Question

Hi, I've tried to get WebNotify working for ages, looked at all related issues here and gone through the docs over and over and can't find a problem with my setup.

3 Users in the WebNotify page for the Main web identified by their wikiname, all have email addresses entered in user details. Cron job is set to run mailnotify every day and according to cron logs this is happening.

Manually deleting timestamp with:

rm working/work_areas/MailerContrib/Main

then manually running mailnotify:

[root@www twiki]# perl -I bin tools/mailnotify
Processing Main
   * ChrisCouchman: *
   * MauriceTorcasio: *
   * OwenKaluza: *
        Last notification was at 1970-01-01T10:00:00
        Change to WebNotify at 2008-12-02T15:35:42. New revision is 15
        Change to CountFloatUpdate at 2008-12-02T15:20:38. New revision is 6
        Change to CountFloatTasksList at 2008-12-02T14:57:13. New revision is 5
        Change to CountFloatTasksList at 2008-12-02T13:56:43. New revision is 4
        Change to CollaborativeSoftwareDevelopment at 2008-12-02T13:48:12. New revision is 2
        Change to WebNotify at 2008-12-02T13:42:11. New revision is 14
        Change to CountFloatTasksList at 2008-11-28T17:18:18. New revision is 3
        Change to WebPreferences at 2008-11-28T17:06:41. New revision is 26
Processing Sandbox
        Sandbox has no subscribers
Processing TWiki
        TWiki has no subscribers
Processing Trash
        Trash has no subscribers
        0 change notifications from Main

It seems to be identifying subscribed users and changes made today but according to last line above is not generating any notifications, anyone know why?

(Edit: also tested Net::SMTP with a simple perl script using the same server address I have configured for twiki, seems to be working fine, no errors and test message is received instantly)

Environment

-- OwenKaluza - 02 Dec 2008

Answer

If you answer a question - or someone answered one of your questions - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status selector is below the edit box.

In Main.WebNotify instead of

   * ChrisCouchman: *
   * MauriceTorcasio: *
   * OwenKaluza: *

try this

   * ChrisCouchman - chishmail@yourdomain.com
   * MauriceTorcasio - maureicemail@yourdomain.com
   * OwenKaluza - owen@yourdomain.com

-- EnriqueCadalso - 03 Dec 2008

Thanks Enrique, tried but same result: "0 change notifications from Main"

-- OwenKaluza - 03 Dec 2008

I've been running two TWikis and had that problem with one and not the other. In my case it turned out to be the syntax on the WebNotify topic that was the problem.

The working syntax was:

This is a subscription service to be automatically notified by e-mail when topics change in this *<nop>%WEB%* web. This is a convenient service, so you do not have to come back and check all the time if something has changed. To subscribe, please add a bullet with your %SYSTEMWEB%.WikiName in alphabetical order to this list:<br /><br />

   * Main.MyGroup : * - Web*

<br />
<br />
%INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.WebChangesAlert"}%<br /><br />__Related topics:__ %SYSTEMWEB%.WebChangesAlert, %USERSWEB%.%WIKIUSERSTOPIC%, %SYSTEMWEB%.TWikiRegistration

and the broken syntax was:

%MAKETEXT{"This is a subscription service to be automatically notified by e-mail when topics change in this [_1] web. This is a convenient service, so you do not have to come back and check all the time if something has changed. To subscribe, please add a bullet with your [_2] in alphabetical order to this list:" args="*<nop>%WEB%*,%SYSTEMWEB%.WikiName"}%

   * Main.MyGroup : - Web* 

%INCLUDE{"%SYSTEMWEB%.WebChangesAlert"}%

__%MAKETEXT{"Related topics:"}%__ %SYSTEMWEB%.WebChangesAlert, %SYSTEMWEB%.TWikiRegistration

My guess is that it's the manual breaks surrounding the notify list that corrects the problem, but I just copied the entire working version over in my case and got it to work.

-- ScottErnst - 03 Dec 2008

The implementation is not so forgiving to syntax errors. May be a developer will fix that. If you are one, join the TWiki community. See ReadmeFirst.

-- PeterThoeny - 04 Dec 2008

Hi Scott, thanks, tried that but didn't seem to change anything. I found something in the warning log files...

| 04 Dec 2008 - 12:19 | (TWiki::Contrib::MailerContrib::WebNotify) Failed to find permitted email for ' * OwenKaluza: *' when processing web 'Main'

This error occurs for all users, yet they all have an email address entered in their user details. If I add the email addresses to the WebNotify page as Enrique suggested it prevents this error but still no notifications are sent.

-- OwenKaluza - 04 Dec 2008

Check if the users have proper e-mail listed in the .htpasswd file.

-- PeterThoeny - 04 Dec 2008

Hi Peter and thanks but my twiki/data/.htpasswd file just lists all the users as follows:

WikiName:encryptedpass

-- OwenKaluza - 04 Dec 2008

It looks like you modified that file with the htpasswd utility, which will strip away the e-mail address.

Here is an example on how an entry should look like:

TWikiGuest:hl8FHOvpJcKaw:guest@example.com

Fix: Restore your .htpasswd from backup, or manually add a colon and the e-mail address to each entry.

-- PeterThoeny - 04 Dec 2008

Ahah, now why did I go and do something like that, oops. Thanks so much, fixed now.

-- OwenKaluza - 04 Dec 2008