andy206uk — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:51:46 +0000

Yes... you can do it without sending it by email if you wish.

Firstly, you need to create a database, you would need a table for the results, and each table would need a specific field for each of the parts of the form (you could just dump the contents of the email in one large text field but that's bad from a database management standpoint). PHPMyAdmin is a good tool for creating tables.

Once that's done, you just use PHP's standard functions and a bit of SQL to post the data to the database (assuming you're using a PHP/MySQL setup).

I don't really have the time to knock you up a full example right now. but there are loads of great tutorials out there that will talk you through this.

shobuz99 — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:45:10 +0000

andy206uk;214299 wrote: Yup... absolutely. At the very least, if you log every email into the database you'll know when one has gone missing.

Ok. Well.. I meant instead of an email; send to the DB, just post the
information directly to the DB from the form.. The data would never see a mailserver..right?

BTW.. how is that done? I know nil about DB management and interaction with forms (php or cgi-perl). Any suggestions?

Rick (shobuz99)

andy206uk — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:35:32 +0000

shobuz99;214277 wrote: I also bet that the php form could be used to "put" that form datain the DB, true?

Yup... absolutely. At the very least, if you log every email into the database you'll know when one has gone missing.

shobuz99 — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:07:40 +0000

Thank you all for your wisdom and suggestions.

FrankR,
I had already done what you suggested and used
two different email addys from separate servers.
That has solved the problem for now.

andy206uk,
I like your suggestion to use a database and then access it
and get the form data, etc. that is sent there.
I bet the Host Service offers something like that..
Thanks for sharing that idea..
I also bet that the php form could be used to "put" that form data
in the DB, true?

"Email is no longer a reliable form of communication.
Welcome to the 21st Century." yeah.. I agree

I do appreciate, and agree with, everyone's comments.

Rick (shobuz99)

andy206uk — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:08:03 +0000

timjpriebe;214267 wrote: Emails are not even close to reliable. However, at this point, they're somewhat of an inescapable form of communication.

That is so true. So many people expect email to be an instant messenging system and that's not what it is - email is designed to work in queues, when the queues are busy, email's take longer it's a fact of life. You can speed up queue processing, but with all the spam flying around lately email is becoming more and more problematic.

Whether we like it or not, email is dying and there's nothing we can do about it.

shobuz99 - if you need notifications of when you get new orders and things, log them to a database instead and set yourself up a system that allows you to view them from a password protected section of your website.

Emails can go missing for a lot of reasons, sometimes sheer volumes of junk can overwhelm a server and the sysadmin will have to delete the queue to get things moving again. Sometimes your emails can be flagged as spam or blocked by some stupid blacklist on the basis of one complaint. Sometimes the sending mail server will be to blame. Without access to logs from both sides it would be impossible to say.

Some times emails just vanish into the ether... Sadly because of the way the internet works your emails get bounced through multiple networks, sometimes a server in the middle will have problems and drop parts of the data being transmitted (think of it a bit like a mail carrier loosing an email during processing).

Email is no longer a reliable form of communication. Welcome to the 21st Century.

timjpriebe — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:47:13 +0000

I have to agree with Frank on this one. Another point is that email get pretty much randomly routed through the internet. I've seen emails that arrives several days after they were sent.

Emails are not even close to reliable. However, at this point, they're somewhat of an inescapable form of communication.

FrankR — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:35:03 +0000

shobuz99;214264 wrote: andy206uk,
Is there any specific technical reason for this?
Doesn't someone, at some level in tech support, REALLY know what is causing the loss of emails?
Are you saying there are 'black holes' in the internet that no one can control?
I understand that you are saying it is a fact, of internet life, with which we all must live with... Yet it is very frustrating, to say the least, if that's true.

No, often they do not know. Even the network administrator will not know if they do not keep logs of those things. They could be using DNS block lists and dropping incoming connections from bad neighborhoods. Imagine an e-mail server as an answering machine that checks caller ID before even picking up the line. The spammer gets a "busy signal" and is never allowed to transmit the spam.

Finally, if mail is dropped then upgrading an account would never cause it to be re-queued for delivery at the recipient network. You would have to get the source to retransmit itself.

E-mail, as currently implemented, is fundamentally unreliable. It often works, but sometimes it fails. There is more spam than legitimate e-mail today. A smart server operator will configure his mail servers to never respond with error messages because those only help the spammers.

My suggestion is to have two e-mail addresses, on separate networks, to which your contact form is delivered.

I hope this helps.

Frank

shobuz99 — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:16:16 +0000

andy206uk,

You couldn't be more right with your comment about AOL..
Of course, I didn't really expect good support, I just hoped for it.

As a support tech, looking at the problem technically, what do you think could be the cause of the lost emails? I can tell you what I know about the issue:
1. Not ALL emails were lost that were sent from the form to that email addy.
2. The host server tech people did not see any problems with their SMTP server. They were also very helpful and courteous. Nothing to hide, as it were.
3. The php form was working flawlessly. I confirmed that and so did the host server techs.

The first of the Road Runner tech support people (there were 3 in all),
had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned a "php form".
Road Runner did not even attempt to look through their pop server logs to examine whether there could've been any problem.

FrankR,
Is there any specific technical reason for this?
Doesn't someone, at some level in tech support, REALLY know what is causing the loss of emails?
Are you saying there are 'black holes' in the internet that no one can control?
I understand that you are saying it is a fact, of internet life, with which we all must live with... Yet it is very frustrating, to say the least, if that's true.
Rick (shobuz99)

FrankR — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:48:06 +0000

Even with business hosting, e-mails can go missing. They can easily be spam filtered or blocked at some stage of the delivery and there is little anyone can do. It is the nature of the network on which we currently work.

Frank

andy206uk — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:17:57 +0000

I'm shocked that the refused to let you speak to someone higher up the chain. I work as a supervisor for a support department and that's exactly why I'm here. To deal with more serious complaints that can't be resolved through normal channels and generally keep customers happy.

The problem is that larger companies generally have crappy support. For best support you're generally better going with smaller companies. Did you really expect good support from the people that own AOL?