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    problems using Gmail with Miva?

    Recently some of my clients have reported problems when sending emails from their store to people with gmail.com addresses. I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? And if so, did you fix it? And if so, how?

    One client has been going back and forth with Miva support for a couple of weeks, and they still haven't fixed it. Part of the problem may be that he's been with Miva for a long time. His sites are hosted on older servers that date back to the time when Hostasaurus was a separate company. Apparently these servers are not well connected to the control-panel pages; so users think they've changed a setting, but it doesn't actually flow through to the server. So, ironically enough, it's the loyal long-time Miva users who are getting hit with this.

    Since so many people use Gmail nowadays, this is becoming a real problem for Miva users who have to resort to using their personal email address, text messages, or other backup communications. That makes them seem unprofessional; and it also means that messages may be scattered among several different programs or devices, making it harder to store and search them. I hope someone can provide a solution soon?

    Thanks --
    Kent Multer
    Magic Metal Productions
    http://TheMagicM.com
    * Web developer/designer
    * E-commerce and Miva
    * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

    #2
    The issues I have had all involve domains that had no SPF/DKIM/DMARC records set up. I just had a test store that Gmail started rejecting emails from that had been working for years without a hitch.
    Gmail appears to be rejecting email lately if you don't have at least one of SPF or DKIM.

    EVERY domain used for business is going to need to have SPF/DKIM/DMARC set up soon. Spam is so out of control that email providers have no choice but to start filtering non-authenticated email.
    Gordon Currie
    Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

    Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit Any Document Easily | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
    phosphormedia.com

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Kent Multer View Post

      One client has been going back and forth with Miva support for a couple of weeks, and they still haven't fixed it. Part of the problem may be that he's been with Miva for a long time. His sites are hosted on older servers that date back to the time when Hostasaurus was a separate company. Apparently these servers are not well connected to the control-panel pages; so users think they've changed a setting, but it doesn't actually flow through to the server. So, ironically enough, it's the loyal long-time Miva users who are getting hit with this.

      -
      Hi Kent,

      Your "not well connected to the control-panel pages" made me think of a recent issue I am dealing with which may or may not be related to your issue. I have learned that clients on dedicated servers don't have the direct ability to link to their Plesk admin (where all the DNS records reside) from their My.Miva panel. They do have Plesk panels just under separate login. Sometimes even the Store Admin is not correctly linked in My.Miva. Again, it may not be related to your issue. Another item I learned is that Miva is upgrading all of it's servers which also requires clients to move to separate email hosting. Perhaps you can see where your client is at in the process and also work to get them moved to their own email host (if they are not their already).

      My apologizes if I missed the mark of your inquiry, it just reminded me of what I had just gone through.

      Leslie
      Leslie Kirk
      Miva Certified Developer
      Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
      Previously of Webs Your Way
      (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

      Email me: [email protected]
      www.lesliekirk.com

      Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

      Comment


        #4
        Kent,

        The above description is not accurate at all. We do not (and have not) ran the old Hosta servers since around 2015, we're on probably our 4th generation of hardware since that acquisition. What is partially true is Plesk interacts with Dedicated servers which is virtually all sites these days, differently than it did the old shared ones. Regardless this is not something that "long time Miva customers" are being hit with due to tech debt.

        What is possible is the configs which we do our best to maintain for as long as possible are out of date, but you should talk to support about this.
        Thanks,

        Rick Wilson
        CEO
        Miva, Inc.
        [email protected]
        https://www.miva.com

        Comment


          #5
          Kent, please send me the ticket in question. There should not be email-related issues that cannot be resolved quickly, unless they were the result of blacklisting due to intentional or unintentional bad activity. For example, if a customer sends a bulk mailing through their account with us (not allowed but can still occur), or their store has had a contact form added that allows a spammer to make it send messages to unintended targets.

          Typically the only issue we encounter with email delivery occurs for new customers who begin service on an IP address that has never been used before, and are using us for transactional email delivery, which is becoming increasingly uncommon with services like Sendgrid. With the marked increase in spam year over year, email providers have become far more aggressive at deploying reputation-based filters, so they sometimes filter emails arriving from an IP address that begins delivering mail when it never had prior. That typically self resolves in a week or two of consistent activity.

          Leslie is also correct about the migration of email services. We ceased offering email hosting many years ago, so clients who still have active email services with us are receiving notification in stages that these services have been discontinued, with a timeline for their being disabled.
          David Hubbard
          CIO
          Miva
          [email protected]
          http://www.miva.com

          Comment


            #6
            The comment about older, Hostasaurus servers actually came from one of the support people. Just yesterday, he followed up with a message that "I switched you to our modern nameservers and you should be able to apply new records from Plesk." The client has sent a few emails successfully; but the problem was always intermittent, so we don't yet know for sure if it's been fixed.

            And my two clients who are having the problem have both been with Miva for 10+ years, so it seemed reasonable that the problem only happens with older accounts.

            I don't think the support people have sufficient expertise on these matters. One of my clients has gotten other messages from them that indicate that they don't understand the problem.

            I see that David Hubbard has joined one of the support tickets just a few minutes ago. I expect that that will be a big help.

            Thanks --
            Kent Multer
            Magic Metal Productions
            http://TheMagicM.com
            * Web developer/designer
            * E-commerce and Miva
            * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
            http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

            Comment


              #7
              Clients who have accounts opened prior to 2011 may have their domains pointed at DNS servers with the Hostasaurus name. Those names point at DNS infrastructure that is not connected for automated updates to match what our control panels show, so customers whose domains date back to the 2000's may not have SPF records or similar until they switch to our normal Miva DNS servers. The web services infrastructure is independent of the legacy Hostasaurus DNS server names though, so there's been several cycles of infrastructure refresh independent of Hostasaurus DNS services.
              David Hubbard
              CIO
              Miva
              [email protected]
              http://www.miva.com

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by ILoveHostasaurus View Post
                Clients who have accounts opened prior to 2011 may have their domains pointed at DNS servers with the Hostasaurus name.
                I have a really ignorant question - can these people who might be using the old DNS servers with the Hostasaurus name just update this information or is there more to it than that? In my head, I'm thinking in terms of updating Nameservers at the domain registrar. If I have missed the mark, just let me know
                Leslie Kirk
                Miva Certified Developer
                Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                Previously of Webs Your Way
                (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                Email me: [email protected]
                www.lesliekirk.com

                Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                Comment


                  #9
                  You're correct about where to make the change, but it's best to only update to the Miva name servers if someone from our side has already confirmed no records would be incorrect, as the new servers could have differences that didn't matter since they weren't being served to the public.
                  David Hubbard
                  CIO
                  Miva
                  [email protected]
                  http://www.miva.com

                  Comment

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