# Configuring reply\_by\_email breaks regular email sending
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 16, 2017, 4:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596 "2017-06-16T04:01:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bounz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bounz)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 4:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/1 "2017-06-16T04:01:00Z")
Hi there.
I have a discourse forum up and running and yesterday I tried to configure reply\_by\_email.
I found that even without enabling this feature (`reply by email enabled` setting) but only entering a `reply by email address` I broke regular email sending (notifications about new replies, activation emails).
The `/logs` page is empty, so I have no idea want goes wrong.
Can you point me how to investigate this issue?
Discourse version v1.9.0.beta2 +56
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 5:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/2 "2017-06-16T05:15:02Z")
The first step in investigation is to understand the problem. What does “broke” mean, exactly?
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### Author:  [@Bounz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bounz)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 10:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/3 "2017-06-16T10:05:50Z")
Hi, Matt.
It means that no emails are sent at all. Neither activation emails for new users, nor notifications about topic updated to active users.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 1:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/4 "2017-06-16T13:28:55Z")
Check the email debugging document.
I’d guess that the reply to address you added is not one that your mail delivery service accepts.
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### Author:  [@Bounz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bounz)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/5 "2017-06-16T20:18:35Z")
Well, after a lot of trials and errors I found a solution for my problem: not to use `%{reply_key}` in `reply by email address`.
When I used email like `forum-reply+%{reply_key}@domain.tld` emails were not sent at all, and there were no any logs about that.
So I’m confusing, why is a suggestion of adding `%{reply_key}` is there in the hint?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/6 "2017-06-16T20:33:18Z")
Because if you want the reply to go to the right topic that it’s in reply to, that key is necessary.
What mail delivery service are you using? It’s odd that it would not deliver mail with a +XXX address.
It’s not Discourse’s fault that your mail transfer agent silently throws away mail if it doesn’t like the sender address. It can’t know that your mailing will throw them away. The logs that you seek are at your mail delivery service, not Discourse.
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### Author:  [@Bounz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Bounz)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2017, 8:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/7 "2017-06-16T20:50:04Z")
Well, I checked email sources and found that even without `%{reply_key}` there were headers like these:
```
From: ForumN
Reply-To: Discoursesds
To: user@ya.ru
Message-ID:
In-Reply-To:
References:
```
So after replying to that mail, the reply goes to the correct topic.
I’m using Yandex as a delivery service and sadly I can’t access their logs.
But anyway I can’t understand where email address with reply\_key goes to: `from` header, `reply-to` header or somewhere else? Is there any example of email generated by discourse for such notifications (with the ability to reply by email)?
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### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2024, 12:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/configuring-reply-by-email-breaks-regular-email-sending/64596/8 "2024-06-08T12:44:33Z")
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