Bug 681772 – Trouble getting subscribed to mailing lists

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Infrastructure

[Description matt 2019-03-26 03:16:25 UTC]

Apologies in advance if this is not the appropriate place for this report.  I was directed here by replies to a forum post.

I am trying to join some of the mailing lists.  I've tried this several times over the past few months.

When I send an email to [e-mail] from a specific address (this account's address), I never get the reply to confirm subscription.  When I try to subscribe using a GMail address, I am able to do so successfully, so I am confident that I am not doing something wrong.

The problematic email has a .tech TLD.  Is it possible that this is not being handled properly?

If there is other information needed to investigate this further, please let me know.

[Comment 1 Alec Warner (RETIRED) 2019-03-26 13:43:36 UTC]

Mar 20 02:29:51 pigeon postfix/local[32400]: 8CE71E083D: to=<[e-mail]>, relay=local, delay=0.62, delays=0.61/0.01/0/0.01, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/bin/mlmmj-receive -L)

Is us receiving your signup email.

However, I don't see anything in the ML software that it got it.

[Comment 2 Robin Johnson 2019-03-31 20:57:08 UTC]

There's nothing in the ML software specifically that blocks TLDs; and checking over all subscribers I see 137 different TLDs in use!

A few of them as examples:
.agency
.click
.club
.coop
.solutions
.space
.ninja

Can you please resend the mail again:
From: (your address)
To: [e-mail] 
CC: [e-mail]
Body: Bug 681772 test

[Comment 3 Robin Johnson 2019-04-01 16:43:24 UTC]

Thanks for the test email. I see it arrived to infra@ fine, but the list software seems to have dropped it again, with no useful log data.

I'll work on reproducing it.

I do see other new subscriptions on that list, including two yesterday, so i'm wondering about something in headers causing the list tool to drop silently?

[Comment 4 matt 2019-04-03 03:41:01 UTC]

(In reply to Robin Johnson from comment #3)
> Thanks for the test email. I see it arrived to infra@ fine, but the list
> software seems to have dropped it again, with no useful log data.
> 
> I'll work on reproducing it.
> 
> I do see other new subscriptions on that list, including two yesterday, so
> i'm wondering about something in headers causing the list tool to drop
> silently?

Apologies for just sending the email without replying to the bug.  Haven't been at my PC in a couple of days.

Thank you for your time and effort in looking into this.

Do you need any other information from me?

[Comment 5 matt 2019-06-30 06:25:20 UTC]

Polite bump.

I am still unable to join these lists.

[Comment 6 matt 2019-11-07 06:46:54 UTC]

This problem is still occurring for me.  It isn't list-specific either; I can't subscribe this address to any of the Gentoo lists.

For what it is worth, I am subscribed to a wide array of other mailing lists, and these are the only ones that exhibit this issue.

[Comment 7 Fab 2020-06-19 11:09:42 UTC]

Hi,

I'm currently trying to subscribe to various gentoo mailing lists from my new @netc.eu mail. I do not receive any reply, so I can't confirm. Just tried to resend with instructions from comment #2.

[Comment 8 Fab 2020-06-19 12:55:15 UTC]

I received all the subscription mails fifty minutes later, seem to work but with a delay.

[Comment 9 Michał Górny 2020-06-19 13:03:09 UTC]

(In reply to Fab from comment #8)
> I received all the subscription mails fifty minutes later, seem to work but
> with a delay.

If your mail provider uses graylisting, that could explain that.  Further mails should not be delayed.

[Comment 10 matt 2022-06-04 01:56:59 UTC]

Just retried this, figuring maybe the problem would have resolved itself after a couple of years, but no dice.

[Comment 11 Robin Johnson 2022-06-08 23:15:08 UTC]

(In reply to matt from comment #10)
> Just retried this, figuring maybe the problem would have resolved itself
> after a couple of years, but no dice.

Hi Matt,

Further below logs for your recent attempt, which DOES tell us something new.

You're sending mail to [e-mail] when you should be sending it to [e-mail].

More specifically, the SMTP envelope TO/RCPT is addressed to [e-mail], but the "To" header inside the mail is set to [e-mail].

Log your your entry (only exposes the mail server it came from, which is in other logs you would send)
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/smtpd[16499]: 6EDF3E09DA: client=mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com[212.3.242.97]
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/cleanup[16502]: 6EDF3E09DA: info: header Message-ID: <[e-mail]> from mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com[212.3.242.97]; from=<[e-mail]> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com>
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/cleanup[16502]: 6EDF3E09DA: message-id=<[e-mail]>
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/cleanup[16502]: 6EDF3E09DA: info: header Subject:  from mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com[212.3.242.97]; from=<[e-mail]> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com>
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/cleanup[16502]: 6EDF3E09DA: info: header From: Matt Connell <[e-mail]> from mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com[212.3.242.97]; from=<[e-mail]> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com>
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/cleanup[16502]: 6EDF3E09DA: info: header To: [e-mail] from mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com[212.3.242.97]; from=<[e-mail]> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<mailout-l3b-97.contactoffice.com>
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/qmgr[15471]: 6EDF3E09DA: from=<[e-mail]>, size=1729, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/local[16504]: 6EDF3E09DA: to=<[e-mail]>, relay=local, delay=0.41, delays=0.4/0/0/0, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/bin/mlmmj-receive -L /var/lists/gentoo-user/)
Jun  4 01:31:18 pigeon postfix/qmgr[15471]: 6EDF3E09DA: removed




For comparison, here's a another user subscribing, and you can see how the "To" header and SMTP envelope RCPT/TO match:

Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/smtpd[22874]: C500EE08E5: client=REDACTED-HOST[REDACTED-IP]
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/cleanup[22866]: C500EE08E5: info: header From: XXX XXX <REDACTED@DOMAIN> from REDACTED-HOST[REDACTED-IP]; from=<REDACTED@DOMAIN> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<REDACTED-HELO>
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/cleanup[22866]: C500EE08E5: info: header To: "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]> from REDACTED-HOST[REDACTED-IP]; from=<REDACTED@DOMAIN> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<REDACTED-HELO>
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/cleanup[22866]: C500EE08E5: info: header Message-Id: <3453161654065237@REDACTED-HOST> from REDACTED-HOST[REDACTED-IP]; from=<REDACTED@DOMAIN> to=<[e-mail]> proto=ESMTP helo=<REDACTED-HELO>
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/cleanup[22866]: C500EE08E5: message-id=<3453161654065237@REDACTED-HOST>
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/qmgr[3195]: C500EE08E5: from=<REDACTED@DOMAIN>, size=1828, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/local[22876]: C500EE08E5: to=<[e-mail]>, relay=local, delay=0.14, delays=0.13/0/0/0, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/bin/mlmmj-receive -L /var/lists/gentoo-announce/)
Jun  1 06:34:04 pigeon postfix/qmgr[3195]: C500EE08E5: removed

[Comment 12 matt 2022-06-09 00:32:18 UTC]

(In reply to Robin Johnson from comment #11)
> 
> Further below logs for your recent attempt, which DOES tell us something new.
> 
> You're sending mail to [e-mail] when you should be
> sending it to [e-mail].
> 
> More specifically, the SMTP envelope TO/RCPT is addressed to
> [e-mail], but the "To" header inside the mail is set to
> [e-mail].

This is very strange.  I just clicked the mail-to link from https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/mailing-lists/ when trying previously, and recently.

I tried with the mail-to link generated from my browser for your comment for the subscribe address as well, and didn't get a reply.

Further, I tried just copy-pasting the address, in case maybe the mail-to link was doing something strange and still no reply.

Is my mail client (Evolution) to blame here?

[Comment 13 Robin Johnson 2022-06-09 04:43:19 UTC]

(In reply to matt from comment #12)
> (In reply to Robin Johnson from comment #11)
> > 
> > Further below logs for your recent attempt, which DOES tell us something new.
> > 
> > You're sending mail to [e-mail] when you should be
> > sending it to [e-mail].
> > 
> > More specifically, the SMTP envelope TO/RCPT is addressed to
> > [e-mail], but the "To" header inside the mail is set to
> > [e-mail].
> 
> This is very strange.  I just clicked the mail-to link from
> https://www.gentoo.org/get-involved/mailing-lists/ when trying previously,
> and recently.
...
> Is my mail client (Evolution) to blame here?

All of those subscribe links do contain the +subscribe.

So there's three possibilities:
a) The browser->Evolution hop is removing the plus address (easy to test if you type it manually or copy/paste)
b) Evolution is breaking it by removing the plus address
c) Your SMTP server is breaking it by removing the plus address

I don't know about the rest of your setup, as to which of b) or c) are either for you to change.

If it's b), because you don't have another outgoing SMTP server to use, can I suggest that you install net-mail/swaks and use it to test, because it'll likely give you the most information about debugging it.

swaks \
 --to [e-mail] \
 --from  [e-mail] \
 --server $LOCAL_SMTP_SERVER \
 --auth ...

You'll have to look at "swaks --help" and look at the --auth* help section, and match it up to whatever configuration you're using.

[Comment 14 Michał Górny 2022-06-09 05:58:25 UTC]

FTR, some of Gentoo devs are using Evolution and we never had any problems, so it's most likely not that.

[Comment 15 matt 2022-06-10 04:24:18 UTC]

Turns out it was the SMTP server, I think.

Using the same mail account, I was able to send a mail from the web interface and subscribe successfully.

Really, really strange though.  I've subscribed to dozens of mailing lists with the same SMTP server and the same old Evolution install and it has always worked with no issues.

Setting to resolved.  Thanks to Robin for the details and troubleshooting steps.