tools/mailnotify doesn't send out emails

Hi,

I installed foswiki 1.0.4 from the Ubuntu/Debian repositories ( http://fosiki.com/Foswiki_debian/ ) with a selection of extensions. After some configuring everything seems to run fine... except the notification feature.

• I configured exim4 to use a gmail-account to send out emails from my Ubuntu 8.10 box.
• I added some users to the WebNotify topic as explained in the help-topic.
• I also added the following line to /etc/crontab .
  0 5     * * *   root    cd /var/lib/foswiki && perl -I /usr/lib/cgi-bin/foswiki/ -I bin tools/mailnotify -q -Sandbox

So I would expect that every day at 5 o'clock in the morning a notification mail will be sent out to all users listed in the WebNotify of each Web... ...well I don't get any notification mails at all.

cron can send emails for other stuff and even foswiki can send emails for example for the registration of new users. But notifications aren't sent at all. There is no error-message in /var/lib/foswiki/log/* or in /var/log/* .

Can any of you help me fix this?

Thanx a lot in advance,
Don

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First be sure there are changes to report. That is, make some modification in the subscribed topics.

Then run this to see whats happening

• cd /var/lib/foswiki
• sudo perl -I /usr/lib/cgi-bin/foswiki/ -I bin tools/mailnotify

My paths are different because I installed manually. The point is you must cd to the directory where tools directory is located. So when I run this

VC\cadalso@inf-admin:~$ cd /var/www/foswiki
VC\cadalso@inf-admin:/var/www/foswiki$ sudo perl -I /var/www/foswiki/bin/ -I bin tools/mailnotify

I receive this output

Processing Main
   Main has no subscribers
Processing Sandbox
   Sandbox has no subscribers
Processing System
   System has no subscribers
Processing TWiki
   TWiki has no subscribers
Processing Trash
   Trash has no subscribers

-- EnriqueCadalso - 24 Apr 2009

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Hi Enrique,

That's exactly what my cron-job does. If I execute the command without the "-q" parameter I get the following output.

Processing Main
   * testnotify@mymail.mydomain.ch: *
        Last notification was at 2009-04-24T17:00:13Z
        Change to AjaxMail at 2009-04-27T13:26:06Z. New revision is 4
        Change to OtherStuff at 2009-04-27T13:24:21Z. New revision is 1
        Change to UserRating at 2009-04-27T13:24:15Z. New revision is 1
        Change to MeetingMinutes at 2009-04-27T13:24:08Z. New revision is 1
        Change to RevenueStreams at 2009-04-27T13:22:44Z. New revision is 4
Processing System
        System has no subscribers
Processing TWiki
        TWiki has no subscribers
Processing Trash
        Trash has no subscribers
        0 change notifications from Main

I don't understand the reason for the last line "0 change notifications from Main". There are changes, there are subscribers and foswiki is able to send emails. Why doesn't it do it?

Cheers, Don

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Try removing the : * from the WebNotify topic. Set it to be just:

   * testnotify@mymail.mydomain.ch

-- EnriqueCadalso - 27 Apr 2009

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Hi Enrique,

the : * is generated only by the mailnotify-script. The code in my WebNotify-Topic was:

= * DonBusi - mymail@myserver.com=

just as in the Example. But I tried arround a bit with the syntax and when I removed the email-address, the mails were sent out.

Solution

Dont use the syntax

 
  * Web.UserName - mymail@myserver.com

in the WebNotify topic as it was shown as an example in TWiki, but only

   * Web.UserName : topiclist

Thanx for your help. -- DonBusi - 28 Apr 2009