Email is only sent by admin and not by other users/roles

mraleiras · July 19, 2019, 10:01am

I’m having some trouble with email configuration. Now it’s working but only via admin. If I change to editor the email are not sent. Where is the issue here? Is it a problem on the server?

pmangahis · July 26, 2019, 11:43pm

Hi @mraleiras.

Thank you for your question. Could you please confirm which version of OJS/OMP/OCS you are using? As well could you please clarify whether you are getting any error messages when you are sending the email under an Editor account.

Kind Regards,
Patricia M.
Public Knowledge Project Intern

mraleiras · July 29, 2019, 10:08am

Hi! I’m using OJS 3.1.2.0 version. There are no error messages. The email is simply not sent and I don’t get any message with an error.

pmangahis · July 30, 2019, 9:52pm

Hi @mraleiras,

Would you mind clarifying what you meant by “If I change to editor the email are not sent.”

Kind Regards,
Patricia M.
PKP Intern

mraleiras · August 7, 2019, 3:37pm

Hi Patricia! Thanks for your reply! What I found out is that the server only sends the emails by the admin user because this users uses the same domain as the server. All the other users (registered with gmail adresses or other institutional adresses) are not able to send the email messages inside OJS. But when they try to send the email they don’t get any error messages, the email is just not sent. The server is considering these other emails as unsafe.

ctgraham · August 7, 2019, 5:55pm

You will want to configure OJS to force all mail to come from the (trusted) admin account which uses the same domain as the server. Actual users will then be reply-tos on the message, rather than the from address. In OJS 3.1.2, there are four settings required to accomplish this:

github.com

pkp/ojs/blob/2edbbed7ec29c6f7faaabb32d195dd3dec212a94/config.TEMPLATE.inc.php#L317-L337


; Allow envelope sender to be specified
; (may not be possible with some server configurations)
; allow_envelope_sender = Off

; Default envelope sender to use if none is specified elsewhere
; default_envelope_sender = my_address@my_host.com

; Force the default envelope sender (if present)
; This is useful if setting up a site-wide no-reply address
; The reply-to field will be set with the reply-to or from address.
; force_default_envelope_sender = Off

; Force a DMARC compliant from header (RFC5322.From)
; If any of your users have email addresses in domains not under your control
; you may need to set this to be compliant with DMARC policies published by
; those 3rd party domains.
; Setting this will move the users address into the reply-to field and the
; from field wil be rewritten with the default_envelope_sender.
; To use this you must set force_default_enveloper_sender = On and
; default_envelope_sender must be set to a valid address in a domain you own.
; force_dmarc_compliant_from = Off

mraleiras · September 23, 2019, 8:41pm

Hi! Thank you so much for your reply and your help. We tried the solution you described but it still does not send the emails. Do you have another suggestion or idea abou what may be causing this?

ctgraham · September 23, 2019, 9:35pm

The next step will be highly technical. You’ll need to identify the success or failure of each step of the mail process, and this usually involves different administrators:

OJS handoff to the Mail Transit Authority (MTA)
- This is where your config.inc.php settings come in. OJS will either hand off the message to PHP’s mailer, or to an SMTP server. Your PHP error logs will detail any failure at this step.
MTA receipt and handoff
- This is where your MTA decides what to do with the message when received. It may forward it to the next hop, or discard it, based on whether or not the sending is trusted. The administrator of your mail server (perhaps your localhost, or an SMTP server) will be able to see the logs.
Any number of intermediate hops
- You will lose visibility of the message as it passes through other servers in route, but generally if it passed off of the first MTA, these subsequent MTAs will send it along.
The recipient’s mailserver.
- This is the final stop and the final check. Your recipient’s server will look at the sending and envelope and decide what trust level to give the message. It may then present it to the user for delivery, flag the messages and spam, or silently delete it, based on the trust. If not deleted, your recipient will have more details about the disposition from the email headers.

At what point is the message failing?