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EMail bouncing: needs more details about how to configure it

Hello.

While waiting for re-enabling this plugin (see post https://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/wpml-permalink-rewrite_rules-conflicts), I was trying to better understand some settings.

One that puzzle me is the bouncing settings.

I think I'm missing some knowledge of how it works and I need some more details.

I send newsletter with the address new@something.tld

If an email is bounced, I suppose it will be sent to the same address.
Instead, e-Newsletter ask me for a different email address: why?

How could the bounced message goes there?

In a nutshell, how does the bounced message/handling works?

  • sciamannikoo
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    Thank you Phil,

    I'm still having some confusion, sorry.

    How the e-Newsletter does handle it? It adds this address to the "Reply-To" field in the header?

    And does it handle any message or it actually handles bounced messages?

    I mean, if a user manually replies to a message what happens?
    And if a message is bounced (unexisting server, unexisting mailbox, mailbox full, etc.), does e-Newsletter handle them somehow (e.g.: removing the user subscription, showing it in a log, or something else)?

  • Philip John
    • DEV MAN’s Apprentice

    How the e-Newsletter does handle it? It adds this address to the "Reply-To" field in the header?

    Yes

    And does it handle any message or it actually handles bounced messages?

    It doesn't "handle" them at all - that's done by your mail server based on the reply address you enter.

    I mean, if a user manually replies to a message what happens?

    It goes to the reply address you specify and will be handled by your mail server accordingly.

    And if a message is bounced (unexisting server, unexisting mailbox, mailbox full, etc.), does e-Newsletter handle them somehow (e.g.: removing the user subscription, showing it in a log, or something else)?

    Again, e-Newsletter only specifies the reply-to address - after that it's up to the mail server that handles e-mail to that address.

  • sciamannikoo
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I'm quite sure I've seen POP3 settings in the "Bounce Settings" screen, but I can't check right now, as in the production server this plugin has been disable (again see the other post) and in the test environment, the website his completely broken, I suppose because Andrey, the developer, is working to solve the conflicts with WPML.

    As soon as I'll be able to check again, I'll verify that.

  • Andrey
    • The Incredible Code Injector

    Hi sciamannikoo,

    1. POP3 is required to connect to the email adress for check emails about that, "the letter not been sent."
    And then set in the DB, which of users not got newsletter.
    and deleted "Bounce email" from Mail server - for not check it in next time.

    2. Why you should use different email:
    for quick work of the script - because if you have 50,100 or more different (not related with bounce) emails - script every time opens them for compare.

  • Gaerwnn
    • New Recruit

    Hi sciamannikoo,

    noreply@progettoanike.org = From and Reply-to adress
    - on this adress you will receive auto-responders from your subscribers (for example "out-of-office") and sometimes replies from subscribers, because even if you tell them not to reply ... usually they will do it :slight_smile:

    bounced@progettoanike.org = Return-Path adress
    - on this adress the mail servers auto-responders will send bounces to if the delivery of the message failed or was delayed
    - it should be POP3 because you don't want to keep these failure messages forever, they should disappear after the plugin process the bounces

    If you will check the email headers from any newsletter, you will see that nobody is using the same adress for handling bounces.
    An example here:
    Delivered-To: name@gmail.com
    Received: by 10.231.114.79 with SMTP id d15cs115189ibq; Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:02:26 -0800 (PST)
    Return-Path: <3Ll3wThEKDicDQDObWLFV-QRUHSObJRRJOH.FRPJDEULHO.MLWDUXJPDLO.FRP@scoutcamp.bounces.google.com>
    ................................................................................
    From: Google Analytics <analytics-noreply@google.com>
    To: name@gmail.com
    Subject: =?utf-8?q?Google_Analytics=3A_New_features_for_your_Dec_campaigns?=
    Reply-To: analytics-noreply@google.com
    X-Google-Ads-Sender: auto_adsense_emails
    Message-ID: <695b2ad8.1324375342.000000.35911.1.EN_US.40b63100@google.com>
    X-Trak-Extra-Language: EN_US

    If you want more info about Return-Path, you could find it in the standard:
    RFC 2821 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol section 4.4
    When the delivery SMTP server makes the "final delivery" of a message, it inserts a return-path line at the beginning of the mail data. This use of return-path is required; mail systems MUST support it.
    ..............................................................................................................................................
    It is possible for the mailbox in the return path to be different from the actual sender's mailbox, for example, if error responses are to be delivered to a special error handling mailbox rather than to the message sender. When mailing lists are involved, this arrangement is common and useful as a means of directing errors to the list maintainer rather than the message originator.

Thank NAME, for their help.

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