Luftwaffe Archives and Records Group (LWAG) site in trouble yet again

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

I have just posted a notice on the LWAG website addressed to all members and prospective new members about a new development that threatens the site's existence. The notice reads:

"Dear members and prospective new members,

Over the last month about half a dozen of you have registered to become members, but never were confirmed into the membership. Sometimes things happen and it takes a while for me to recognize the pattern. When the site goes awry, there are sometimes no red flares that shoot up into the air proclaiming that a problem exists. This is one of those cases.

A nagging ongoing problem has been the lack of actual e-mail from the site's host, 24hostingnow.com. Thus, when the site goes down, I have been forced to contact 2Checkout.com, the business handling the site's billing, to contact 24hostingnow.com and alert them of the situation. So far, this has worked, with rather a quick response. Thus, while inconvenient for me and an unnecessary bother to 2Checkout.com, the site has continued to function.

However, I noticed that I had not received a notice of confirmation from any of the prospective new members in about a month and suspected there was a deeper issue going on. When you register, the site is supposed to send you an e-mail to which you must respond in order for me to admit you into membership. Apparently, it isn't sending out this e-mail. I have enlisted the aid of 2Checkout.com, as well as tried on my own, to repeatedly establish direct contact with 24hostingnow.com to resolve this current problem, but, so far, to no avail.

Yesterday, I started Googling around to try to find out more. Google's listing for the host's website resulted in a non-response, as if the host may have either gotten itself into trouble or possibly had gone out of business. I then read 2 review sites and it appears that 24hostingnow.com has had major troubles for the last 6 to 12 months - as one reviewer indicated, it seemed to be defunct. Obviously, there is a server running somewhere that is still running the site and someone appears to correct problems when the site is down, but without actual response via e-mail.

That's the situation as it currently stands. My apologies to all for this current mess. I am likely now faced with the problem of finding a new host service for the site and getting it migrated there. I may not have the technical help to do it, which means the continuation of the site may be at risk. I certainly am not a website guru. I have provided the site since 2000 as a service to all those interested in Luftwaffe history. I am certainly open to suggestions."

If I am to migrate LWAG to a new host, obviously I need to find a reliable one. What 24hostingnow.com provided was 1 GB of space and 24-hour tech support all for $100 per year, which I paid out of my own pocket. I am looking for recommendations as to possible hosting companies. Has anyone got any suggestions?

Regards,
Richard

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear All,

Here is a further update as posted on LWAG on the situation as I addressed the membership sign-up issue for prospective new members. In a nutshell, the system works, but the confirmining e-mail is more than likely ending up in the prospective new member's spam folder. If he fails to look for it here, he'll never complete the membership registration:

"Dear prospective new members,

As I had mentioned in my previous message, about a month ago I seemed to have stopped getting the required reply to the site's confirming e-mail for new members. I have now independently checked the registration process and the system is working, but quite likely the confirming e-mail from the site to which you must respond is being diverted to your spam folder. Therefore, you will need to retrieve it from this folder in order to complete the registration process.

My guess is that heightened spam attacks have forced many Internet Service Providers to put tighter restrictions on whether to accept a piece of e-mail as legitimate or treat it as spam. I will investigate further to see if the site's e-mail can be "desensitized" to avoid it ending up in your spam folder. But, for now, this is likely where you will have to go if you want to become a site member.

In the meantime, I will continue to pursue the service provider issue noted in my previous e-mail."

Regards,
Richard

[Ruy Horta]

Richard,

If I understand correctly this is a problem that is caused by the new member's isp mail settings. Many providers block e-mail generated by php and vBulletin does use this method for e-mail (including the registration process). The only way around this is to set up the mail to be send through smtp.

TOCH! has had the same issue for some time, some people will not get their activation E-mail, but I haven't had any time to change the settings / set up a new mail routine.

Hope this helps.

[Richard T. Eger]

Dear Ruy,

I did get a bit of advice from one of the vBulletin forums. There, Dave suggested that one of the phrases in the site's e-mail message was acting as a spam trigger:

"Thank you for registering at"

Dave said that he's picked up the phrase as loaded on some spam filter programs. To edit text within vBulletin, Dave recommended utilizing the following path:

Admin CP > Languages and phrases > Search in phrases

I tried this and it looks like you can edit this way. I've asked Dave for further information, which I will share as I get it.

Regarding LWAG's host, 24hostingnow.com, that does still seem to be a problem. At the moment, for about the 4th time in less that 3 months, the site is offline. I'll contact 2Checkout.com when their office is open to try to get it back up yet again.

One of the vBulletin forums lists about 8 recommended hosts for vBulletin. Frankly, I've never heard of any of them. I may have to pursue this as well as chase down the problem with registration.

Regards,
Richard