also do you have it setup with the "name" <email address>? or is it just email address? I thought one of the other setup attributes was to have both parts provided in the store's setup for the Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List selection. (Seeing that you do have a drop down list selection, though that doesn't address the automatic emails that are not being received.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lat9

That's not how you entered it in your admin's configuration, is it?

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Nope, that would cause all kinds of errors... That is just how I display any email using HTML rather than a STORE_OWNER_EMAIL_ADDRESS call.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

Sort of waiting for a response to that question; however, was also thinking, you were having this issue on both your production and test stores. Did the drop down version of the contact us menu have the same selection list as is available on your contact us page? Also do you have it setup with the "name" <email address>? or is it just email address? I thought one of the other setup attributes was to have both parts provided in the store's setup for the Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List selection. (Seeing that you do have a drop down list selection, though that doesn't address the automatic emails that are not being received.)

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Drop downs for both sites are the same, and emails are set to "name <address>".
It is looking like the not receiving order conf. emails is due to email provider blocking. The "boss" won't give up his beloved AOL email, and AOL is blocking stuff even without filters set to do so.
I added another address to the order conf. send to list and it's working fine. Also turned on email archiving, order conf. emails are sending fine, just not getting through AOL. Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and I can get him to ditch the AOL!!!

Thanks for all of the help and ideas!

I have something similar. Emails fail validation from the 'contact us' form and quick-contact header, but emails get through from the admin >Tools > send email. I deduce that it's not a server/hosting issue from the latter, but am failing to find what it might really be. Might it be some issue with the template or its implementation of Megamenu????

v1.5.1

error log "[31-Jan-2014 12:16:05] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from ** **" (failed validation)"

email_debug.php is not activated from the contact options, but is from: Admin >Tools > Send Email

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limey

I have something similar. Emails fail validation from the 'contact us' form and quick-contact header, but emails get through from the admin >Tools > send email. I deduce that it's not a server/hosting issue from the latter, but am failing to find what it might really be. Might it be some issue with the template or its implementation of Megamenu????

v1.5.1

error log "[31-Jan-2014 12:16:05] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from ** **" (failed validation)"

email_debug.php is not activated from the contact options, but is from: Admin >Tools > Send Email

Thanks

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That type of log has been what I have seen when a bot/user tries to "spoof" the system to try to send email. Regarding the template's implementation, yeah it probably isn't including the recent updates made to v1.5.1 that were incorporated into the contact us and sign-in/new user pages. There are some suggestions earlier on in this thread about coding that could be applied, and there are many others around as well. I modified the response of the mega_menu to hide the contact us drop down when otherwise on the contact_us page, and to incorporate the changes made in v1.5.1 of ZC. I have seen another do something similar, but what they did was to first take the information entered at the drop down, and enter it on a newly loaded page, to have the user make some more selections and then submit the contact us form for a sort of second set of validation. I believe I saw this one described in the responsive sheffield blue template thread posted by another user. Please remember, posts should be associated with the primary topic of the thread. So, if/when visiting that thread further discussion on this aspect probably should be taken to a thread different than the thread on that template.

All that said: do you get that type of error when you personally test the contact us page from the website? Or is that just an error log that has been received and considered to have been a problem with the contact us page because of knowledge of other "variables"? (Ie are you able to send a message from the store/reproduce the problem?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

All that said: do you get that type of error when you personally test the contact us page from the website? Or is that just an error log that has been received and considered to have been a problem with the contact us page because of knowledge of other "variables"? (Ie are you able to send a message from the store/reproduce the problem?)

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Yes the same error when I personally test the contact us page. ie I can't send messages from the store.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limey

Yes the same error when I personally test the contact us page. ie I can't send messages from the store.

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How about if you change back to the classic template... Does email sending work from contact us page? Might indeed have something "different" between the two sets of files (the override file for your template and the default version of the same file.) I would start with the file first, and deal with the mega-menu afterwords. It is something of an imitation of the file, and worst case can be disabled but still have a contact us form. Have you previously tried to install anything like recaptcha, but then not fully removed it or copied over the files from one template to the other?

[31-Jan-2014 12:01:45] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "MYDOMAINeditedFORsecurityReasons.com" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from DomainNameRemoved.com" (failed validation)

Have you setup your
Admin: Configuration: Email Options => so that you have valid email addresses in all the proper places?

Not saying that's the only problem but I can duplicate that error message which I copied from the /logs folder after removing the email addresses from the configuration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RixStix

[31-Jan-2014 12:01:45] Have you setup your Admin: Configuration: Email Options => so that you have valid email addresses in all the proper places?

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Thanks again. I resolved it by getting a different 'definitive' answer from the hosting support compared to the one I had yesterday - and it was to do with their settings. If I weren't so glad to have sussed it I could have been irritated. Thanks to all.

Thanks, It was the host's setting after all. I got different guidance than before and I'm back in business. Many thanks tho'.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limey

Thanks, It was the host's setting after all. I got different guidance than before and I'm back in business. Many thanks tho'.

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So to confirm, there was no setting that an operator of a ZC store could correct without the assistance of the host making some sort of server change. Is that correct?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

So to confirm, there was no setting that an operator of a ZC store could correct without the assistance of the host making some sort of server change. Is that correct?

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And, if that's the case, letting everyone know what settings had to be changed might help someone in the same situation in the future!

Just changed hosts and am not having this same issue, what do I need to ask my host to change?
Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by uswebworx

Just changed hosts and am not having this same issue, what do I need to ask my host to change?
Thanks!

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Sorry to take months to realise I'd not given the vital info. With this particular host it was changing to smtpauth. The emails are getting through but still that pesky myDEBUG error!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limey

I have something similar. Emails fail validation from the 'contact us' form and quick-contact header, but emails get through from the admin >Tools > send email. I deduce that it's not a server/hosting issue from the latter, but am failing to find what it might really be. Might it be some issue with the template or its implementation of Megamenu????

v1.5.1

error log "[31-Jan-2014 12:16:05] ERROR: Failed sending email to: "" <> with subject: "Website Inquiry from ** **" (failed validation)"

email_debug.php is not activated from the contact options, but is from: Admin >Tools > Send Email

Thanks

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Limey

Sorry to take months to realise I'd not given the vital info. With this particular host it was changing to smtpauth. The emails are getting through but still that pesky myDEBUG error!

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There's been a lot of stuff discussed in this thread, including getting errors using contact-us, some "quick-contact" addon, and admin send-mail page.

What exact steps can trigger this problem on your site?
Is the error still exactly as I quoted above from one of your earlier posts?
I suspect in your Admin->Configuration->Email Options settings you've got some blank email addresses set up, probably due to incorrectly formatting the email addresses you've entered. If you've got a semi-colon after any email address you've entered, try removing it if there is not another address after it. If you've got a "blank line" added after any email address in those settings, remove it. Extra "spaces" shouldn't matter, but clean those up too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lat9

What is your setting for Configuration->Email Options->Email Address (sent FROM)? The error message implies that you've got it set to something like

Code:

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[email protected] <>

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I have had the same problem, receiving an error like

Code:

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ERROR: Failed sending email to: "[email protected]" <> with subject: "some subject" (failed validation)

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In "Admin>E-Mail Options>Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List" I had entered the address simply like "[email protected]".
Changing the address to this format: Name 1 <email@address1>, solved the problem!
Apparently the brackets <> in the error message imply the absence of an email address between the brackets. Would that be true??

NB: zc v1.5.4 and zc 1.5.5e

jpda

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jpda

I have had the same problem, receiving an error like

Code:

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ERROR: Failed sending email to: "[email protected]" <> with subject: "some subject" (failed validation)

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In "Admin>E-Mail Options>Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List" I had entered the address simply like "[email protected]".
Changing the address to this format: Name 1 <email@address1>, solved the problem!
Apparently the brackets <> in the error message imply the absence of an email address between the brackets. Would that be true??

NB: zc v1.5.4 and zc 1.5.5e

jpda

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Yes, that's true. That's exactly why the description text for that field specifically tells you to use that format. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrByte

Yes, that's true. That's exactly why the description text for that field specifically tells you to use that format. :D

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Thank you for confirming! The description seemed not that "compulsory" in case you only have one e-mail address. I seem to remember it had been working in older zc versions...

Cheers,

jpda