Email Issues 
Users say that they do not receive emails from my site. What do I do?

First, make sure that you actually have turn on the email functions here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> Enable Email features -> Yes

Then verify that the email system for your forum is working via the Admin Control Panel. You can do that under diagnostics.

Admin Control Panel -> Maintenance -> Diagnostics -> Email Diagnostics

If there is an error stated, you can look at the logs for your mailer daemon to find out what error is occuring. If their is no error and the email is sent to the supplied address, then the issue is on the ISP/mailbox end. Continue reading further down this page for other suggestions.

If there is no error and you didn't get the emails then make sure you have a valid webmaster's email address in your Admin CP settings and that there is only one address. In addition make sure the domain on the email address matches the domain for your site. Otherwise some ISPs may treat this as spam. Then try this:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> Enable "-f" Parameter -> Yes

Then try the vB email functions again. If it still doesn't work, then this is either a server and/or mailbox issue. By default vB uses PHP's mail() function for all its email and uses the SMTP server specified in php.ini. If PHP and the mail server are configured correctly then email will work. You can view the details here: https://us3.php.net/mail/

To troubleshoot any email problems you will need to view the mail logs on the server to see what happened to those emails that don't work. Once vB sends it to PHP it's in the hands of the server. If you are on a shared server you may need to ask your host to look through the logs for you.

Many large service providers such as Verizon, AOL and MSN are implementing aggressive filtering. In many cases, the customers of these providers can place the email address you use for notification in their contact list and then your emails will be allowed through. If this doesn't work, you should contact the provider in question and ask to be placed on their whitelist. Some providers will charge a listing fee for this.

In addition, AOL (and possibly others) will not accept emails from domains that do not have reverse DNS setup. It's possible these emails are being placed into a spam folder or are being filtered.

The problem could also be caused by aggressive spam filters on the user's machine. In these cases their anti-spam software should be configured to allow emails from your domain name. Refer them to the documentation for the software they are using.

If all else fails you can switch to the SMTP mail option to see if this works better for you. These settings are here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options -> SMTP Email -> Yes

Then fill out the appropriate SMTP settings for your account and server.

My host only allows me to send a certain number of emails per hour to control spam. How can I make vBulletin get around this limitation?
You cannot circumvent hard limitations created by your hosting provider. However, you can use vBulletin's SMTP email processing to point the software to an off-site email provider with more privileges.

Admin Control Panel -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options

Email is sent as "[email protected]"
You need to enable the "-f parameter" in vBulletin. This sends the email address specified in the Admin Control Panel to the email client.

Admin Control Panel -> vBulletin Options -> Email Options.

For more information please see:
https://us3.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php

Email from my forums is blocked
One of the reasons for email being blocked is if it is coming from a different domain than what is in the 'From' email address. To ensure a better chance of your email getting through, make sure the Webmaster's email address is using the same domain as your forums.

Error: unrouteable mail domain "****.com"
This problem is caused by this option being checked in WebHost Manager for the server:

Prevent the user 'nobody' from sending out mail to remote addresses (php and cgi scripts generally run as nobody if you are not using phpsuexec and suexec respectively.)

Unchecking this option should stop this problem. You will of course need to have root access to the server to do this. If you don't, then you'll need to ask your web host to do this for you.

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise
McAfee VirusScan Enterprise blocks SMTP port 25 by default, which blocks all emails from being sent. Eliminating or changing that rule will allow emails to go through.

How can I send emails as HTML
vBulletin does not support HTML emails at this time.
Brian A. Harper 13th Nov 2007, 01:06pm
On windows 2003, use smtp server, port 25. Then in IIS6 manager, enable 127.0.0.1 for relay, and mail will work perfectly.
Brian Greul 15th May 2009, 10:11pm
For Godaddy and Bluerazor, make sure you setup a email account. The email (admin / contact) must match the domain. i.e. if you are hosting forum.example.com your email must be [email protected] or godaddy will zap it and your site will not work.