Configuring reply_by_email breaks regular email sending
Bounz reported an issue with Discourse v1.9.0.beta2 where entering a reply by email address broke regular email sending, even without enabling the reply by email enabled feature. mpalmer suggested understanding the problem, and Bounz clarified that no emails were sent at all.
pfaffman recommended checking the email debugging document and suspected that the reply-to address was not accepted by the mail delivery service. Bounz found a solution by not using %{reply_key} in the reply by email address. However, pfaffman explained that the %{reply_key} is necessary for the reply to go to the correct topic.
Bounz provided email sources without %{reply_key} and found that the reply still goes to the correct topic. Using Yandex as the delivery service, Bounz couldn’t access the logs and asked where the email address with reply_key goes in the email headers.
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
The first step in investigation is to understand the problem. What does “broke” mean, exactly?
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.
Check the email debugging document.
I’d guess that the reply to address you added is not one that your mail delivery service accepts.
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?
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.
Well, I checked email sources and found that even without %{reply_key} there were headers like these:
From: ForumN <forum@forum.tld>
Reply-To: Discoursesds <forum-reply@forum.tld>
To: user@ya.ru
Message-ID: <topic/13/26@forum.tld>
In-Reply-To: <topic/13@forum.tld>
References: <topic/13@forum.tld>
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)?