Unable to send draft email via web UI
 

I keep getting an error when I click send.
Have tried reloading the page. Using Firefox (50.0.2)/Mac.
Anyone else seen this? Error is:
There IS a From address specified - it's in the form
Firstname Lastname <valid email address -- at a custom domain>, and is a wildcard address.

You can do this by selecting 'edit as new', I think.

- bruce

Composing with wildcard From identity
 

Bruce: Edit as new can only be used when reading a message (either a received message or a sent message). When you have a draft message (in the Drafts folder), opening the message directly takes you to the Compose screen, so there is no ability (and no need) to use the Edit as new feature.

I doubt that your problem has anything to do with the message being sent as a draft from the Drafts folder rather than directly by sending directly from the Compose screen. The error message indicates that the From address is malformed or missing. You say that it's a wildcard address, but didn't specify whether you meant a wildcard identity (a FastMail user interface feature) or that the actual email address in the From field contained a wildcard * character.

When you select a wildcard identity From address (containing a * to the left of the @ symbol) in the Compose screen, the web interface creates a From field you can manually edit. The * is replaced with the default username (part left of the @ in your default email address), I believe. In any case, the system expects that you will manually edit the From address so it is proper.

My guess is that the wildcard identity you created is not of the form *@example.com (asterisk wildcard in the user portion of the address and a proper full domain name in the domain portion of the address. It's also possible that you are editing the From address on the Compose screen so that the address isn't proper. The system catches some errors but misses others. So please look at the From address immediately before sending and see if it's proper. The From address in the Compose screen should appear similar to one of the following:

• Text Name <user@example.com>
• user@example.com

There are limitations on the characters allowed in the email address.

Bill

My first response was just a blind shot in the dark. I'm certainly glad that you have jumped in Bill.

- bruce

Right, the issue occurs on the Compose screen. Just happened again, but the error has changed.
I hit reply and now the error is:
There IS a From address specified - it's in the form
Firstname Lastname <valid email address -- at a custom domain>, and is a wildcard address.

More detail: I haven't modified the wildcard From address. It was pre-filled when I hit reply. It's the address that the message I'm replying to was sent to. One I've used many times before without issue.

I've no idea why I wouldn't be permitted to send email in general. I think my account is up for renewal. Will look to see if that's the issue. Ah, that's the issue. My payment form on file didn't work.

So the new error is explained, but not the original one. Confirmed I didn't modify the from address; it was valid and had been used before.

You say that the From address is valid, but that it is a wildcard address. Do you really mean that the From address is of the following form?
The From address which is by default used in a reply is set based on several factors:

• Settings>Mail>Preferences>Writing>When replying: Either of these:
  • Reply from the same account the message was sent to
  • Always reply from my default account
• Settings>Mail>Identities & Fetch>Compose new messages from .... by default (at bottom of the Send Mail As list of identities).
• Settings>Mail>Folders>Show advanced preferences>Default identity: This overrides the system default identity previously described if you are reading messages in this folder.
• A matching Identity entry in Settings>Identities & Fetch

If you choose Compose or Forward when in a certain folder, the From address is automatically set to the default address (see above) or the folder default identity (if it is set).

If you choose Reply, Reply to Sender, or Reply to All, the From address is set in a more complex fashion.

• If you have the account set to Always reply from the default account, the From address will be set to the default From address (or the folder default if set).
• If you have the account set to Reply from the same account the message was sent to, the system looks for an identity which matches as closely as possible the original address used when delivering to your account. If you use your own domain, you can use a wildcard *@example.com identity. If you have more than one identity with the same address, either one might be used.

If the From address is manually or automatically set to a wildcard address (which starts with *@), the system will attempt to replace the wildcard * with a reasonable local part, such as the local part from the original address used when the message was received at your account. In some cases I think the system gets confused, and the From address may not be a valid address. So if you have trouble, carefully check the actual From address adjacent to the From field (not the selector tool at the top below your name).

I only described the complex manner that the From address is set because the process can get a bit complex and might not work as you intended if there is not one specific identity matching the original target address used to deliver the message to your account. I believe that subdomain addresses can cause difficulties. I know you think that the From address was correct in the original situation, but I can't create such an error message using a valid From address. So unless you can give us some specific examples which fail you will have to take a screen capture and file a Fastmail support request.

Bill

Still running into this problem. :(:eek::confused:

Thanks for asking for clarification.

When I said it's a wildcard address, I meant that the selector tool at the top below my name is set to a wildcard address.

The actual From address adjacent to the From field is a valid email address, as I've tried to make clear. It's of the form [disposablepart]@[alias].sent.com . I've posted how many times here...? I know what a valid email address is. :-)

(I could put up a screen shot, but ... privacy, and if I blur the address - clarity is not achieved. Don't mind PMing you a screen shot if you want. Just took one.)

I think I need to come up with and provide exact steps to reproduce this, and/or submit a support request.

AHA: What may well be key is that I'm hitting [Reply to all] while viewing a message in my Sent folder (which itself was sent from [disposablepart]@[alias].sent.com ). And that the From address is a subdomain address, which you mention can be problematic.

AHA:What IS key is that the draft be saved, the screen closed (by visiting another folder), and the draft reopened from the Drafts folder! (Based on the testing I just did.) . Yup. Confirmed: reproducible. I have two messages in my drafts folder that cannot be sent - I get the error message above in my OP. I have two messages in my sent folder that I was able to send that are virtually identical to the two that cannot be sent. The difference that, it seems, makes them unsendable is that they were saved, the tab closed, and the draft reopened.

Seems it requires both things: 1)hitting [Reply to all] while viewing a message in my Sent folder (which itself was sent from [disposablepart]@[alias].sent.com ). 2)and that the draft be saved and reopened from the Drafts folder.

perhaps one of your reply addresses is not a valid email address.

do you have an alias set up for the address you are using.

I think you're failing to appreciate that I had composed two messages that appeared to be identical in every way, yet one would send and the other wouldn't. There was some invisible content that made them different. In other words, what I said:
UPDATE:
Is anyone from fastmail looking into this? One of the two messages suddenly stopped generating the error when I hit send and went out. I'd changed no part of the message. :eek:

If your account has support included, you should raise a ticket direct with FastMail.

Ticket opened:

Reproduce: Open the draft email in my forwebmaster folder (the only one that's recent in that folder).
Hit send.

More complete info and reproduction steps:
See http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?p=599572 (this thread)

Reproduction steps:
1) Open this message: https://www.fastmail.com/mail/Sent/[munged]?u=[munged] .
2) Hit [Reply to all] while viewing the message, which is in my Sent folder.
3) Paste a test email into the To field. I've been using info@[munged].sent.com.
4) Type something at the top of the email - like test #7.
5) Press Save Now.
6) Click on Trash folder.
7) Click back to Drafts folder.
8) Click on the newest message.
9) Press send.
10) See the error attached.

surly you would be replying to your own throw away email address as you are clicking reply.

Nope. That's not what fastmail does. Incorrect but reasonable assumption. Try following the steps. I'm hitting Reply to all, not Reply, and to an email in my Sent folder.

Perhaps it's something in your sieve, try saving it then removing it completely, then try..:D

Sieve is only used when receiving messages. It has no effect on drafts, composing, or sending messages.

Bill

yes but I just wondered if he was blocking his own throw away address.

When things dont work correctly I usually delete my sieve and see if that cures the problem.

elvey, did you get it all sorted?

NO! No action was taken and the ticket was closed.:mad:

Anto Francis did a poor job reading the ticket. Completely overlooked the first line of it. And doesn't seem to have seen this thread either. :-(

Reopened.

And Merlin has also done a really poor job responding to the ticket.

Anto passed it to Yassar who passed it to Matt, who is starting to try to reproduce the bug.

(I'm able to reproduce it, both ways, at will.)

Try going to your folders section, find the sent folder and go to properties and un-tick the duplicates box.

The folder may be suppressing the duplicate email addresses....sorry its just a shot in dark.:D

Confirmed Reproducible.
 

It's been assigned to Rob M :cool:

Initially reported (twice) as not reproducible, but then I got this last Sunday from Nick :
(that was after getting this:

)
I Hope Rob squashes it soon. Sure seems to be a subtle issue. If anyone can, it's Rob!:D
Credit in an ensuing blog post would be nice too. :D

Just out of interest, have you verified that you do not encounter the problem if using the beta server?

Good question. I can confirm that I did not encounter the problem today, when testing on the beta server. :)


I haven't heard back from Fastmail since the case was assigned to Rob Mueller; Status : Transferred - waiting for transferee admin.

I have had the same problem, twice. In the end the only way I could get my message to go was to paste the body into a new message. I have logged a support ticket with a link to this thread; and given them both my unsendable draft and the external email to which it was a reply.

You can do this by selecting 'edit as new', I think.

Unfortunately not. You can use that on a received or sent message, but not on a draft. The bug leaves the message stuck as draft, so the only way forward is to paste the contents into a new reply to the sender.

Support have my sample messages (it happened again today).

It may be something to do with switching windows and coming back later to send the draft - under some unknown circumstances this leaves the draft unsendable. A "fresh" reply to the same addressee worked fine.

It is an interesting problem, and I am surprised FastMail has trouble getting it fixed. Just out of curiosity, have you tried manually changing the From and To addresses in the draft to see if that changes the behavior?

You're on to something!

Still not fixed. What changes to the From and To are you suggesting?

Changing the To from
info@[munged].sent.com
to
info2@[munged].sent.com
made no difference.

Changing the From from
kalb2@[munged].sent.com
to
kalb2changed@[munged].sent.com
allowed me to send the email!:confused::D

I did not have anything specific in mind. It just seemed, based on the symptoms, that FastMail was messing up the headers, and I thought resetting them might be a circumvention allowing the message to be sent.

Of course, the issue needs to be fixed, but at least this provides additional evidence of what is going on, as well as a simple way of getting around the problem should it rear its ugly head.

Makes sense.

I think it's reasonable to just wait for the code that's on the beta server that fixes the problem to go live. I think that's what the developers have decided, and I'd make the same choice. A code migration specifically to fix this isn't worth it. Better spending the time on other things. We have 2 good workarounds. Bummer for folks who get an uninformative error message and don't discover a workaround.

I don't know if there's any connection but I'm also having problems Sending email via the new UI

http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...905#post601905

We got a support ticket about this and the user pointed to this post. So I thought I'll make an update here as well.

There is currently a known issue that sometimes causes the error:
when sending emails.

An immediate fix for this is non-trivial, however, we will be rolling out an update later this year that should fix this. Until then, as a work around, if you hit this error, you can:

1. Make any small change (for example, add a space and then delete it) and
2. Click on "Save Draft"

You should then be able to send the email.

This workaround is not working for me today. I’ve made small changes to the subject the from the to and the body. And I hit save draft. Still getting the error.

Try putting in a .

Didn’t help.

Ran into this yet again the other day on iPhone. Tried the mentioned workarounds and again they didn't work. Eventually worked after I tried a dozen or so times: tweak, save, attempt, repeat.

Can someone (from FastMail) provide an ETA on when this fix 'll get rolled out more precise than "later this year"?

I didn't think to test the fix for when I ran into email drafts for which the workaround doesn't work. Will next time.

I ran into this again (in Opera on Sierra). I tried logging in to the beta server to see if it was fixed there. It is NOT FIXED in beta.:confused:

That’s a very bot- like reply, and first post. Do you provide tech support for or help develop “Clean Email” ?