Cowboy Denny

I am attempting at using SES as recommended as a solution and added the SMTP settings but when I try and send email from the server using the SES SMTP settings and using the from address as a verified email address in SES I'm getting the following error when trying to send a test email

IPS\Email\Outgoing\Exception: The SMTP server returned an unexpected response code: (0)

Any ideas?

2 hours ago, Randy Calvert said:

AWS does not allow their servers to run SMTP directly.  You would want to setup outbound SMTP through SES. 

In further looking…. There might be a way to remove the restriction on the port. 

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/ec2-port-25-throttle/

What if sending secure (port 465) instead of non-secure (25), Does AWS block that as well?  I'm guessing they do but would like to know for sure.  That's how it's configured and not working.

Since I moved my site to AWS Lightsail cpanel/whm instance I can not send mail using PHP or SMTP but I have had luck sending using sendgrid until it comes to password resets (lost password).

When the user gets an email it is getting this url4620.domain.com added in front of the domain name.  I thought it might have something to do with tracking on send grid but I confirmed no tracking is turned on.

My preference is to use SMTP or PHP but I know lots of issues sending mail from AWS hosted servers so I'm okay using send grid but need the lost password to send a valid Link in the email.

Any help is appreciated.

On 1/22/2023 at 1:53 PM, Serathy said:

Great! Do you use lightsail? How do you run SSH in AWS. They use so much shorthand that I've never come across. If you can be as detailed as possible... I'm pretty slow. Thanks a million.

EDIT: Also what if I just wanted to host on amazon?

I'll give you a quick highlevel of my sites (I have multiple hosted on the same AWS server)

I'm not AWS genius and wanted to dip my toes in the water with hosting my websites in AWS.

Previous hosting was LiquidWeb VPS (so I had WHM/cPanel).  LiquidWeb was fantastic and the advantage of LiquidWeb over AWS is they supply instant support (via ticket or calling 24x7) so if you aren't so savy on maintaining a server, they are fantastic but only if you get the "managed" service which obviously cost more.

Now knowing all that..  I cheated a bit...  I created my AWS Console account, selected Lightsail and choose the WHM/cPanel version (since its what I'm familar with).  You will need to purchase a cPanel license (if you don't already have one) and register it to the static IP you set on your Lightsail instance.  Its pretty cheap (like $10 or something)...

Once its all booted up I logged into WHM (https://staticIPaddress:2087) and ran the option: Transfer which when you click on transfer you provide the IP address of your old WHM server, root and password.  After that.. it transfers everything and updates everything from old IP to new IP.  it was so darn easy.  It transferred all the emails, settings..   I mean, it couldn't of been easier.

Then I transferred my domains from Google Registrar to Route53 (Amazon DNS) not that you have to but since my crap is business I just one one bill that I can charge my customers.

Only hiccup I had was email.  I added the ports to my Lightsail Firewall but still issues sending emails from by IPS board...  so I leveraged sendgrid API which works great but is limited to 100 emails for the free account which I don't think will be an issue.

Hope that helps..  again, its high level but I was very impressed.  Previously I did the EC2 instance because I wanted to load all my own software and have my control but honestly it was a headache for me personally.  Using lightsail was WAY easier...  if you already have a WHM/cPanel you want to transfer everything from.

NOTE: if you do the transfer of WHM/cPanel note that it will disable your account on the old box.  There may be a setting to not do this but it was fine for me since the websites never even went down.

2 hours ago, Pescao6 said:

Something with the user registration broke on our website after we upgraded from IPS 4.7.5 to 4.7.6.

I'm proud to say that our host hostingsupremo.com just performed a successful JetBackup restore for us!

JetBackup addon for cPanel only being $6/mo isn't bad at all for what it can do.  When you pair it with AWS S3 bucket its not bad since you don't get charged for what you put in the S3 bucket, just when you pull stuff out and I typically (knock on wood) don't have to restore often.

Thanks Jim, I just moved IPS from the outstanding LiquidWeb to AWS myself and using JetBackups to backup my site hourly.  I found a solution..  pretty easy to restore down to the file if need be.

• AWS Lightsail
• cPanel/WHM
• JetBackups

Again thank you everyone for the feedback.

On 1/19/2023 at 6:10 PM, Randy Calvert said:

Personally I'm using CiC now so that I don't have to worry about it anymore.  

But for sites in AWS, I utilized its backup capabilities to backup both my web servers and database server.  

Prior to that, I utilized DirectAdmin as a control panel and used its built in daily backup system.  

I also have a Synology SAN at home, so I used it to make an offsite weekly backup using ActiveBackup to rsync the site once a week.  I also had a cron script that exported a copy of the database on a weekly basis (overwriting the old version) that ran an hour before my ActiveBackup job ran so that I would have a recent export of the database as well.  

That gave me a backup local on the server that was done daily and a weekly backup that was stored off-site (at home).  

 

what is CiC?  I don't want to worry about backup anymore.

14 hours ago, Richard Arch said:

What's that saying "its the best thing since sliced bread!"

I have used an FTP program to download the files which takes ages but using File Manger in CPanel, right click on the Forums folder then Compress gives you zipped up full file backup of the all the files.  Or even quicker open the Forums folder select the lot then exclude the Uploads folder for an event quicker backup with all the uploaded images/video etc. which is enough for a restore after a failed upgrade.

As for database, its even easier.  Select Backup from CPanel then click on the database you want to backup, soon you get a file downloading (a compressed SQL file) of the whole database.  Easy to restore too, just use the "Restore a MySQL Database Backup" from the same place.  You can also use the same file with phpMyAdmin and import it to a new database to give you a copy.

Because I know my way around this tool, a full back up before an update takes minutes.

I suggest you take another look at CPanel...

Thanks RIchard for the details and yea I'm familar with this but who has time to do this manually every day?  I know manual is "okay" but seriously if this could be done automatically then we would have a winner but until then its almost impossible to do when you host many sites.

Wordpress has several awesome choices that I have used previously that backs your site up and sends the files and database off to your choice, dropbox, google drive, ftp site, etc.. and restore you can do with just a base wordpress site.  I know we all have a choice of which CMS we want to use and some are stronger than others.  I really enjoy Invision Community and have been with them for a long long time and I invest MUCH money building applications for my business on Invision (not any other CMS) so its unfortunate that an automated backup solution doesn't exist.

I realize this is an old topic BUT it is still open ended.  We know that Invision has no interest in helping us backup or restore our site using a solution they provide so we are on our own.

What does everyone use successfully to backup your Invision Community site and Restore?  Don't say cloud since its stupid expensive and you are limited.  Using a Hosting Provider you have so many more options then cloud.

Let's keep this strictly... How do you Backup your site and then How do you Restore your site?  Both but include Files and Database but not required to restore both.

CPanel SUCKS for backups..  must be better options that don't cost a fortune.

10 minutes ago, Jim M said:

Believe you may be thinking of support requests rather than the contact us form. The contact us form has always just been what you see now.

Thanks for the response Jim...  I thought for sure that I had Contact Us setup to send to Support Request which is why we got the option for which Department when you click Contact Us.  I guess I'm going crazy (which might be due to these Genius Mushrooms).

So what I'm hearing is this isn't possible without paying someone for an app to make it happen.  It is what it is...

18 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

You select a department to create support request, as you can see in your own screenshot, not to user choose.

Thanks Adriano..  I know that I had this feature before where someone submitting a Contact Us could select what Department and when you selected what Department you could have Custom Fields attached to that Department.

Example: DJ Consulting I would have Date of Event to help look for availability since currently Invision Community doesn't have a way to check for availability on certain date & time.  Downfall to using IPS vs Wordpress which has this feature x10 but I'm all in with IPS but get jealous with some Wordpress features.

I see you offer this ability Adriano in a software solution you supply in Marketplace but I don't really want to spend $30 the first year and $10 every year after that just to allow a user to select a department via Contact Us which seems it should be built in feature.

Thought the Forms app would of worked but it doesn't either.

Hello...  I know I had this setup before without using another plugin that I have to pay every year for where if someone click Contact Us, they have a choice of Departments to choose from.

Now when I setup Contact Us in ACP you have to pick a department that the Contact Us goes to.  I can possibly understand this as a need but I should also be able to click multiple departments and if multiple departments are selected a dropdown is presented to user.

 I have my departments setup

When I try and setup the Contact Form to show Departments I have to select A department which means no departments are ever shown to the user and I know I use to have this feature setup where a user would select what department to send the request to.

Since you have to select a department you get the boring

Could someone help me figure out what I am missing?  I know I had this ability before without spending money every year.

18 hours ago, aXenDev said:

Please write to me in PM. I'll check this in your website for you.

PM sent.  Thank You

15 hours ago, aXenDev said:

You have probably custom CSS here.

22 hours ago, Cowboy Denny said:

I tried to disable every application on my site to see if the grayed out text when on dark mode comes back but it doesn't.  And I have your theme running so not sure where else custom CSS code could be coming from.

Just thought I'd let you know what I tried unsuccessfully.

i just installed this theme on our site eventguyz.com and the day time theme looks pretty good

something is happening to the text when it goes dark time theme

also the ACP menu seems all jacked

One last question...  anyway to add "Link Location" to Links in Clubs?

5 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

Not sure why you’re mentioning URL. You don’t have access to URL; it is in the script. You just need to enter the API Key and Secret Phrase. The app will do the rest.

If there was something wrong with it, it wouldn’t work on my test.

OMG am I dumb ass trying to make this more complicated than it is.  I have been trying to format the correct API URL with key this whole time when all you have to do is enter the 6 digit API key and the secret phrase.

Sorry for wasting your time but in about 10min of your time you helped me get something working I haven't ever had working since I purchased links over a year ago so thank you for being smarter than me.  🙂

1 minute ago, Adriano Faria said:

Mine is NNlNlN, N = number and l = lowercase letter. Not sure if the format is the same for everyone else.

You have also the Secret phrase. Mine is just a word, without spaces. 

thanks..  my key=lNNNll but either way 6 characters

And the URL to you is the same (no ? or & characters)

https://api.screenshotmachine.com/key=NNININ

Thanks..  could you help me confirm the format for the API Key

https://api.screenshotmachine.com/?key=

obviously I would put my key in after the = without a space but does this look correct to you?

Hey Adriano..  still loving links app and use it fairly decently on the website.  I don't even really want to mention this because I can see 57 pages of this forum post talking about the screenshots and issues with it but wanted to share my experience so you can point out what I've been doing wrong.

I had the default miniature.io set under the Image Settings option and no screenshots even if I clicked rebuild thumbnails so I saw one of your posts that you recommend using something else so I tried the free screenshotmachine but could never get it to work.. kept saying invalid key.  This is how I set it up

on the screenshotmachine website with the free account (limits you to 100 images per month which is no biggie)

NOTE: I blurred out my key

Then I head over to my website and go to image settings under links and paste the api key and add the secret phrase by copying from screenshotmachine and pasting on my site settings (so no typos, no spaces, etc)

But results I get the Invalid API Key even though its correct from what I did above

From what you see above, is there anything obvious that I'm doing wrong to get the screenshotmachine Image Settings to work?

13 hours ago, Adriano Faria said:

I can’t reproduce with category. It was fixed in 4.7.2 or 4.7.2.1.

I appreciate you trying.  It turned out it did have categories.php where you said.  When I looked before I looked under a different site and not the site that is having the issue.  I removed catagories.php since catagory.php was present. Site is still Locked so I still can't use Links Directory and not sure if I have to wait until a new version comes out of Links Directory or do I Uninstall it and reinstall and loose everything (not that I have a ton).

It appears I don't have categories.php, just category.php so I must have another issue going on.

I'll try and poke around and see if I can see the issue anywhere else

Looks like the newest release of IP (4.7.4) breaks the Link Directory again with php8 incompatibility issues.

Just figured you might want to know as quick as possible before the flood of posts come in.  🙂

I noticed Invision locked the app (it was enabled until upgrade to 4.7.4)

Thanks again for your continued support for FORMS app.

Your update (1.4.6) has cleared up the PHP8 Incompatible ERROR I was receiving but it brought another error which only displays when FORMS is enabled and goes away as soon as I disabled the FORMS app.  And yes I tried three different themes and the same error exists.  Just figured you might want to know.

I too have errors with the Classifieds application when enabled on 4.7.3 running php 8.x and the only way to get my site to display is to disable classifieds.  Hoping an update is coming since I do like the app