When my cron script runs to send Forum emails, some students are included but not all. Does anyone have suggestions how to fix this? thanks....
When you some are not included, do you mean they do not receive notifications that someone else has posted? Or, do you mean something else?
Yes, that's what I mean....some students are receiving the forums, but some are not...and this includes News Forums which are forced subscribed
It's not likely that cron is missing students. It's more likely that the emails to those students are failing to arrive. Some possible causes:
- the emails are going to the students' spam folders
- if you have students with different ISPs (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) some of those ISPs dislike messages that are sent on behalf of a user rather than by the user, and the messages evaporate when they touch the ISP's server. There's a name for this, but I can't remember it. Several discussions about a year ago April on Moodle.org about how to fix this problem.
- some servers (Comcast, for example) see more than 50 messages at a time from the same IP address, assume they are spam, and kill them.
If you can remember the name of that particular phenomenon or find the discussion on the Moodle forums, that would be really helpful to me. We have several users reporting that they never receive emails from our site (or only seldom), and I've run out of possible solutions for the issue.
Thanks Ben, I appreciate the ideas.
I'm in the process of building a course, and actually used my own secondary emails after setting up Test Students. Out of the five enrolled students, 3 received the News Forums, but 2 did not.
Checked the SPAM folders......but nothing there.
Since there are only 5, it's doubtful any server killed them.
You mentioned bounced emails.......where would I find them?
Ben is right, especially about #2. Yahoo and AOL in particular use DMARC to tell email servers to block messages from @yahoo.com and @aol.com that are not sent from Yahoo or AOL servers. In the email settings (Site Administration > Plugins > Message Outputs > Email), make sure you have a no-reply address and check the box for "Always send email from the no-reply address?".
DMARC is the keyword to search discussions about this on moodle.org.
Thanks, Bret!
Ben,
After reading more on this I changed my SMTP settings to another, non-gmail address in 2.9.1......but alas, the exact same problem continued.
What do you suggest as the next step?
This issue is taking up so much time and focus.....and I'm not familiar with proper protocol here, so please forgive me, but is there any way you could consult personally look into this issue for hire?....or suggest where to find qualified help? I'm an independent teacher, and don't have an IT dept. to consult......thanks
After reading more on this I changed my SMTP settings to another, non-gmail address in 2.9.1......but alas, the exact same problem continued.
What do you suggest as the next step?
This issue is taking up so much time and focus.....and I'm not familiar with proper protocol here, so please forgive me, but is there any way you could consult personally look into this issue for hire?....or suggest where to find qualified help? I'm an independent teacher, and don't have an IT dept. to consult......thanks
Thank you for the offer, but I'm just a power user, and a not very powerful one at that.
For instance, the spf conversation at https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=262875 is entirely beyond me.
Do you know the domain names of the e-addresses that do not receive notifications?
Are all users with those domain names not receiving notifications? Or, are some receiving?
You're looking for what the non-receivers have in common.
Here is a database of Moole-related jobs offered. https://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=54 You might post there for a short contract job. I imagine it's an hour of work.
Best of luck.
Thank you for the links, Ben.
Your questions bring me back to why I suspected the cron not including all students; I've tried changing the stmp outgoing mail, and even changed the test students email addresses......and still there are two students not receiving any of the forum emails. For the life of me, I cannot understand why.
Perhaps I'll try the Moodle-related jobs forums to see if anyone can help.....
Your questions bring me back to why I suspected the cron not including all students; I've tried changing the stmp outgoing mail, and even changed the test students email addresses......and still there are two students not receiving any of the forum emails. For the life of me, I cannot understand why.
Perhaps I'll try the Moodle-related jobs forums to see if anyone can help.....
Have you checked all mail-related settings for those students in their profiles?
Yes, I did check all mail-related settings......and my understanding is that News Forums are force subscribed by nature.....but thanks for thinking of that.
I meant to the "Configure notification methods for incoming messages" setting for forums. Is it possible users do not have "email" checked there.
I checked that feature after reading your post, and it appears email is checked as the default.....so the answer is yes, email is checked in "Configure notification methods for incoming messages". thanks......
Not sure if this will help or not, depending on your setup and access.
We use a LAMP base, and have the SMTP settings in Moodle blank. This pushes mail to the servers mail system itself.
We can then track emails leaving the system through the server log files - and whether they are accepted by the system they are going to. This way, we know that moodle has sent it. We have adjusted the log settings slightly so it shows the subject (which it doesn't by default)
Cheers
Peter