Lost e-mail notification on unrouteable domains

[dougvan]

We've experienced a number of lost e-mail notifications since we began using SquirrelCart. I have finally figured out what the problem is:

If the user enters an e-mail address that the mail server determines is invalid due to an "unrouteable mail domain", the order notification winds up in the bit bucket, with no error message (or "undeliverable" e-mail) generated.

The unrouteable mail domain occurs if the user mucks up the "organizational" part of the domain (e.g. ".nt" instead of ".net"). Needless to say, the user does not get the "order confirmation" e-mail, either. Although in that case, we do get an "undeliverable" e-mail from the mail server since the "From:" field is us.

Our website is hosted at 1&1. I've asked them if this type of error checking on the "reply-to" field by their mail server can be disabled, but have not heard back from them, yet.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is to add a validation check in squirrel cart when the user enters an e-mail address, to make sure the ".whatever" is valid. Of course, I'm not sure exactly what ".whatever" should include...

[Jamie]

We do check that an email address is valid in format before allowing one to be entered. We do not check as to whether or not the domain exists, or whether the top level domain exists.

Are you saying you aren't getting the order notification email that goes to you as the merchant when the customer enters a non existent domain name?

[dougvan]

We do check that an email address is valid in format before allowing one to be entered. We do not check as to whether or not the domain exists, or whether the top level domain exists.

Are you saying you aren't getting the order notification email that goes to you as the merchant when the customer enters a non existent domain name?

It's only if the ".whatever" is invalid. If the user enters "blah@blahblahblah.net", we get the order notification just fine, because even though the email address is invalid. But if the user enters "blah@blahblahblah.nt", the order notification never comes through. My conclusion is that the mail server sees the ".nt" and says that's unrouteable, and does not send the e-mail to us, even though the "To:" field is valid (which is our e-mail address)!

On another note, if the user mucks up ".com" by typing ".cm", we do get the order notification e-mail. That's because ".cm" is valid -- for Cameroon!

We have some other scripts that can submit e-mails on our website as well. And I see the same behavior. My experience is that a "blank" address in the "reply-to" field is allowed, as is a domain that does not have any ".whatever" attached to it. But if a ".whatever" is included, then it better be valid, or our mail server drops it in the bit bucket...

[Jamie]

If you don't mind not being able to reply directly to order notification emails, you can set the From field on your Store Settings page seen below to other, and then enter an email address on your domain.

[dougvan]

Ahh.. I see that the proper definition is "top level domain", not ".whatever"...

[dougvan]

Another alternative which I have seen on many systems is to have the user re-type the e-mail address and verify that they match. I've never thought much of this suggestion in the past, but now that I am experiencing this problem with typo's, I might just change my mind!