Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

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Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
My forum is set up to send a reply to an email back to the forum (and the original sender gets a copy of that email - which is a mod from normal Nabble).

If a user sets up an Out of Office Automatic responder, it creates havoc with the list (because the reply goes back to the list - which then sends the out of office message to the list, which then sends another one... and continues indefinitely).

I've done some research and the problem seems to be that Nabble doesn't set the header precedence tag in the email to indicate the email is from a mailing list:
precedence: bulk
(Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6378773/correct-email-headers-for-delivering-mailing-list-mail)

Setting this would allow autoresponders to recognize the message came from a mailing list and not send out the Out of Office automatic reply.

Can this be added?  

By the way, it looks like there are a number of headers that should be set for mailing lists that are not being set - which is probably why Nabble emails typically end up in the SPAM.   Is it possible to see what the set_headers_for macro includes?

Thanks,
Coleen
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
Any thoughts on this?
Coleen
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Pedro
We have discussed internally about it, but I still have to do some research before taka any decision on do it or not.
My test forum.
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
Thanks.  While you discuss it, think about adding the additional email headers that would facilitate being able to control a reply going to the individual and a reply-all going to the individual and forum.  I believe this is all wrapped up in the headers.
Coleen
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
In reply to this post by Coleen_Astalos
I'm requesting this again as this morning I had another situation where a member set up an automatic responder and didn't request to be put on nomail.   So, one post at 5am this morning, generated 138 auto responder replies before one of our moderators was awake, saw it and removed the subscription for the member to stop the infinite loop.

I had a bunch of unhappy members wake up to hundreds of duplicate "out of office" reply notes.

Please, pretty please take a look at adding the necessary mailing list headers to Nabble so autoresponders know not to send automatic replies to the list.

Thanks,
Coleen

Coleen_Astalos wrote
My forum is set up to send a reply to an email back to the forum (and the original sender gets a copy of that email - which is a mod from normal Nabble).

If a user sets up an Out of Office Automatic responder, it creates havoc with the list (because the reply goes back to the list - which then sends the out of office message to the list, which then sends another one... and continues indefinitely).

I've done some research and the problem seems to be that Nabble doesn't set the header precedence tag in the email to indicate the email is from a mailing list:
precedence: bulk
(Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6378773/correct-email-headers-for-delivering-mailing-list-mail)

Setting this would allow autoresponders to recognize the message came from a mailing list and not send out the Out of Office automatic reply.

Can this be added?  

By the way, it looks like there are a number of headers that should be set for mailing lists that are not being set - which is probably why Nabble emails typically end up in the SPAM.   Is it possible to see what the set_headers_for macro includes?

Thanks,
Coleen
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Pedro
Coleen, I'm not sure anymore if I have understood your issue. Please, could you give me an example explain how does it happen? And, please, tell me the macros involved.

Ex: A subscriber post something via email, then the forum receives his post, ...
My test forum.
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
Yes, I'd be happy to.  

First of all, my forum has two modifications that may impact this:
1) instant_html/instant_text are set up to send the reply to an email to the list address instead of the author (actually that may be standard Nabble - can't remember)
2) should_get_instant_email is modified to send a copy of an email post back to the author as well as the entire list   But I think this problem would exist even without that change - particularly in the situation where a member has subscribed to receive emails for a particular topic they started (they'd get a copy of any reply they also make)

So here is what happen:
1) User A sets up an Autoresponder in their email program because they are going out of town to let anyone that emails them to know they are out of town.
2) Any user posts to the forum under a topic/category that User A is subscribed to.
3) User A's email program gets that instant subscription email and the autoresponder replies to the email (which goes back to the forum) saying the person is out of town.  Since the reply went back to the forum, it is distributed to all subscribers, which includes User A.
4) So now User A gets the email that says "User A" is out of town and again the autoresponder once again replies to the email back to the forum saying the person is out of town, which again gets distributed to all subscribers, including User A.  
5) This process continued in an infinite loop until we remove User A's subscription to stop it.

It is my understanding that autoresponders use specific settings in the message headers to know if it should reply to a message.   If it sees the headers indicating it was from a mailing list, then it won't issue the "Out of Office" reply.  But since Nabble hasn't set these headers, the autoresponder assumes it's just a normal person that has emailed them and issues the "Out of office" reply email.  

Here is a the information I provided in the original support request about what I think needs to be done to correct this problem:
Coleen Astalos; wrote
I've done some research and the problem seems to be that Nabble doesn't set the header precedence tag in the email to indicate the email is from a mailing list:
precedence: bulk
(Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6378773/correct-email-headers-for-delivering-mailing-list-mail)
See the bottom of the first answer which states:
Also, you should add a header

precedence: bulk

which for example tells intelligent out-of-office implementations not to send ooo replies to the list.
Let me know if you need any more info.
Coleen
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Pedro
This post was updated on .
Now is clear!

I'm not sure if you can set which emails will be auto answered. At least, I don't know how to do it at gmail.

To change the Header to the author of the message, please, merge this code with yours:
<override_macro name="send_subscription_email" parameters="node_attr,text_part,html_part" requires="subscription">
    <n.set_local_subscription.this_subscription/>
    <n.set_local_node.node_attr/>
    <n.block.>
        <n.if.equal value1="[n.local_subscription.user.user_email/]" value2="[n.local_node.owner.user_email/]">  
            <then>
                <n.new_email.>
                    <n.send>
                        <to.local_subscription.user.user_email/>
                        <to_name.local_subscription.user.name/>
                        <from.local_subscription.user.reply_address_for.local_node/>
                        <from_name><n.local_node.owner.name/> [via <n.root_node.subject/>]</from_name>
                        <subject.>[Own Message] - <n.local_node.subject/></subject.>                        
                        <text_part.text_part/>
                        <html_part.html_part/>
                        <set_headers_for.local_node/>
                        <bounce_to.local_subscription.user.bounces_address/>
                    </n.send>
                </n.new_email.>
                </then>
            <else>
                
                <n.new_email.>
                    <n.send>
                        <to.local_subscription.user.user_email/>
                        <to_name.local_subscription.user.name/>
                        <from.local_subscription.user.reply_address_for.local_node/>
                        <from_name><n.local_node.owner.name/> [via <n.root_node.subject/>]</from_name>
                        <subject.local_node.subject/>
                        
                        <text_part.text_part/>
                        <html_part.html_part/>
                        <set_headers_for.local_node/>
                        <bounce_to.local_subscription.user.bounces_address/>
                    </n.send>
                </n.new_email.>
                
            </else>
        </n.if.equal>  

    </n.block.>
</override_macro>

PS: Note that, this solution is changing the subject, I'm not dealing with headers.
My test forum.
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Pedro
This post was updated on .
In reply to this post by Coleen_Astalos
Coleen,
In order to change your forum's email header, which now I believe was your first intended approach, please, try to merge this with your code and let me know if the auto messages keep getting into loops:
<override_macro name="send_subscription_email" parameters="node_attr,text_part,html_part" requires="subscription">
    <n.set_local_subscription.this_subscription/>
    <n.set_local_node.node_attr/>
    <n.block.>
        <n.new_email.>
            <n.set_header name="Precedence" value="bulk"/>
            <n.send>                
                <to.local_subscription.user.user_email/>
                <to_name.local_subscription.user.name/>
                <from.local_subscription.user.reply_address_for.local_node/>
                <from_name><n.local_node.owner.name/> [via <n.root_node.subject/>]</from_name>
                <subject.local_node.subject/>
                <text_part.text_part/>
                <html_part.html_part/>
                <set_headers_for.local_node/>
                <bounce_to.local_subscription.user.bounces_address/>
            </n.send>
        </n.new_email.>
    </n.block.>
</override_macro>
My test forum.
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Re: Automatic Out of Office Notices create issues

Coleen_Astalos
Thanks.  I was able to test with a user that I previously had problems with and confirmed that this header fix did indeed work to stop the infinite loop problem.  Since the Precedence header is set to Bulk the autoresponder didn't send the out of office reply - avoiding the problem.

Coleen