OK, I'll be the first to admit that I could have done much better in this inquiry, especially in politeness. I've just had so many bad experiences with technical support that I was prepared for hard going. "Support" usually proceeds through several stages: there is no problem; in order for us to look into it, the problem must be reproducible; the problem is caused by [something not the cause]; you are doing it wrong and are yourself the cause; and we can't/won't do anything about it. All are evident here, but perhaps my poor approach resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Before actually giving up as claimed in the last post, I found a solution to the problem, one that GoDaddy should easily have spotted. The real sendmail program on the server has been moved and replaced by a script. That script apparently has problems, since the real sendmail program, if you can find and use it, works fine. None of the scripts that were recommended by GoDaddy actual use sendmail directly. They simply copy the email into a certain local directory where it waits for some process to come around and send it. I don't know the details of that process. In the end I spent longer exchanging emails with GoDaddy than in finding the solution on my own, but that was just luck.
In the record below the actual domain name in question has been changed to "mydomain.com" and the PIN number is denoted by "1234". Incident IDs have been changed to 0000001 and 0000004.
sendmail is adding all outgoing messages to dead.letter in my home directory, despite there being no errors or problems indicated. How can I prevent this from happening?
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for contacting online support.
We do not see anything on the home directory that says "dead.letter". In order to better assist you, we will need to have a detailed description of the problem you are having and the steps needed to replicate the problem.
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
See directory /home/content/m/y/d/mydomain and file dead.letter for the account mydomain.com. It's sitting right there next to html, cgi, data, etc.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for contacting online support. It appears that you are replying to a previous incident ID within our
system, however from an alternate email address. As this is the case we
would not be able to provide information regarding this previous
incident, or account specific information, unless you reply with
validation including the 4 digit pin number on your account.
Please let us know if we can provide you with further assistance.
1234 GoDaddy provided no help whatsoever, so of course you can provide further assistance. The problem should have been addressed correctly the first time. This is a lesson in how to turn a simple issue into a two-day affair.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
I apologize for any inconvenience regarding this issue. However, before we can release any further account information, we will need you to provide us with the 4 digit Call in PIN for your account, for security purposes.
Use the instructions below to locate the 4-digit Support PIN for your account. You may also modify this setting using these instructions:
* Select 'Account Settings' from the 'My Account' menu
* Click on the 'Account Security Information' link
* Confirm your email address in the 'confirm Email' field
* Enter in your password in the 'Current Password' field
* In the space marked 'Support Pin', enter a 4-digit number that you will supply to our Customer Service or Technical Support Representatives in order to verify your identity and customer account
* When you are done, click on the green 'Save Changes' button
Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.
Please read the first four characters of my previous message or the last four characters of this one: 1234
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for your response.
Please note, unfortunately we are unable to locate the specified file
within your hosting account. We will need you to provide us with a screen
shot of the error you are receiving and the file to which you are
referencing for further support. We apologize for any inconvenience
regarding this issue.
How to Capture a Screen Shot in Windows:
The term screen shot refers to "grabbing" a still image of the contents of
your computer monitor that can be saved as a graphic file and printed,
faxed, or emailed.
Screen shots are very helpful in explaining what you are seeing on your
computer when working with customer support. It is often easier for you and
for the support representative if you take a screen shot of what you are
seeing and simply send it in.
Here is a quick step by step on how to do it:
In Windows, taking a screen shot is done by pressing the Print Screen key
on your keyboard. On most standard keyboards, it is found to the right of
the F12 key in the upper right hand portion of the keyboard. When this key
is pressed, Windows takes a snapshot of the current contents of the screen
and saves it to the Windows Clipboard.
If you want to take a screen shot of just the active window, make sure to
click once on the window you are working with, then hold down the Alt key
and press Print Screen. This will send the contents of the active window to
the Clipboard.
You will then need to save the image to an image editor. You can use any
software that you feel comfortable with. If you don't have an image editor,
you can find Microsoft Paint installed on almost every computer that runs
Windows. It is usually available from the Start menu by clicking START,
Programs, Accessories, Paint.
Once you've opened your image editor, click on the Edit menu and choose
Paste. The Screen Shot will be dropped into the image editor for you to
save. Click on the File menu, and then choose Save to save it as a file in
the graphics format of your choice. The best file type to use for saving
screen shots is .jpg (if your software allows it).
Now that you have the file saved, you can attach it to an email to our
support forum. Please do not place the image in the body of the email as we
will be unable to see the embedded images.
How to Capture a Screen Shot in Mac OS:
To take a screen shot on your Macintosh computer you may use the
Command-Shift-3 function. When you press Command-Shift-3 your Macintosh will
capture a screen shot and save it to the desktop of your computer.
Now that you have the file saved, you can attach it to an email to our
support forum. Please do not place the image in the body of the email as we
will be unable to see the embedded images.
If you continue to experience issues regarding this matter, two non-CGI
form mailers are included in Linux shared hosting account default files:
webformmailer.php and gdform.php. They reside in the root directory of your
hosting account. Incorporating either of these scripts into your website
creates a form to capture user information and email it to a specified
address.
For more information about designating the destination email address, see Specifying
an Email Address for the PHP Form-Mailer
Note: webformmailer.php is for use with accounts running Hosting
Configuration 2.0 and above, only. For information, see What functionality
does Hosting Configuration 2.0 provide? and How
do I upgrade my hosting account to run Hosting Configuration 2.0?
webformmailer.php
To Use webformmailer.php
1. Create a Web form, assigning unique names to your form fields.
2. In the form tag, assign /webformmailer.php to the action attribute
and set the form method to post:
<form action="/webformmailer.php" method="post">
3. In addition to the form fields you create, there are three hidden
elements you can use.
form_format determines in what format the information is delivered. Its
values are 'text', 'csv', 'html', 'xml', and 'default' (same as 'text').
form_order dictates in what order the fields are reported. Its values
are 'default' (the same order as they appear on in the form), 'alpha'
(alphabetized by field name) or a comma-separated, case-sensitive list of
all or some field names.
form_delivery determines the frequency and packaging of deliver. To
receive one email per form submission, the form_delivery values are
'default' (every 15 minutes), 'hourly', and 'daily'. To receive all
submissions in an attachment of one email, the form_delivery values are
'digest', 'hourly_digest', and 'daily_digest'.
For example:
<form action="/webformmailer.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Submission" />
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="thankyou.html" />
First Name: <input type="text" name="FirstName" />
Last Name :<input type="text" name="LastName" />
Email: <input type="text" name="email" />
Comments: <textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="10">
Type comments here.</textarea>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_order" value="alpha"/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_delivery" value="hourly"/>
<input type="hidden" name="form_format" value="html"/>
</form>
gdform.php
To Use gdform.php
1. Create your Web form as normal and assign unique names to your form
items.
NOTE: Keep in mind that our form-mailer script will sort the names of
your form items alphabetically when it composes the email message. This is
the order of precedence: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers.
2. For the form action line, enter /gdform.php. For example:
<form action="/gdform.php" method="post">
3. Set the form method to "post."
4. In addition to the fields you create in your form, there are three
special fields that you can use: subject, redirect, and email.
Subject. Controls the subject line in the form email.
Redirect. Controls the page that your visitors will see after they
submit the form.
Email. Controls the return address for the form email.
For example:
<form action="/gdform.php" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Form Submission" />
<input type="hidden" name="redirect" value="thankyou.html" />
<p>First Name:<input type="text" name="FirstName" /></p>
<p>Last Name:<input type="text" name="LastName" /></p>
<p>E-Mail:<input type="text" name="email" /></p>
<p>Comments:<textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="10">
Type comments here.</textarea></p>
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit"/>
</form>
5. Save and upload your file to your hosting account.
For information on reinstalling your default scripts, see How Do I
Reinstall the Default Scripts Directory?
Please let us know if we may be of any further assistance.
1234. I assume that these incidents are logged so that you can look up the details. The attached screen shot shows the file dead.letter in the directory /home/content/m/y/d/mydomain just as I have reported. sendmail places the file there, not webformmailer. That was also previously reported. There is no error message in the file that I notice and I never reported one. It is a mystery why the file is created. sendmail should not save a copy of all outgoing mail. It will fill up my disk space and also exposes sensitive information, as you can see from the file contents. GoDaddy seems to be doing its best to give me the runaround and I'm about to cancel this account based on this lack of professionality.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for your response. We appreciate your patience in this matter. Upon further research, it appears that the file in question is designed to save a message that could not be delivered. Please note, that all outgoing messages, will not be saved to the server. You will need to review your scripting to resolve this issue. Unfortunately, we do not support 3rd party scripting. You will want to consult your favorite search engine and/or forum. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.
1234. That is the design and indeed you have quoted the documentation. The problem is that it is _not working as designed_: even successfully sent and delivered messages are landing in this file! A very small amount of testing on GoDaddy's part could have verified this. Here is an example:
$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -F"I sent this"
Then type or copy in the next four lines starting with To: and using an appropriate email address:
To: [an email address you can get mail at]
From: info@mydomain.com
This is my test message.
Then press Ctrl-D to indicate end of input. If done correctly, you will see the message
/home/content/m/y/d/mydomain/dead.letter... Saved message in /home/content/m/y/d/mydomain/dead.letter
_and_
receive the email at the specified address.
Diagnosing a problem requires more than a minimal effort and then concluding that the problem doesn't exist or is the customer's fault.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
We apologize for any confusion. Please note that once a corrupted email is detected and stored in the dead.letter file, as subsequent messages will also be stored in case those messages are also corrupted. This is the default functionality for this file, and the way to reset this would be to delete the dead.letter file. After you have deleted this, it will begin to function again normally. We thank you for your understanding.
Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.
1234. Wrong. Your response is a poor guess, was never tested, and is incorrect. I removed (by renaming) the file, mailed a message that arrived with no error, and despite this the dead.letter file was recreated with the content of the message.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for contacting Hosting Support.
We have reviewed your account and could not find any issues with the mydomain.com. The type of error you are experiencing is most likely caused by coding or scripting. Unfortunately, because we do not provide coding support, we are unable to determine what specifically in your code may be causing the error. However, the following may be of some assistance in diagnosing the problem:
I
have uploaded a test php script and have sent emails successfully using
sendmail and they were not added to the dead.letter file.
You may wish to review your code to determine if there are any issues, because it appears that is the most likely cause of the error. You may also wish to enable detailed error messages as a temporary diagnostic measure. The procedure for this will vary, depending on the scripting language being used. We also recommend consulting both the vendor's online documentation, as well as the large number of online forums dedicated to coding and scripting.
If you determine there is no issue with the code itself and believe the issue is server related, please reply with specific evidence of this and we will investigate the matter further.
We have reviewed this ticket history and would like to speak with you directly to ensure a complete understanding and resolution of this incident. Please provide us with a phone number to contact you and 3 different times that you would be available to discuss the incident.
- Time Zone for call times:
- 1st Choice:
- 2nd Choice:
- 3rd Choice:
Please note: if you state that you would like to be called anytime - without stating a time range, then you may be called at any point in the next 24 hours, including very late at night or very early in the morning local time.
We look forward to calling to you so we can resolve this issue for you.
Please contact us if you have any further issues.
1234. No, no, no. In a previous message I clearly included instructions to duplicate the problem at the command line with no scripts whatsoever involved in calling sendmail. I will paste that in again below. GoDaddy is so intent on blaming the problem on some script that it seems to have ignored this. Instead, it used its own script to try to demonstrate nonexistence of the problem. Someone needs to examine GoDaddy's script to make sure it indeed calls sendmail and, if it indeed does and works, to figure out what method it uses to avoid the problem. If I can use the same technique, that would be a satisfactory answer to my inquiry.
-----
Here is an example:
$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -F"I sent this"
Then type or copy in the next four lines starting with To: and using an appropriate email address:
To: [an email address you can get mail at]
From: info@mydomain.com
This is my test message.
Then press Ctrl-D to indicate end of input. If done correctly, you will see the message
/home/content/m/y/d/mydomain/dead.letter... Saved message in /home/content/m/y/d/mydomain/dead.letter
_and_
receive the email at the specified address.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.
Thank you for contacting Hosting Support.
We do not recommend sending emails through SSH. The mail command is non-functional on our shard hosting accounts. Unfortunately, we can not prevent the $ /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -F command from adding your emails to the dead.letter directory. We recommend using php scripts to send emails from you hosting account. If you wish to use the mail function through SSH we recommend that you use a virtual dedicated server or a dedicated server.
Please let us know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns by replying to this email. Our service departments and telephone lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to accommodate your needs anytime.
You can also reach us by phone at the following numbers:
(480) 505-8877 Technical Support, Sales and Service
(480) 505-8855 Billing
Regards,
1234. OK, let me double check. GoDaddy says, "The [send]mail command is non-functional on our shard hosting accounts." This is depite there being multiple support pages describing sendmail being used.
If I use sendmail from within a script and find that it doesn't work, GoDaddy will claim that it can't help with scripting issues. If I issue the same commands that the script uses (taken from the script's diagnostic output) from an SSH command line to illustrate the exact same problem, GoDaddy will say "We do not recommend sending emails through SSH [i.e., don't do that]." Instead, it recommends that I use a script such as gdform.cgi which doesn't call sendmail whatsoever. That the script may work is somehow evidence that sendmail is properly configured and working. Something is indeed broken here and it's not only sendmail.
A reply is not necessary. I give up.
Your question has been received. You should expect a response within 24 hours.