Sorry, sending the message to request your confirmation failed”

nquit · July 20, 2017, 5:23pm

Hi all! I’m dumb.

This topic has been covered before - and I solved it for myself before. But I cannot find the solution now. What happens is, when the user subscribes, he/she gets this message:

Sorry, sending the message to request your confirmation failed - reload and try again…

I had solved this, I can’t remember how, and then I upgraded to 3.3.1, which I know wiped out some tweaks I’d made…but I can’t figure this out.

I’m using smtp via this line:

define(“PHPMAILERHOST”,‘mail.****.com’); - with my host you use the actual server name, not the domain

messages send when campaigns go out - a test campaign sent.

there is another thing where the campaigns fail repeatedly but eventually get all the messages sent but I don’t know if this is related - I think not.

And one more thing I just discovered while typing this…this is only happening on a new subscribe page/list…

HMMMMM…

nquit · July 20, 2017, 6:02pm

aaannnnddd now it’s happening on the other list…the only change I made there was to change the wording in the confirmation page. ???

duncanc · July 20, 2017, 8:21pm

@nquit Look at the event log page to see whether any error has been reported there.

nquit · July 20, 2017, 8:26pm

thanks for responding @duncanc

dumb question - where is that?

not as dumb: I added debug lines to lib.php per another thread and found the following, which perplexes me:

Connection: opening to mail.server307.com:25, timeout=5, options=array ()
Connection: opened
SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 server307.com ESMTP
CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
CLIENT -> SERVER: STARTTLS
SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 Proceed.
CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
CLIENT -> SERVER: MAIL FROM:<aaron@aarontrumm.com>
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250 ok
CLIENT -> SERVER: RCPT TO:<aarontrumm@gmail.com>
SERVER -> CLIENT: 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.5.3 - chkuser)
SMTP ERROR: RCPT TO command failed: 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.5.3 - chkuser)
CLIENT -> SERVER: QUIT
SERVER -> CLIENT: 221 server307.com
Connection: closed
SMTP Error: The following recipients failed: aarontrumm@gmail.com: sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.5.3 - chkuser)

This isn’t a new install - it WAS working - this is after upgrading to 3.3.1 the other day…

This happens with a couple different addresses on different domains…

duncanc · July 21, 2017, 6:49am

@nquit Does this problem happen for all emails, for campaigns and other system emails as well as the subscription confirmation email? If not, how is the debug output different when the email is sent successfully?

phplist 3.3.1 probably includes a new release of phpmailer, which is where the problem might be. The debug output looks like TLS is being used automatically despite you connecting on port 25. You can disable that in yoru config.php file

define('PHPMAILER_SECURE', 'false');

danwaterloo · July 21, 2017, 7:35am

It looks like phpList is trying to relay through the email server ‘mail.server307.com’.
When you try to send to aarontrumm@gmail.com, mail.server307.com says 'sorry, that domain isn’t in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.5.3 - chkuser);
That means that phpList contacted mail.server307.com, and tried to send a message to a gmail.com address, and mail.server307.com said that it does not accept mail for gmail.com.

You might want to check your smtp user, and smtp password for your smtp connection (and the TLS and port setttings) as @duncanc mentioned, once you get phpList to login to mail.server307.com correctly, it should be able to relay mail to gmail.com

You need to know what the settings should be, and then you need to put them in the config.php file for phpList.

nquit · July 21, 2017, 3:15pm

Hi guys! Thanks @duncanc and @danwaterloo for the responses!

So yeah - what I’ve done is just change the port to 587 in config.php. That seems to have done it. I’m NOT using login credentials - that was failing with all combinations of ports and security. What finally worked was JUST setting the port to 587.

Thanks a bunch for the help!

– A

nquit · July 21, 2017, 3:40pm

wait wait no. that’s SOOO WEIRD. I swear that worked last night. today, no. today it told me I need to authenticate first.

SERVER → CLIENT: 503 you must authenticate first (#5.5.1)
SMTP ERROR: MAIL FROM command failed: 503 you must authenticate first (#5.5.1)
The following From address failed: aaron@aarontrumm.com : MAIL FROM command failed,you must authenticate first (#5.5.1),503,SMTP server error: MAIL FROM command failed Detail: you must authenticate first (#5.5.1) SMTP code:

So I tried that and…

Connection: opening to mail.server307.com:587, timeout=5, options=array ()
Connection: opened
SERVER → CLIENT: 220 server307.com ESMTP
CLIENT → SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SERVER → CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
CLIENT → SERVER: STARTTLS
SERVER → CLIENT: 220 ready for tls
CLIENT → SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SERVER → CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
CLIENT → SERVER: AUTH CRAM-MD5
SERVER → CLIENT: 334 PDE4OTMxLjE0NzE4NjIwNzRAc210cC5zdXJlc2VydmVyLmNvbT4=
CLIENT → SERVER: YWFyb25AYWFyb250cnVtbS5jb20gMTdmNzFmMTI4NGJiYWI2YzhhN2M5YTI5NzMxMzZkMGI=
SERVER → CLIENT:
SMTP ERROR: Username command failed:
SMTP Error: Could not authenticate.
CLIENT → SERVER: QUIT
SERVER → CLIENT: 535 authentication failed (#5.7.1)
SMTP ERROR: QUIT command failed: 535 authentication failed (#5.7.1)
Connection: closed
SMTP connect() failed. Troubleshooting · PHPMailer/PHPMailer Wiki · GitHub

Now that one I don’t understand…

nquit · July 21, 2017, 4:08pm

Sorry - I’m putting a lot of information here - I thought it might be helpful later -

Per this post:

I change my debug level to 4 - and I seem to be looking at the same issue - maybe?

Connection: opening to mail.server307.com:587, timeout=5, options=array ()
Connection: opened
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “220 server307.com ESMTP”
SERVER → CLIENT: 220 server307.com ESMTP
CLIENT → SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-server307.com”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-STARTTLS”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-STARTTLS”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-PIPELINING”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-8BITMIME”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-SIZE 0”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5”
SERVER → CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-STARTTLS250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
CLIENT → SERVER: STARTTLS
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “220 ready for tls”
SERVER → CLIENT: 220 ready for tls
CLIENT → SERVER: EHLO aarontrumm.com
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-server307.com”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-PIPELINING”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-PIPELINING”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-8BITMIME”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250-SIZE 0”
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “250-server307.com250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5”
SERVER → CLIENT: 250-server307.com250-PIPELINING250-8BITMIME250-SIZE 0250 AUTH LOGIN PLAIN CRAM-MD5
Auth method requested: UNKNOWN
Auth methods available on the server: LOGIN,PLAIN,CRAM-MD5
Auth method selected: CRAM-MD5
CLIENT → SERVER: AUTH CRAM-MD5
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “334 PDE4OTMxLjE0NzE4NjIwNzRAc210cC5zdXJlc2VydmVyLmNvbT4=”
SERVER → CLIENT: 334 PDE4OTMxLjE0NzE4NjIwNzRAc210cC5zdXJlc2VydmVyLmNvbT4=
CLIENT → SERVER: YWFyb25AYWFyb250cnVtbS5jb20gMTdmNzFmMTI4NGJiYWI2YzhhN2M5YTI5NzMxMzZkMGI=
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): timed-out (5 sec)
SERVER → CLIENT:
SMTP ERROR: Username command failed:
SMTP Error: Could not authenticate.
CLIENT → SERVER: QUIT
SMTP → get_lines(): $data is “”
SMTP → get_lines(): $str is “535 authentication failed (#5.7.1)”
SERVER → CLIENT: 535 authentication failed (#5.7.1)
SMTP ERROR: QUIT command failed: 535 authentication failed (#5.7.1)
Connection: closed
SMTP connect() failed. Troubleshooting · PHPMailer/PHPMailer Wiki · GitHub

nquit · July 21, 2017, 5:01pm

So the update as of now is - I made the change referred in the above post - changing authtype to Plain instead of ‘’ in class.phpmailer.php

Now I’m using smtp authorization on port 587 and it seems to be working now…