Blog by Email: No content is assumed

[jottlieb]

It seems, the Blog by Email functions is broken in WP 2.2.
Mails are recognized, but only the title/subject is assumed - no content. Content is empty :(
No matter if text email or html email.

Author = bla@example.org 
 
Content-type: text/plain, Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit, boundary: 
 
Raw content:
 
Author: 1
 
Posted title: Test
Posted content:
 
Mission complete, message 1 deleted.

jottlieb: I ran into this myself when I was setting up email blogging. I'm using dovecot as my pop3 server, if that could mean anything. I'm attaching a patch that solves it for me. I have not tested it with other POP3 servers can test it, it would be great.

The first change is what really fixes the problem. For some reason the blank line between the headers and the body was matching the original /^{\s+/, so I changed it to /}\s+\S+/ so it can be used to only match the overrun header lines.

The second change is for something different. Since the $line doesn't get called until after the while check is done, by the time the message ending period hits the while check, it had already been added by the previous iteration. I tried adding the fgets line before the while loop and moving the existing one to after the current line is added to existing MsgArray, but for some reason, this times out. And yet, the script does exactly what I tried in function uidl (though it appears that wordpress never calls it.) So I just added the check where it checks for end of buffer.

This version adds to the trailing period function to strip all leading periods added by the POP3 server.

I'm guessing no one saw the original patch, but I updated my patch to strip the extra periods added by the POP3 server according to RFC 1939.

Maybe adding in 'has-patch' will get someone's attention. ;)

This patch fixes the problem. This should be incorporated into 2.2.2 rather than waiting for 2.4.

This patch:

makes core functionality that used to work and is now broken start working again

and, importantly, can have NO possible effect on any other part of WordPress.

Considering this bug causes posts to be thrown out by WordPress - user's data is irretrievably lost - I'm upping the priority/severity.

Replying to cfactor:

I'm guessing no one saw the original patch, but I updated my patch to strip the extra periods added by the POP3 server according to RFC 1939.

This is also fixed upstream, but in a different way:
​http://squirrelmail.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/squirrelmail/branches/SM-1_4-STABLE/squirrelmail/plugins/mail_fetch/class.POP3.php?r1=12391&r2=12426

As for the other part. It should be reported upstream, so they can fix it at their end as well.

Scratch my remark about it being fixed upstream. That fix was for a similar issue in another part of the code. Their fix seems cleaner though, by not using ereg's.

Cleaner patch.

Replying to cfactor:

I couldn't get either attached patch to function correctly w/v2.2. I did find a work around that works beautifully for those who aren't as technically minded. Use the "Postie" plug-in and then add

<iframe src="​http://www.yoursite.com/blogdir/wp-content/plugins/postie/get_mail.php" name="mailiframe" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title=""></iframe>

to your footer. It causes the postie mail.php file to run every time you get a visitor to your blog. Unless you need instant posting, it is a great work around in my humble opinion.

Sorry for being out of touch. My mail server this account was sending mail to had a catastrophic hardware failure that caused it to go foom, and I've been too busy to fix it. Change the email setting to point to a webmail account for now.

Nazgul: your patch method of handling period is definitely cleaner and smarter, but it will add an extra blank line to the body of the message where the end of body period was, as that line would become "\r\n" and will not break on the empty($line) check. It probably won't matter to most people, but it's also not "proper."

sfmobius: I'd like to hear more about what happened when you tried either of our patches. When I was first setting up post-by-email, I thought about using Postie instead, but decided that I wanted to keep the installation simple and didn't want to add extra plugins I won't use. So yes, from what I've heard, Postie works well for a lot of people and is certainly more feature-rich. This fix is for those who want to stick with basic WordPress.

I've attached a full update patch to match current squirrelmail class-pop3.php

from: ​https://squirrelmail.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/squirrelmail/branches/SM-1_4-STABLE/squirrelmail/plugins/mail_fetch/class.POP3.php

Diff to update to current class-pop3.php from squirrelmail

Replying to cfactor:

Sorry for being out of touch. My mail server this account was sending mail to had a catastrophic hardware failure that caused it to go foom, and I've been too busy to fix it. Change the email setting to point to a webmail account for now.

Nazgul: your patch method of handling period is definitely cleaner and smarter, but it will add an extra blank line to the body of the message where the end of body period was, as that line would become "\r\n" and will not break on the empty($line) check. It probably won't matter to most people, but it's also not "proper."

sfmobius: I'd like to hear more about what happened when you tried either of our patches. When I was first setting up post-by-email, I thought about using Postie instead, but decided that I wanted to keep the installation simple and didn't want to add extra plugins I won't use. So yes, from what I've heard, Postie works well for a lot of people and is certainly more feature-rich. This fix is for those who want to stick with basic WordPress.

cfactor: followed here from your post on 4318. i am happy to reverify this fix. i have just been swapping in and out the wp-mail.php files to get post-by-mail to function. so i don't screw it up, if you could send a detailed list of how and where to apply patch (rob.shurtleff@…) i will be happy to test and report back

Replying to shadowdad:

cfactor: followed here from your post on 4318. i am happy to reverify this fix. i have just been swapping in and out the wp-mail.php files to get post-by-mail to function. so i don't screw it up, if you could send a detailed list of how and where to apply patch (rob.shurtleff@…) i will be happy to test and report back

I don't have a working install right now to test, but here's what you do:

Download *one* of the files above in Attachments. (you'll want to click on the link to the file and then click on the "Original Format" link at the bottom of the page.) The first one is the one I tested and "works-for-me." I see no reason 4337.diff will break anything more than what is already broken, and aside from the extra line issue, I don't see any reason not to use that over mine. But I have not tested it. I have not had a chance to read through or test 4337.2.diff.

Then assuming you have shell access to a unix-based system, cd into the wp-includes directory of the wordpress install, and run "patch --dry-run -P1 < patchfile" Replace "patchfile" with location and filename of the patch you downloaded. This will test the patch to see if it'll apply cleanly to your installation. If it you see no errors, run it again with out the "--dry-run" to actually apply the patch, and you're done.

(In [6044]) Update pop3 class to latest from squirrelmail. Props westi. see #4337

I committed the upstream updates to the pop3 class. Does that help this issue?

Closed #4318 as a duplicate of this one.

Haven't heard anything. Assuming fixed.

I don't know if I should open a new ticket but this problem is back, see

​http://wordpress.org/support/topic/152039?replies=3

I have verified exactly the same problem as the poster in WP 2.3.3

Upgraded to 2.6 and this is still happening from my Blackberry. Am using Postie for now, but any ideas when this will be fixed?

2.6.1 has been released, moving to 2.9 milestone.

Post-by-email needs a fair chunk of work.

is this still current?

Do we have a testcase for this? Can the reporter please confirm that this is still current? Are there others doing mail blogging?

I'd assume its still current, nothing has changed around here.

Test case: Send an email to WordPress through as many mail servers as you can until you find one that fails.

Include a full email (including headers) received by WordPress which fails. Until that happens, Its going to be hit-and-miss sorting it out.

Moving all blog-by-email bugs to a seperate component and out of 2.9.

This will all be address by a new canonical blog-by-email plugin which is under development and will hopefully be available by the time 2.9 is released.

Since blog-by-email is/has moved to a plugin, and since there hasn't been anything on here for 11 months, should the ticket be wontfix'd?

Replying to RyanMurphy:

Since blog-by-email is/has moved to a plugin, and since there hasn't been anything on here for 11 months, should the ticket be wontfix'd?

Once the plugin is released and we have confirmed this bug is resolved the ticket will be closed.

In version 3.2 'Post via email' is still part of WordPress I presume this is still an issue? Or are there still plans to develop a canonical blog-by-email plugin? Would be great if someone could tell more about this.

Any takers / closers?