#listmanager

[thoughtsontechnology]

Lyris ListManager 10.2 blocked domain troubleshooting

According to a posting I found online: “In Lyris 10.x and higher an unfortunate bug exists where if mail gets rejected even once from any email address from a particular mailhost, any domain and email address that MX host services gets permanently blocked without a retry.”

So I opened up and scanned through the delivery history for all 57 subscribers to our e-newsletter at that domain. What I noticed is that the software seems to attempt them alphabetically. E-mail addresses starting at the beginning of the alphabet had no delivery problems, while people towards the end experienced issues. I opened up the log messages for those that failed, and found this entry for [email protected]:

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:15:49 Sending email to: [email protected] <-- DNS info available for: xxxx.edu --> Attempting to connect to: xxxx.edu (000.000.00.000 25) <-- Connected to: xxxx.edu (000.000.00.000 25) <-- 220 yyyyyyyy2.xxxx.edu Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:15:49 -0500 --> HELO zzzzzzzzzzz.zzzz.zzz <-- 250 yyyyyyyy2.xxxx.edu Hello [111.111.111.111] --> MAIL FROM: [email protected] <-- 250 2.1.0 Sender OK --> RCPT TO:<[email protected]> <-- 250 2.1.5 Recipient OK --> DATA <-- 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF> --> (message body) --> [sent entire message body] <-- 554 5.1.0 Sender denied --> QUIT --> Mail stream '---------' is blocked by domain 'xxxx.edu' in step CONNECT.

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:20:34 - Mail stream '---------' is blocked by domain 'xxxx.edu'.

Everyone (alphabetically) before this address had no problems with delivery. Addresses after this one did, but their log messages just had a single line stating that the mailstream was blocked without the mailing ever being attempted. I’m pretty confident that this email address is the one sending the block signal back to our server which is then causing problems for other recipients at the domain.

To fix the problem I unsubscribed the email address in question, so that we no longer attempt delivery to it. Our e-news goes out each Tuesday, so next week we’ll know for sure whether this solved the problem.

Edit: Long after initially writing this blog I found a nifty little shortcut to troubleshooting the cause of a mailstream block by using the following URL: http://xxxxxxxxx.xxxx.xxx/utilities/administration/mailstreams/TopDomainDrillDown.tml?domain=xxxx.xxx&current_list=xxxx

[thoughtsontechnology]

Default From, To, and Reply-To for messages sent through Lyris ListManager

Lyris question: I sent the message below out and checking it appears that it went out to everyone. However, two people emailed me and asked why I sent the message “just to them” as only their name was on the email and they could not see the listserv address to respond to all.

That's just how that list's settings were configured. In Utilities - List Settings - Email Submitted Content - Header Rewrites, the To address was set to %%nameemail%% and Reply-To email was set to author. By changing the To field to Listserv Name <[email protected]> recipients will now see that as the To line and can then click Reply All to send a message back to it. The default when they just click Reply should remain a message back to the author (note that some email clients ignore this field and default all replies to the address in the To line).

[thoughtsontechnology]

Create a List Administrator in Lyris ListManager

ListManager provides three levels of administrator permissions:

Server Administrator - granted access to everything, including overall technical configuration for the server

Site Administrator - granted access to all settings for all lists, but excluded from messing with the server configuration

List Administrator - granted access to all settings for just a specific list

At our organization I am the Server Admin and multiple coworkers have Site Admin privileges. However when a list is created with moderation turned on (for messages or subscriptions), and they need to get email alerts to approve those things in a timely manner, they also need to be designated as a List Admin. Here's how:

Subscribe them to the list (if they're not already)

In the List Admin tab tick the radio buttons for "Is list admin", "Receive list admin mail", and "Receive moderation notifications"

In the settings tab enter the same password that they currently use to login to ListManager. (Lyris requires setting a password for every List Admin account.)

It'll pop up a confirmation screen showing all of their admin roles. Click OK and you're done.

This method can also be used to create standalone List Administrators - i.e. someone doesn't have to be a Site Administrator to grant them access to manage the membership and settings of a single list.