Help with a mail issue, please. [SOLVED IT MYSELF]

Did you try leaving the smtp settings blank. That usually works 99% of the time.

No, that did not work.

Also, I imported the sql tables from the non-allowed host to both my back up and this new archive,neither of which will send mail. The backup used to work, i used it to send mails when i HAD to, but after importing the tables from the nonallowed one, its mail stopped as well.. is there something in the tables that could be causing this? I tried reuploading the mailusers.php, phpinclude emailer and smtp include files on my server, but nothing changed, still the same error.

You're sure you've got the site email correct?

yes, I have a valid email in the site's mail field. I also removed all smtp info and now the review alerts work, the mass member mailing works, and the contact us works. The profile contact links still give an error message, however. "Error!We encountered an error. Please go back and try again."

When I looked around, I noticed that the skin I use (CSSZen, modded) has no default profile.tpl, so I tried copying the one from the other two skins into it and tested them but it still gives that error.

My host said that he doesnt show a php message when I attempt to click a member's contact link, so it stands to reason that something is going on in the eFic itself.. I don't know what on earth it could be, especially since the review notification system and all admin mail functions are working though.

The way I understand it, the contact us and profile contact links both use the same form, with the script retrieving the member's email and adding it to the "to" field instead of the admin mail, yes? So if that works to alert them that they have a new review, the substitution function works elsewhere on the archive, but not from the profiles themselves. Is that correct?

Since the mass mail delivered to everyone, no one has a bad address or a block either, I would think.

Is there anything that could cause it to not work on only the profiles? I have tried reuploading all files in the CSSZen folder except the css layou itself, and it still errors.

Please help, this is such a frustrating issue.

The mass mail will ignore bad addresses.  It has to or it'll break almost every time.  There's ALWAYS someone with a bad address. Have you checked with more than one author?  It's not going to be a skin issue.  I just tested on my site using my account and it went through fine.  I'm running the latest version of eFiction with the SVN updates.  That does bring something up that we should have pegged you for to begin with.  You need to fill out the support request template so we have enough information to really diagnose what's going on.  You haven't provided your site's url or even what version of eFiction you're using. 

Make sure you're supplying a valid email address in the "Your E-mail" field and that if you're using CAPTCHA the code you're entering is correct.

I'm not using captcha and i've checked each member's mail myself, as we only have 70. My site is http://ahparchive.seraphimlabs.net/eFiction352/index.php , and it is not worksafe. My version of efic is 352. The version of php is 5.1.6 and mySQL is 5.0.77.
the test account is name and pass - tester. The account is an admin and yes Ive searched the forum.
no, the efic is not bridged with anything.
And as I said, the mass mail works just fine, to all mail providers.
I am also using the correct mail address in the site info box with no smtp info. I've tried the profiles of over 2 dozen members and the contact box doesnt even open on the page, I just get that text error at the bottom of their profile.
And I'm glad your mail works.
I just downloaded efiction's install files from here to use on the new archive, so theuy arent old, corrupted ones and should have all the current updates.

here is a screen image of the error, as i think you're mistaking what I'm saying about the mails "not working" as imagining that the box opens and i'm typing the wrong thing.

Thanks.

OH I see... when you click on the Contact link in a person's profile it won't load the contact form.

You have tinyMCE turned off. What happens if you turn it on and captcha on?

The contact form is part of viewuser.php if I were you I would either try and reupload the viewuser.php file or go to the svn archive and download a copy of viewuser.php from there. It may fix the problem. Although I kind of wonder if that big chat window that's on every page isn't causing some type of conflict with your site.

Excuse me, no. The chat has nothing to do with it because the issue began a full 2 days before I added the chat to that particular install of eFiction. It has never caused an issue on either of the other sites, it's a part of the header and can not be excluded from my archive because it's needed.

I had the tinyMCE turned off because I was told that it would make storyposting unecessarily complicated, was that not so?
As far as CAPTCHA, I don't really want that on the site if it's at all avoidable, do both need to be enabled?

Either way, it would have been extremely helpful if there were a notice about no contacts if the tinyMCE is disabled, perhaps it could be included in the next release's documentation or the FAQ?

I'll try turning it on and see if that fixes my problem.

EDIT: Turned on tinyMCE and CAPTCHA, downloaded and reupped the viewuser file.
Still not working, same error. Even attempted loading it without the chat in the header temporarily and same error.

Is there anything else it could be?

Usually one doesn't have to have tinymce turned on, but I'm was just going with the 'try everything' method. I didn't write the script, just making some suggestions to see if it works.

As for wondering about the chat... it was just that wondering... I wasn't suggesting it was the primary source of problem.  I understand you are frustrated, but I'm just trying to help.

Possibly it's an issue with the skin, do you have one of the original skins still around? See if the Contact link works in one of the default skins. If it does, there there is an issue with your skin.

With luck, someone who is more in tuned with the script will come to the rescue. I still think it's possible your viewuser.php file might be corrupted and just needs to be replaced in your web folder.

I doubt it's a skin issue, as I've never seen a skin issue that would generate that error. Typically stuff would just not appear at all. The message is an eFiction-generated message and not a MySQL error or something like that, though. The message is really generic and is used in lots of places, but the thing to do would be to look through viewuser.php and search for all instances of _ERROR, which will give you all the cases, in that file at least, that would cause that error to appear. This will at least give a better idea of what the problem could be.

I'd do it myself, but I have to work at 5:45am so I don't have the time right now. I'm just here because I use eFiction and want to support it, just like everyone else.

OK, the tinyMCE box DOES show in admin mode for things like editing the welcome message now. I had two users who are logged into both the chat and the archive activate it in their prefs, and I still get the error message there, with no box apearing when I try to contact them there. Got any ideas what could keep it from appearing on the profiles and still let it be toggleable (i think that might not be a real word, sorry T_T ) on everything else?

See this is why we ask you to provide the information in the support request template.  You were describing your problem like the e-mail wouldn't go through, not like the form wouldn't show up.  If we'd been able to look to begin with, we could have figured it out much easier.

Your panel information is corrupted somehow. Go to Admin->Panels and choose the "P - Member Profile" option.  Is there a contact panel listed?  If not, you've somehow deleted it.  Here's the information to re-add it:

Name: contact
Title: Contact
URL to Panel: <leave empty>
Level: 0
Hidden: checked
Type: P

And this is why that wouldn't have helped.

The file I downloaded from the dl section was corrupted.
I re-downloaded everything from the repository, installed exactly as before, reimported from the same table file with identical settings and it worked.

I used CRCscan to compare the extracted zip file from the dl section to the seperately dl'd files from the other source and the two were quite different.

Maybe it was a momentary blip, but I've gotten the zip before with no errors, so..

Besides that, while attempting to fix the problem myself, I went through all the admin options and the Contact panel was always there, set exactly as you noted above. It was a corrupt file in the zip that was causing the error, but I'm just glad it's fixed.

And also, the info wasnt posted because I didn't ask you to fix it, I asked what files/tables were used because I intended to look and fix it myself. If my original question had been answered, I would have noticed the missing sections of the corrupted file that same day and the rest would have been ancient history.

My question is this:
What files in the eFiction folder include the mail command, and where are they located? My ISP also allows SMTP mail, but I have to manually alter the port it uses to 587. I managed this in the past, on yet another server, but now I honestly cannot remember exactly which file it was that I changed.. If you could tell me all of the files that would use the $host, $username, $pass, $port and authenticate commands, I could take the original docs, read and alter them, then replace the ones I have on my server.

There is such a thing as oversupport.
But thank you for your assistance nevertheless.