Having just upgraded to Dada Mail 6.6.0, I was wondering if a problem I have been having with “Return-path: <>” that apparently causes Bounce Handler to prematurely delete bounce notifications had disappeared.  Unfortunately, not.

This was my test procedure:

- add a known-to-be non-existent email address at a partner agency to my mailing list

- send a test message using “Partial Mail List Sending” where Email Address >> Is like >> moreinfo@PROTECTED by clicking Send Mass Mailing

- email bounces with notification in my bounce file, bounces@PROTECTED, that reads as follows:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

  bounce@my_service_provider.com

    (generated from moreinfo@PROTECTED)

    There is no one at this address

------ This is a copy of the message's headers. ------

Return-path: bounces@PROTECTED

Notwithstanding the above, in the actual message header the Return-path is empty:

Return-path: <>

Envelope-to: bounces@PROTECTED

Delivery-date: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:36:30 -0400

(The first line of the header in the list owner’s notification reads “Return-path: bounces@PROTECTED” so I think the problem is my service provider stripping out the email address.)

The result of all this is that when I run the Bounce Handler against bounces@PROTECTED, I get this message from Dada Mail:

Guessed_MTA: Exim

Bounce_Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

* Using Rule: permanent_error

Bounced Message is from an email address that isn't subscribed to: newsletter. Ignorning.

Forwarding bounces message to the List Owner (newsletter@PROTECTED)

deleting message #: 1

Saving Scores...

No scores to tally.

Unsubscribing bouncing addresses:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I see “permanent_error” I figure that’s okay, but on the next line I see that BounceHandler.pm is telling me the email address to which the message was sent “isn’t subscribed”.  But it most assuredly is because, as I said, I used “Partial Mailing List Sending” and only put in the “moreinfo” part of the email address.  So where else could the mailing program have got the email address from other than my list – to which I had manually added the address an hour prior.

In this case I don’t mind Dada Mail deleting the message (although I can imagine circumstances where I would mind!), but I sure would like to know why Dada Mail thinks that the address isn’t subscribed.  Is it because Dada Mail is checking the Return-path in the header, sees “Return-path: <>” and processes the email address as an empty string (in BounceHandler.pm at line 681) and deletes the message?  But doesn’t unsubscribe anything because there is no address in the list corresponding to the empty string?  At the end of all this I deleted the address manually so there is no question that it was still there.

I believe the cause of this is my hosting provider stripping out the Return-path from the bounce notifications, but I still have to deal with it.  Any thoughts on what would need to be done in BounceHandler.pm to work around this?

Thanks,

Gerald Fox