Multiple confirmation emails sent to users

[gr8save]

After months of complaining members I have enlisted the help of a friend of mine with much more PHP experience with PHP.

Specifically the issue is multiple emails being sent to users once they upload an ad. What was happening is this:

After uploading an ad, the uploading user would recieve multiple confirmation emails. In my case this could range from 20-50 emails.

Here is why it was happening :

If there are 20 people who have subscribed to a category, then the uploading user gets 20 email notifications while the subscribing members recieve no email.

To correct this issue we edited adm-misc.php starting on line 525. Here is how it read before:

Content visible to verified customers only.

To fix it we did this:

Content visible to verified customers only.

I hope this helps others. It's been a major pain in my ass for months now. Since installing the software 8 months ago I have over 2000 ads processed and countless complaints surrounding this issue.

[Chuck S]

Correct this has been reported priorly and the fix was posted on this forum. Thanks.

[dknelson]

Has this fix been added to the zipped download?

[dknelson]

I too am having a problem with members getting MANY email notifications. I just downloaded the latest version and installed. So has the script been changed so that this is no longer needed? It is not like this in the latest version available for download. Here is what I just downloaded.

// Now notify any subscribers
$resulta = ppmysql_query("SELECT userid FROM {$Globals['pp_db_prefix']}notify WHERE product=$origcat AND type=1", $link);
while ( list($nuserid) = mysql_fetch_row($resulta) )
{
if ( $nuserid > 0 )
{

$result = ppmysql_query("SELECT id,userid,title,description,bigimage FROM {$Globals['pp_db_prefix']}products WHERE id=$pid", $link);
list( $lastproductid, $notifyuser, $title, $desc, $realname ) = mysql_fetch_row($result);

list( $tuserid, $tusername, $tmail ) = get_userinfo( "", $notifyuser);

include "{$Globals['PP_PATH']}/languages/{$Globals['pplang']}/emails.php";
$letter = $Globals['pp_lang']['subnotify'];
$subject = $Globals['pp_lang']['emsubscr'];

$send_to = $tmail;
$from_email = "From: {$Globals['adminemail']}";
mail( $send_to, $subject, $letter, $from_email );
}
}

[Chuck S]

Looks fine to me yes

[Andy R]

I just wanted to let you know that I installed 2.61 January 13, 2007 and code was not updated with this fix in the zip. It would be really helpful if you all could update the code when you find issues like this.

[wacnstac]

Hard to believe the pp wouldn't update the latest download files. Lame....

[wacnstac]

This did not seem to work for me. Can anyone send me the entire patched files to try?

[Chuck S]

any patches should be located in the latest downloaded build.

[wacnstac]

I'll download it again and check but it obviously wasn't in the zip file I downloaded on 1/7/08 Has the zip file been changed since then?

[Chuck S]

well i updated it when I uploaded my beta as well the other day

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

well i updated it when I uploaded my beta as well the other day

So are you saying we need to upgrade to the Beta version to address this?

My site(s) are still reporting these issues and the members are reporting the 25 emails they are getting at once as spam. This has caused Yahoo to grey list my SMTP server so I now have 95,000 emails address to members with Yahoo! email accounts (from all of my 12 sites) being denied because of this issue.

Chuck, I know the PhotoPost team leaves you hanging here to deal with support (and often non-technical newbies), continue software development, etc. I interact with many large forum owners and the reputation of PhotoPost continues to decline. I really think you should address the issues with your colleagues to see what can be done from you all to get some more help to address issues like this one and the others I have read about. I have been a customer for a long time but when errors from your software jeopardize my company I have to start getting more vocal. PLEASE, Please, please do something to address these issues and increase the stability of your products!

Regards,

Andy

[Chuck S]

That is not what I said. I said I uploaded the fix noted here to the main distribution when I uploaded my beta the other day. The software is stable. One issue that has slipped though being uploaded to the members area does not make things unstable.

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

One issue that has slipped though being uploaded to the members area does not make things unstable.

How about the 6 month lag before one of you customers finally figured out why the system was sending blank emails. You can read about it at this thread:
Moved serevers and emails are blank...

I am sorry I am so frustrated, having to deal with your SMTP server being grey listed by Yahoo and having 95,000 email to Yahoo backed up in your mail queue will foster some negative energy. I also have 3 sites running vBAdvanced CMPS that are not showing any photos on the home page because after I upgraded to the newest version (because of security issues) they CMPS module broke. I have had 2 people try and fix it and they are still broken. I have pissed members about that and it all reflect on me and my company. So you stay your products are stable, well maybe, but that does not mean they are running well or that your customers are happy with them.

Please try to discuss this with your colleagues who own PhotoPost and put together a plan to communicate with your customers plans to address issues in a more efficient manner. It's ashame that you have a great feature set, products that work 99.5% of the time and fixes that are not posted in a clear way. It would have been nice to have a way to know that the patches were uploaded when you uploaded the beta. Was that not a version upgrade? How can we subscribe to know when a new version is updated?

Sorry for the negative vibe of this email. I am just one of many customers who get upset with your products (and I am not a novice, I have been a customer for over 5 years).

[Chuck S]

Moved serevers and emails are blank...

Any 6 month lag was due to a customer not responding for 6 months. As far as any grey out by yahoo we have no control over that.

I dont release a new version or dot release for one bug fix. Personally it usually has always been our policy to slip in bug fixes to the downloaded code so new users are not affected and once we get a few issues to release a dot release and make an announcement. There will be no more releases of the 2.x series. I am openly coding a 3.0 beta and have announced that her on the forums.

http://www.photopost.com/forum/showt...89#post1216389

Please post any suggestions you have in the suggestions forum in general I have not gotten any more suggestions on new features.

[Andy R]

i just downloaded v2.61 of Classifieds and over wrote the 2.61 files that were on my server. I posted a test ad and received 28 emails. So I guess it's still broken. What should I try now?

[Chuck S]

what actions did you do to break it? Thats what I would ask are you doing the same action as above approving an ad in admin that was unapproved because that is what the issue is. Now sending emails to subscribers who are subscribed to the ad category only happens two places. In adm-misc.php and image-inc.php. I just now uploaded once again so I suggest you redownload and upload those two files.

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

what actions did you do to break it?

All I did was upload and ad. What seems to have been happening is the subscription notice email that is supposed to be sent to the people who have subscribed to a category was being sent to the ad posters. They were sent one email per person that was subscribed and the people who were subscribed did not get any emails.

Originally Posted by Chuck S

Now sending emails to subscribers who are subscribed to the ad category only happens two places. In adm-misc.php and image-inc.php. I just now uploaded once again so I suggest you redownload and upload those two files.

I downloaded the latest files and uploaded adm-misc.php and image-inc.php and tested. It seems to be working fine now. One ad I posted to a category that I am not subscribed to and this time I did not get any emails (which is correct) then I tried to a category that I am subscribed to and I did get a subscription notice (only one). That means it's fixed, thanks for your help.

I apologizing for being so blunt in some of my posts earlier. I really think you all have a great feature set with your products but sometimes little things slip by and they pretty much leave you there to do everything. I really think you all (stakeholders in PhotoPost) should meet to see how you can go from good to great. The internet is not going away and you have a great position in the market with your products but the overwhelming sentiment from other PhotoPost customers I talk to is that there is a lot of room for improvement. If I can help you, please let me know. Your products represent many of us because they are used in our communities, we consider you a partner and we want for us to be as proud to be PhotoPost users as we are to be users of other fine products like vBulletin. Seeking excellence will make you more money and mitigate risk, well worth it in my opinion.

Thanks for the fixes today. Now I have to get CMPS working again with vBGallery after the 2.4 security update.

[Chuck S]

Yeah I steared away from some of your posts. Try to realize we are a small company with only a few people working here. Myself for one I support 3 separate products and develop 2 which leaves me little time for anything else. Please do visit the suggestions forum to post suggestions on features as the software is only going to be as good as the suggestions I get. Now as far as CMPS with vbgallery I think this is the post you want. But that happens to be the one product I dont support and I steer clear of those mod forums.

http://www.photopost.com/forum/showp...74&postcount=1

You can post there I show Zach who wrote that mod posted in there as little as a few days ago.

[wacnstac]

My users are still experiencing this problem. Since Photopost doesn't believe in bumping release numbers for bugs, what date do I need on the files to have the fix?