Having problem with voting form double opt-in
 

Hi Guys...

I have written a script, in php and mysql, to record votes.
What the script does is to display a form, with about 20 fields, to vote for your choice in about 20 categories.
I have made only 3 fields compulsary; Name, Email and Country.
In order to avoid spam and duplication I have used a double opt-in system.
i.e. when the 'Vote Now' button is clicked the script sends an email to the voter and includes a link back to the script to register the vote. It also checks that the email has not previously voted.

I have a voter who says that she does not receive a verification email to return the vote. She also says that she has 3 friends who do not receive the verification email.

In order to check possible problems, I have sent an email direct from my computer which she received. I have also sent an email directly from the server command line which she received.
I thought a possibility was because of the long link so I sent an email direcly from the server and included the verification link. She received that also.

Her email address is: @hotmail.co.uk and a friend is: @hotmail.com.
I checked for hotmail email addresses in the database and other people have registered their votes with a hotmail email address. Therefore it is not hotmail that is blocking mail from a form.

I am now stumped as to why she cannot receive.

Can anybody think of any possible reason that I can check ???

Thanks,

A common problem is insufficient headers (no From: field), or discrepancy between the From: header and the envelope sender.

Send a message to yourself using the server commandline, then vote using the same e-mail address. (You can send them to me, if you want me to take a look.) The two messages should have identical header fields. Most e-mail clients don't show the header details, so be sure to switch on the detailed header view. Better yet, save the e-mails as text files, obscure any identifying fields, and post them here, and we can take a look.

Hi NA...
Thanks for your prompt reply>
here is the email from the command line:
Here is the email from the form:
The main difference that I can see, in the headers of the voting form is:
hth

John C

The output is line-wrapped, so it'd be better if you could retry using the e-mail address I provided for you privately for this. It is OK if there are a couple of extra copies.

I suspect the problem is in the From: headers. Consider this in the e-mail sent by the form:
In the command-line message, the From: header is
If the From: header does not match the host (early) in the receive chain, most spam filters assume the message is spam. That is a common spoofing technique, after all. I suggest you check this by replacing the value your form supplies for the From: header to something@redvelvet.gvl99.co.uk .