Merged email address problem

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erikfj
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Merged email address problem

Post by erikfj »

*** Note: as requested by ACKNAK in this thread, this has been reported in the issue tracker as a bug, Issue # 98153 ***
*** http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=98153 ***

When using the mail merge feature in 3.0 with email as output, there appears to be a problem with email addresses that have a one letter domain name, at least if that one letter is "q". Valid email addresses for domain "q.com" are reported by the mailing function as "invalid" during the emailing operation. These email addresses have been validated with ordinary email clients (such as gmail, msn, etc.).
Last edited by erikfj on Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
OOo 3.0.X on Ms Windows XP + linux
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acknak
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Re: Merged email address problem

Post by acknak »

You've tried the merge with addresses in other domains, right? Are you absolutely sure that your email server is not rejecting the addresses for some reason? It seems unlikely that OOo is singling out "q.com" for failure.

I don't know what the accepted way is to test something like this. Sending test mails to "somebody@q.com" doesn't seem like a good thing to do.
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erikfj
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Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:30 pm

Re: Merged email address problem

Post by erikfj »

Yes, other domains don't have a problem. I have a mailing list of about 100 addresses, and only two are "@q.com" addresses. These addresses work fine with other mail clients, and the other 98 addresses (other than @q.com) work fine with the mail-merge email function. My guess is the programmer assumed a valid domain name required more than one letter. I don't know any single-letter domains other than q. Further, the smtp server (godaddy.com) I am using has no problem with a client (like outlook express) sending to @q.com through it. I have a q.com email address as well (it is QWEST's domain, for their DSL customers) and I just ran a test with my two addresses, a gmail.com and a q.com, and the q.com bounced with the mail merge function. The precise message in the dialog box is "Sending failed (invalid address" This looks like a message generated from within Open Office from a test of format (such as domain names longer than one letter?).
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acknak
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Re: Merged email address problem

Post by acknak »

Can you provide a q.com address I can send test messages to? Either post it ("test at q com") or email it to me if you'd rather keep it private.

Here's why I think it's not OOo that's rejecting the message: First, there's no reason for the client (OOo) to ever check for valid/invalid addresses or domains. The standard practice--as I understand it--is to pass the address to the server and let the server do the checking. Second, OOo's email client code is actually written in Python, and the source code is installed with OOo. On a Linux install it's in $INSTALL_ROOT/openoffice.org/basis3.0/program/mailmerge.py. I couldn't find any similar message in there, or any code that examines the address or the domain.

Of course, it could be some other code that's throwing the error, or I may have missed something. I think the next step is to simply test it through another mail server.

You might try running OOo from a command line/terminal window: the mailmerge.py code does print some error information to the terminal; that might shed more light on where the error is coming from.
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acknak
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Re: Merged email address problem

Post by acknak »

Well... my guess was 100% wrong; it looks like it's time to file a bug report.

I see the same problem as you: sending to other domains works; sending to recipients at "q.com" does not.

When I enable debugging output from the python mailer script, it's clear that OOo is not even contacting the outgoing mail server with the q.com addresses; OOo just fails them before even trying to send them.

[Tutorial] Reporting bugs or suggestions

Please post a link here to your report; if you need help to file it, just ask.
Last edited by acknak on Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed broken link
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