njdubois

Hello again! I sure could setup a VM and test it. You replied to my email problems post, I think your recommendations pertain to sending email. SPF and IIRC. I am planning on looking into SPF more, I think that is my solution to these email problems. I think I have exhausted all other options. What would you recommend I do after I get the VM setup. This of course is going to take time, I have no clue how to setup a web host with mysql and php support and would have to invest time into that. Once it is up, what tools/utilities should I look at? Are these tools going to actually look at my code and say, you should do this part this way? Or are they going to say this chuck of code took this long, you should look at it? What are my other options? Keeping in mind that this isn't a small "project?" For example, I was reading online and found this page: http://php.dzone.com/articles/5-things-you-should-check-now It covered some great ways to improve on your site, and I plan on using these pointers in the future. The problem is I've got the whole thing up, thousands on thousands of lines of code with more tasks to do on the waiting list. So I would have to start at the beginning and go through each page. This isn't a problem, but if I am going to do that, I'd prefer to have a whole arsenal of possible problems/solutions to look at so I can do it all at once instead of constantly going through everything. Is there a service or company that I could submit my code and for as low a price as possible they audit it. Does such a company/service exist? More importantly. I've always pictured it as more black and white. It works, or it does not work. Right now, the code is working. Most of the project works and has worked no problems other than these shared server slowdowns every 6 to 8 months. Is there different grades of code? IE, am I going to go through the code and find out I did things completely backwards and will shave minutes of time off operations? Or regardless of my code, it "works" and am only going to shave a second here or there? Thanks again for the reply! Nick

Hello community! You may or may not have seen my post about Calling Godaddy out. This post is expanding on an important point a admin brought up. Am I 100% sure it isn't my code? The answer is that I am not. First off, some background. We have this issue with our godaddy shared server where every 6 to 8 months there is a huge slow down, almost to the point where things are un-usable. It's hard to believe that the code is causing this, wouldn't it happen much more often? Why after more than half a year of smooth sailing does it show such a slow down? My client and I had a long talk about this. He brought up that it seems when ever we change something here, something over there stops working right. I think that may be just not noticing something that wasn't working right, or just isn't working the way he expects it to. Why would changing this, and not touching, nor changes made effecting this in anyway cause it to break? About me, I started programming about 16 years ago. I'm really good at teaching myself, mainly by actually getting into the code and doing it. So I'm completely self taught. I started with a GW-Basic chip that was on board my first computer. Got windows and learned visual basic and c/c++. Met this guy while I was working the drive through at mcdonalds, told him I'm a coder, we met and the rest is history. Started with a vb.net/ms access platform, and I actually learned PHP/MYSQL/Javascript and AJAX over the past 5 years. Maybe 3.5 to 4 years. Again, completely self taught, and I don't know any other programmers. I don't have any peer review and never have. Is there a better way to do what I did? I'll never know. We arranged it so he is paying me according to the fact that I'm educating myself as I go. So of course if I could find some way to confirm my code is great, that would make a good resume item! So, going back to the reason of this post. Is my code 100% solid? I don't know. What are my steps for finding out? Starting with the cheapest/free methods of auditing your code, up to the more expensive ways? I'm sure I'll have offers from the community, please keep in mind that we don't have boat loads of cash. So we have to try the cheap ways first, but please feel free to offer your services if your up to it. There would have to be some kind of contract drafted, to protect our large database, passwords and of course my clients "idea," or "product?" I also want to take this time to say thanks to the PHP freaks community. If I can't find it on google, this has been the first and only place I ever go. I've had zero bad experiences, everyone is extremely helpful, and if I knew other programmers I'd send them here in a heart beat! So thanks for that! Thanks again! Nick

Use phpmailer! http://phpmailer.worxware.com/ It makes attachments so easy! $mail->addAttachment($file_name);

My biggest complaint with them is that they never admit blame. Hence why I started this post in the first place. Now that I know my way around their website it isn't as big a deal, but it drives me crazy that they list their products everywhere. Even when listing your account stuff, there is always a link to buy something more. Another issue I have is after switching to this new cpanel server I started getting 406 errors. Everywhere I read is that its settings with the server/host. I did the suggested changes to the htaccess file with no luck. Found out I no longer have control over that, and to make it worse there is nothing they can or will do about it. I have to find where the error is happening in my code, and find a work around. One part it was messing up at was when a user tried to submit a full url in a php post back. "http://www.google.com" would cause the server to spit out the 406 error. It was the "http://" and the only thing I can do about it is add it after the post. So, if the person is trying to add a "https://www.google.com" I'm screwed. And on top of all that, their hold music SUCKS and I'm always stuck listening to it for longer than I'd like.

Your right of course. I'm not planning on writing angry letters or taking anyone to court. I'm only seeking information that I could bring up to godaddy when they say it is not their fault when it would seem it is. I do not know the steps to insure that it is not my code. This would be new territory for me, I'm use to running code, it gives errors, or it does not. It's working, or it isn't. [EDIT] And why would this potential problem/flaw in my code take so long to appear? [/EDIT] So, without having to spend anything to hire someone to audit my code. What would be my first step to insure that it is not? What would you do? Keep in mind that this isn't one page, nor is it a small "program." Thank you! Really. This could be the thing that takes me to the next level. Having the ability to rule out the code 100% without a doubt is very important to me and I am really glad we are having this dialog! Nick

In reply to Josh: I am completely self taught, so is there a better way to do what I've done, probably! The reason I ruled the code out is this. If you were to write a windows application and that app ran 24/7 and after 6 months of perfect use the system computer starts acting slow, sluggish or unresponsive. Do you blame the App, or the system? We are on a shared host, and to me it makes sense that after a few months it starts showing slow downs it would seem that the server we are on is reaching its capacity. If it was the code and there was some kind of memory leak, or bad garbage handling wouldn't problems show up much much sooner, clear themselves only to reappear days later? Why is it that we can go such a long time with mere perfect performance only to out of the blue hit a wall? Zane, we have been tossing the idea around about going to something more dedicated for a while now. The income isn't there just yet and we are getting close. I will take your advice when that time comes! Our biggest problem with godaddy is that when something is wrong, and we KNOW it's something on their end they never admit to it. Their answer is ALWAYS to try to get more money out of us for a bigger "Better" product. That's very annoying. Thanks everyone for your input and advice!

A godaddy rep had me setup MX (mail exchange) in my zone file on my godaddy account. Going to take an hour for it to kick in. Fingers Crossed.

I'm not sure what this SPF lists are, but I assure you I will look into it! Thanks for the support, this just keep getting weirder and weirder. As mentioned, I have setup an email account with godaddys webmail. While testing, I tried to send an email from inside godaddys webmail page to a obviously bad email address and guess what, No non delivery reprots?!?!?! I'm so confused now.

Ok, I looked up Sender, and added it to my code but I am still not getting the bounced back NDR. I had also read about this and that'ss when I added the addReplyTo, From, and FromName. My code now looks like this: try { if(!PHPMailer::validateAddress($to)) { throw new phpmailerAppException("Email address " . $to . " is invalid -- aborting!"); } $mail->IsSMTP(); // Using SMTP. $mail->CharSet = 'utf-8'; $mail->SMTPAuth = false; // Enables SMTP authentication. $mail->addReplyTo("admin@marcomtechnologies.com"); $mail->From = "admin@marcomtechnologies.com"; $mail->FromName = "admin"; $mail->Host = "relay-hosting.secureserver.net"; // SMTP server host. $mail->Sender = "admin@marcomtechnologies.com"; $mail->isSendmail(); $mail->addAddress($to, $to); $mail->Subject =$MSG_row['msg_subject']; //$body = "<<<'EOT'"; $body = $email_message; //$body .= "EOT"; $mail->WordWrap = 80; $mail->msgHTML($body, dirname(__FILE__), true); //Create message bodies and embed images try { $mail->send(); $results_messages[] = "Message has been sent to " . $to . ', '; } catch (phpmailerException $e) { throw new phpmailerAppException('Unable to send to: ' . $to. ': '.$e->getMessage()); } } catch (phpmailerAppException $e) { $results_messages[] = $e->errorMessage(); } And as an added bonus, this is the header information from an email I sent myself that came through, maybe there is a clue: Delivered-To: njdubois@gmail.com Received: by 10.216.93.74 with SMTP id k52csp159461wef; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:09:06 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.68.6.99 with SMTP id z3mr8877892pbz.114.1385075345214; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:09:05 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: <admin@marcomtechnologies.com> Received: from p3nlsmtp17.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (p3nlsmtp17.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net. [72.167.234.242]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id pl10si18060864pbc.268.2013.11.21.15.09.04 for <njdubois@gmail.com>; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:09:05 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 72.167.234.242 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of admin@marcomtechnologies.com) client-ip=72.167.234.242; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 72.167.234.242 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of admin@marcomtechnologies.com) smtp.mail=admin@marcomtechnologies.com Received: from p3nlhg252.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net ([173.201.196.40]) by p3nlsmtp17.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net with id sP941m00B0smbvR01P94KN; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:09:04 -0700 Received: from p3nlhg252.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by p3nlhg252.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (8.14.4/8.12.11) with ESMTP id rALN94TW032664 for <njdubois@gmail.com>; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:09:04 -0700 Received: (from club1687@localhost) by p3nlhg252.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id rALN946F032661; Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:09:04 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: p3nlhg252.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net: club1687 set sender to admin@marcomtechnologies.com using -f Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:09:04 -0700 To: "njdubois@gmail.com" <njdubois@gmail.com> From: admin <admin@marcomtechnologies.com> Reply-To: admin@marcomtechnologies.com Subject: test Message-ID: <87c844340e5d52b295312e051874b0f8@marcomtechnologies.com> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer 5.2.7 (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="b1_87c844340e5d52b295312e051874b0f8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --b1_87c844340e5d52b295312e051874b0f8 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit test --b1_87c844340e5d52b295312e051874b0f8 Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <html><body>test</body></html> --b1_87c844340e5d52b295312e051874b0f8-- It states: Return-Path: <admin@marcomtechnologies.com> Which is correct! I know I'm sending a test email to a bad address cause when I send an email from inside gmail to the same address I get the NDR immediately. Thank you so much for trying! Keep the recommendations coming! I really really appreciate it!!!! Nick

An update for anyone following this post. As mentioned I have talked with godaddy. I had to rep confirm that all settings are correct in php.ini and in the godaddy control panel. I also had her look at my code. She informed me that the only problem she saw was the lack of including the relay server. Before I found the stack overflow page, I had went to the PHPmailer website to look for assistance, and on that page they had a Blacklist test. I tested our domain, and it's IP and it came back clear. Not satisfied I googled black list test and tested a few more times. Everything is clear. I read on that stackover flow link that the email HAD to be from the domain. So I have setup an email address admin@marcomtechnologies.com and the email is now coming from that address. Still, att.net are not getting emails. I have also tried to send an email to a friend I have with an @att.net address and he confirmed that he did not receive the email. So we are not blacklisted, and I have the relay server code added and the att.net address are still not getting the emails. The godaddy rep also made a point of saying it shouldn't be hit or miss. It either sends emails, and everything is working, or it doesn't send emails. Well, most emails go out, why are some not? I have gotten emails many many times, why did I not get the message this morning? I can't stress enough that @att.net not getting the messages is just one part of the bigger issue. I normally get the emails, and didn't get one today. I'm lost. I have no idea whats going on, and I don't know what I should even be researching cause the code "works." I am trying to get in contact with another programmer that is far more advanced than I to arrange a meeting so I can walk him through the problem and show him the code. I think that is my only option at this point. Here is the updated code with the relay server line: try { if(!PHPMailer::validateAddress($to)) { throw new phpmailerAppException("Email address " . $to . " is invalid -- aborting!"); } $mail->IsSMTP(); // Using SMTP. $mail->CharSet = 'utf-8'; $mail->SMTPAuth = false; // Enables SMTP authentication. $mail->Host = "relay-hosting.secureserver.net"; // SMTP server host. $mail->isSendmail(); $mail->addReplyTo("admin@marcomtechnologies.com"); $mail->From = "admin@marcomtechnologies.com"; $mail->FromName = "admin"; $mail->addAddress($to, $to); $mail->Subject =$MSG_row['msg_subject']; //$body = "<<<'EOT'"; $body = $email_message; //$body .= "EOT"; $mail->WordWrap = 80; $mail->msgHTML($body, dirname(__FILE__), true); //Create message bodies and embed images try { $mail->send(); $results_messages[] = "Message has been sent to " . $to . ', '; } catch (phpmailerException $e) { throw new phpmailerAppException('Unable to send to: ' . $to. ': '.$e->getMessage()); } } catch (phpmailerAppException $e) { $results_messages[] = $e->errorMessage(); } Is anything else I can do? What should be my next troubleshooting process? Thank you so much for all your help. I hope to have this resolved asap! Nick

More email problems as fresh as today! Client sent an email at 6:23 and I never got it. I was on the phone with godaddy and the rep pointed out that somewhere in my code I need to setup the relay? Somewhere in the code above, I need this "relay-hosting.secureserver.net" Where would this go? Thanks Nick [EDIT] found this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10984352/phpmailer-on-godaddy-server-setup-correctly [/EDIT]

I have sent a message to a few others I know with @att.net email address and it is confirmed they are not getting them. I'm consirned that there is an automated reply that I should be getting stating that the message was blocked, or maybe it's another error all together. I tried to send an email to an over the top invalid address and still got no reply. So this is the code that sends an email: try { if(!PHPMailer::validateAddress($to)) { throw new phpmailerAppException("Email address " . $to . " is invalid -- aborting!"); } $mail->isSendmail(); $mail->addReplyTo($_SESSION['member_email'], $_SESSION['member_email']); $mail->From = $_SESSION['member_email']; $mail->FromName = $_SESSION['member_email']; $mail->addAddress($to, $to); $mail->Subject =$MSG_row['msg_subject']; //$body = "<<<'EOT'"; $body = $email_message; //$body .= "EOT"; $mail->WordWrap = 80; $mail->msgHTML($body, dirname(__FILE__), true); //Create message bodies and embed images try { $mail->send(); $results_messages[] = "Message has been sent to " . $to . ', '; } catch (phpmailerException $e) { throw new phpmailerAppException('Unable to send to: ' . $to. ': '.$e->getMessage()); } } catch (phpmailerAppException $e) { $results_messages[] = $e->errorMessage(); } What do I need to change so that I get these error messages? I'm using PHPmailer if that is needed information? Thanks so much for the help all, you have guided me to look at things I'd never have thought of. I hope the above code will help you point out what I am doing wrong. Thanks!! Nick

I'm still having issues with this. Anyone with an email address with att.net gets messages from the web form on my page blocked. BUT, if I use godaddys email services, and send an email from the web mail page from the address admin@marcomtechnologies.com, it works and the person gets the email. AT&T has the ability to get your domain white listed. But they are asking for information from a Non-Delivery-Report (NDR?) That I am not getting. I don't know how to set that up? I know that in the code, I have the reply to, and the from set correctly. It's from me, njdubois@gmail.com. But I'm not getting any NDR? How do I go about looking into these DNS zone records? Is that something I should call godaddy about? I know everything is setup right cause I can send emails to everyone else and they get them no problems. Thanks Nick

Some good questions! The file sizes always vary, we have been able to upload 30 minute calls no problem in the past. I think the longest was 36 minutes. Most calls don't go over 5 minutes. so to answer your question, no the file size is not going over the max upload size. It's not only uploads. Sending something as simple as a phone number doesn't work. Or checking a check box and sending true or false. These tasks, both simple data and uploading audio files happens at all hours of the day. Morning, noon and night. And again, there is no consistency. We can go months and months with no problems at all. I will look into if there is any analytic tools available in just a few minutes. Thanks for the help Nick

I agree. Godaddy does suck. You know immediately when their solution to your problems is give them more money.

Access to the control panel isn't going to change the fact that I can't install software on a godaddy shared host.

You know when you call your phone company or bank or who ever and the voice says "this call maybe monitored...",blah blah? We listen to those calls and fill out basic customer and salesperson info. The providers of said audio files don't always give us mp3s. I said anything about it mainly to show I've already been looking at dedicated servers to convert those files. I'll discribe the problem a hand full of users are having a little more detailed. I use ajax on this form. We enter a salesperson name and tab out of the box. A little icon shows that there was a change. It Ajax's the data to a script that saves it to a database and returns that everything was OK. At that point the icon changes to a check mark. The problem is that it's never hearing back from the server. The icon never changes. I use ajax to upload the audio files and it is never getting the file. I know at first it seems there is a code problem. But the code is rock solid for months and months at a time. This isn't the first time this has happened. So, it isn't the code. I have had users with issues test their internet connections and that's OK. I've called godaddy and they say no problems. Half our users have no problems. One of the 3 is in another state so it can't be internet connection? It is frustrating. Is godaddy just trying to upsell us. The last time we had the issue we switched to some other package that gave us priority over the shared hosts resources and for a while it has been better than ever. This is a regular thing. Almost clockwork roughly every six months. But its never godaddy fault... Thanks everyone, hope this clears up my question. Nick

Look at internet connection speed tests as an example. It isn't something that needs an installation. I'm looking for something that I can enter server info in. Our website, mysql server, ftp. Something that will diagnose potential issues. I have no access to the server console. So if I have to do anything special on the server to get it working I'll have problems. thanks Nick

If it was another site in the server sucking up resources, would everyone using our site have issues? Why is it only 3 of the 9 users? One of the 3 is in another state?

Thanks for the reply! We have been on the verge of switching to a dedicated host because I need to convert audio files. Also aware that it could be other sites on the server. There isn't anything I can do for extra info? Thanks

We are on a shared server hosted through godaddy. We can go months, sometimes half a year with out an issue and then there is a big slow down. It can be for a few hours, a few days once even weeks we couldn't us our system. When we call GoDaddy they almost always say there is nothing wrong on their end and ALWAYS try to up sell us. So that's my question. Is there any server tools that don't require an installation in the server. We don't have control of that. I want to be able to call godaddy and say this there is the problem. Or know for sure if it's not them. Thanks Nick

Thank you for the fast reply! Let me check my understanding. Our domain is marcomtechnologies.com There is 2 places a message could be sent out. One place sends it from admin@marcomtechnologies.com the other from the registered email for that member. So, for example if I send an email, its from njdubois@gmail.com In a recent post about this problem it was made clear that it has to come from a real domain, and that is when we switched the other to @marcomtechnologies.com Your number 2 point, wouldn't that be on godaddy, and you would hope they had all that setup correctly? Number 3 makes sense. Could it be that it's blocked by default? It is very possible that the emails have been flagged as spam, they are automated after all. I have another question based on your reply. Say salesperson B flags a message from us as spam. Anyone else on that email provider would them have those messages marked as spam by default with out them having to take any actions? I'm going to contact godaddy about your second point. Thanks again for the fast reply. Nick

An update: I called at&t and the lady confirmed that there is a higher level filter that blocks 3rd party emails. The individual customer would need to call and have this turned off. Is there any other way to send an email from a 3rd party webform that would not get blocked? We don't have the liberty of asking customers to call their providers. Thanks Nick

Some of you may know that I have posted this issue a few times. The most recent, it was recommended that I switch to an emailing library. Currently I am using phpmailer (SENDMAIL?) The problem is we are trying to use a webform to send out bulk emails. Everything seems ok. But some people still do not get messages and I think I have it narrowed down to the domain they are registered to. For example. The boss and I are on @gmail.com and we get every message. One employee is on @yahoo.com and she got the messages. I'm still waiting to hear from the one employee that is on @sbcglobal.net, but she had to forward a message to the two on @att.net the other day so I think she is getting them. The 2 employees with @att.net do not get the messages. They think they use to get them, but its hard to tell whether those messages where sent from the boss from gmail or from the web form I have built. I find it hard to believe it's the code, if you want me to post it I will, but people are getting the messages. Just some do not. Wouldn't that prove that the code is working and that there is some other step or middle man that is causing the problem? I have asked that they check spam folders and nothing there. What should be my next step? We need 100% messages sent. We are not only sending emails to employees, but also the few hundred clients we have. We cannot be sending emails on top of emails asking for confirmation that they got it. We currently are not using our own POP/SMTP server, just the default shared hosting server we are on through godaddy and the email library that I am assuming works with that. That will be my next step. Pay for a dedicated email server. And that's only cause I feel I'm out of options. What else can I do? Thanks Nick

Hello there! I'm in the midst of building a page on my website that allows users to change their details. Including usernames and passwords. I love using JS and AJAX to do these kinds of forms but feel very uncomfortable submitting these types of new details to the database over AJAX. I know I can rename variables and make things hard to read, but really I would prefer to not have to do this. I'm not submitting database field names in the URL, and my select/update strings are extremely narrowed down. Passwords are encrypted, I've taken all the common sense steps. Is there any other technology that allows updating only a part of a page, that is more secure? It's all client side I guess, so I understand my question is pointless. Maybe there is something? Thanks Nick