Alternative Text

U

UKenGB

Member
I have returned to an MBM document I last used a couple of years ago and in the From address in Settings I am using alternative text like this

[From|[email protected]] (From is a tag and the email address is made up, obviously)

but it doesn't seem to be working, at least in test mode. However, I have no recollection of this being a problem last time. It seems to be OK when the [From] tag is empty, but if it contains data, MBM tries to send the message from "From" and the message is not actually delivered as I think the server has a problem with that not being a real address.

So, first of all, it does correctly check whether the tag contains data, but then screws up when it does.

Secondly, I cannot type the [, nor the ] into those fields. MBM is blocking those characters from the keyboard which is kinda irritating if one IS supposed to be able to do this.

Is MBM supposed to handle alternative text in those fields and if not, why does it partly work and could you fully implement this as I think it's pretty useful?
 
U

UKenGB

Member
It gets weirder.

If I enter something into the Errors field in settings, that address is used as the From address, ignoring what should be used.

When I use the alt. text mentioned previously in the From field, it works perfectly in Preview, with the correct address being used. It's only when (test) sending the message that it screws up.

I can't get alternative text to work at all in the body of the message, not even in Preview. I place some simple tags with alternative text and it just places that whole tag with the alt. text in the square brackets, in the message. There's no processing at all.

It's a mess and depressingly useless at the moment.
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
For your testings have you tried to send messages to yourself rather than using test mode? The tags you are using are in the 'Form' field, right?
 
U

UKenGB

Member
I'm using TEST mode. I have some recipients with a special sender address and use an optional tag I've renamed as 'From' to store this. But for all other recipients this is empty as I just want to use the default. So in Settings, for the From field I am using the alternative text so when a recipient has a special sender address, that is used, otherwise the default which is specified within the AT tagging, as previously indicated.

This works in Preview, so the alternative text tagging is being correctly processed, but in test mode (which uses same code as when really sending does it not) the processing of the alternative text is faulty and it also gets confused with an address entered in the Errors field in settings.

I'll try sending to myself (as a new recipient) with and without any special sender/From address and see what happens, but this really shouldn't be a problem. It is one of the fundamental uses of a program like MBM, so how come this simple task doesn't work?
 
U

UKenGB

Member
Also, I tried using alternative text simply in the body of the message and that flat out doesn't work. Not processed at all. You just get the full tag in square brackets etc.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
I'm also having a problem when there is no Firstname or Surname entered for a recipient. Since these are to Yahoo Groups, there is NO appropriate name, but the email are not delivered. I have the same problem when using the name of the Yahoo Group (WildHogs in this case) - it was never delivered. This makes me think that somewhere along the line the emails are being filtered for SPAM and if either there is no name at all, or if the name could be considered in any way rude or offensive, they are simply discarded. Which makes it impossible to send an email to a Harley Owners Group.

The messages are being accepted by my SMTP server and sent on, but then disappearing into the ether. Is it likely they are being filtered in this way, so I can't send a message without either name entered for the recipient.

BTW, this is all legitimate and they are mostly my own Yahoo Groups, but I need to send them and other individuals, the same information, slightly customised depending on the recipient. But MBM is making this hard work.

And no, Alternative Text in the body of the message is NOT working AT ALL in ANY of the messages that have been delivered.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
MBM is doing something weird. I've been using 2 special test recipients that are me, so I can really send to test and as mentioned previously, some messages are just not getting through. When I use 'FireBlade Owners Club' as the Surname, the first time it didn't get through. I changed the surname to something else and that worked. Changed it back to FireBlade Owners Club and this one was delivered. So I then tried a TEST send to that and my other test recipient that is straightforward and uses my Firstname and Surname which always gets through. And so it did this time, but the one using FireBlade Owners Club as surname, again did not.

If I send a message NOT using MBM To FireBlade Owners Club <my@address> it works. But when MBM tries it, sometimes it does, sometimes it does not.

I'm losing faith here. If I cannot rely on MBM actually sending the messages, what use is it?

Having said that, the report it generates always shows the message has been sent and accepted by SMTP server, but since I am only having problems with message sent by MBM, it must be doing something bad with the headers that causes them to be discarded somewhere.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
I changed the log level on my SMTP server to try and see why these emails were going astray, after which I restarted the SMPT daemon. I have just done a TEST send with 5 recipients and all were correct. I then tried a real send to me, but with now Firstname or Surname and that was also delivered perfectly and yet this is precisely what was failing earlier. So what gives, does MBM only work in the afternoon or has the restart of the SMTP service on my server fixed the problem. In which case my server was misbehaving and I've NEVER seen it do that before.

As I said, weird.

Alternative Text still doesn't work though. Why not?
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Alternative Text still doesn't work though. Why not?
Click to expand...
I asked you an important question, did you try at that stage to deactivate Test Mode and send the message to yourself? I am trying to understand your problem and reproduce it here. Right now I have no clue. Everything works fine for me here. If it fails on you give me the info so I can make it fail as well.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
I refer to my earlier reply

" I've been using 2 special test recipients that are me, so I can really send "

So as you suggested, I set up some recipients that are actually me, so I can really send (i.e. NOT TEST mode) and was having the problems previously mentioned.

Right now I am somewhat puzzled as all day yesterday, any message with no Firstname or Surname were being sent but NEVER arrived. I tried looking at the SMTP log of the server, but the log level was too low to show anything. So I changed that and restarted SMTP service. When I next tried with no names, it was delivered perfectly. I have no idea why this should be. I suspect the problem is an intermediate server discarding them as suspected SPAM, but why would that change after my restart? Maybe it has slightly changed something in the headers so that it now passes SPAM/virus checks.

It also appears that Alternative Text in the 'From' field in settings is now working as it should. Again, I have no idea why.

However, Alternative Text is NOT working in the message body however I try it. As I understand it [Opt1|sometext] placed in the message body should actually print the contents of Opt1 for that recipient, or if that is empty, instead print "sometext". This is NOT working under any circumstances. Preview, TEST mode, real sending, it just shows as "[Opt1|sometext]". IOW, it is not processing the tag at all. Is there some secret technique to enable this? I use several conditionals and that is and has always worked as expected.

In fact I have used the EXACT same AT tag as I am using in the 'From' field in settings (which bizarrely is now working) in the message body, just to test. The square brackets and the same text between. Since it is working as expected in From, it should work the same elsewhere. But it just shows the whole square bracketed text.

What worries me is the inconsistent results I am seeing and you say it's all working for you. This is not satisfactory really. It should work for both of us, always and reliably. In particular I should be able to use Preview and if that works as I want, it MUST then work when sending, whether in TEST more or not. What is the point of Preview if the result is entirely different when you actually try and send the emails.

I don't use MBM very much. But when I do, I need to know I can create the message, with conditionals and Alternative Text as required, check all is correct in Preview and then send them, in the knowledge that they will all be created and sent exactly as I was able to check in Preview. Right now I've wasted days on trying to send just 50 emails. It would have been quicker to type them individually and send them manually. But I want things to work as they should. Hence my continued perseverance with MBM.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
I think I've got to the bottom of what in general is going on. All the testing I've done has been sent to my own email addresses, all of which are with Apple's iCloud. I have now determined that when 2 messages are sent together, so they'd be one right after the other, Apple's iCloud servers silently drop the second message. And maybe others too. So what I receive would depend on how many I sent at once and with all the various tests I've been doing that has varied.

But having sent 2 messages, of which the second was NOT delivered, even though my SMTP logs show the message was successfully passed on to the iCloud servers, I again sent that exact same second message, on its own, a couple minutes later and that came through perfectly.

I don't yet know exactly what criteria Apple is using to decide whether a message should be simply dropped in this way, but it's definitely happening.

I still have the outstanding problem of Alternative Text not working in the message body and would like to get to bottom of that.
 
stanbusk

stanbusk

Administrator
Staff member
Ok, you use [Opt1|sometext] in the body of the message. I guess first opt column is labeled Opt1 right? Also, is the 'Singly' option checked in the settings panel?

The right result would be [Opt1|sometext] to be replaced by Opt1 if not empty, else 'some text' is displayed.

About using a From address, there are servers that will only accept the address you have with them, Gmail works that way. Whatever you use, the Gmail address is finally used.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
Yes, that's the format of the Alternative Text tag I'm using. In fact I can simply copy what I am using as the 'From' address in Settings which is correctly working as it should (the Apple issue being the cause of the previously reported troubles). So the exact same AT tag works in the 'From' address in Settings, but copy and paste that into the body of the message and it doesn't work. I'm just adding it at the end of the message to test it at the moment, but it's all just part of the message body.

I have also found that although basic tags work, AT doesn't work in the signature. Should it?
 
U

UKenGB

Member
Is there any way to send direct to you and only you. Since it contains a list of people and email addresses, I can't just post that on a public forum.
 
U

UKenGB

Member
OK, here's a simple test document. As can be seen by simply using Preview, the [Opt1] tag works as it should, but Alternative Text does NOT work for me.

I'm using MBM Pro 8.5 US. No idea why US. Maybe that's the only English version you do.
 
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