There's always one more issue!

It has been reported to me that if you are a GMAIL user and follow the steps below, you still may be unable to send emails.  Specifically, you may get an error message saying that your password is wrong, even though it's correct.  You may also get an email from Google, telling you that they've blocked access from an unknown application that was trying to use your username and password to send emails.

At this point you have two options:

1.       You can allow the HarmonySite "app" to access your account to send emails.  You only have to do this once.  Do this by first logging in your Gmail account, and then visiting this page:  https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps.   Note that the HarmonySite "app" is still fully secure - it's just not yet recognised as such by Google.

2.       If you're not comfortable with option 1, you can return your HarmonySite member profile settings back to the way they were:  No password entered, and the "provider" set to "Not specified".  You emails to other members SHOULD still all get delivered - Gmail is NOT one of the problem providers at this point in time, like Yahoo and Hotmail.  Its inclusion in the list was really only for completeness.  However, that may change in the future (it usually does).  If it does, your emails MAY not be delivered to all other members.

Please advise your members.

And as always, thanks for your patience with this issue.

Mark.

Dear HarmonySite administrator,

The rules change yet again.  More email providers (Hotmail, Gmail, etc) are refusing to accept certain types of emails sent from websites like ours.  They will often only accept emails sent direct from the servers owned by the email account holder (e.g. Emails from Hotmail users will only be accepted if they are sent through the Hotmail servers, etc).  Our problem is that we want to be able to send out emails via the website and mailing lists that are seen as being "from" each member's own personal email address.  In the modern world of profligate spam, this is becoming not only a luxury, but almost impossible.

The way things have been going, we were faced with the very real possibility that we would simply not be able to maintain email lists in our website and allow members to send emails to all other members whenever they wished.

But I've been bashing my head against this problem for the last few days and have come up with some new ways around these rules.  The new code WILL in fact send out emails from the website via the correct servers (Hotmail, Gmail, etc), but only if some of your members make a small change to their member profile.

So could you please pass this on to all your members...

Dear members,

If the email address we have on file for you in the website member database is provided by any of the following providers...

·         Gmail (including Google Apps)

·         Hotmail/Outlook.com/Live

·         Yahoo

·         AOL

·         Sympatico/Bell Canada

...then please do the following...

1.       Log into the website Members Area in the usual way

2.       In the "Update My Details" box, click the button called "Update my personal details"

3.       Locate your email address, and look for the new big orange box of text underneath it.  Read the text in that box.

4.       Under that box, select your email provider

5.       In the password box, type in the password that you use to access your email Inbox (i.e. the password you would use to log into your email provider's website (Gmail, Hotmail, etc).  This is NOT necessarily the password you use to access OUR website.

6.       Click "Save" at the bottom.

If you do NOT do this, the emails you send from the website may not make it to some recipients.

Finally, if you're one of the people affected by the above, please be aware that if you wish to send emails to any of the MAILING LISTS (e.g. the Members Mailing List - members@...  ), then it's a good idea to send the email via the WEBSITE, NOT via your own email program.  If you send an email from your own email program to one of the mailing lists, then there will be a small handful of people who MAY not receive it.  To guarantee delivery to ALL members, please send the email via the website.

Naturally, you should follow those steps yourself FIRST - if they apply to you.  Once you've adjusted your own member record in the website database, then you can let the other members know.

I apologise for these continuing hassles.  It's not like it was in the old days (c. 2011) when you could send out emails from a website however you wanted.  These days it's something of a minor miracle if you can get a website to send out emails that are "from" an email address that doesn't match the website's address.

Thanks again for your patience,

Mark Virtue

HarmonySite

Australia

business: +61 2 8005 4277

mobile: +61 411 170517

mark@harmonysite.com

www.harmonysite.com