Problem with "Return-Path" on Solspace Freeform Pro email notification

Question

I have an online enquiry form that was working fine until last month when I updated ExpressionEngine from 2.5.3 to 2.7.3, and Freeform Pro from 4.0.10 to 4.1.5. Now my client has complained that the email notifications from their website's enquiry form are going into their spam folder because the Reply-to address on the emails is incorrect and they can't simply hit 'reply' in their mail app because it isn't going to the right address.

Looking at the header information for the email notification I see the following:

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Return-Path: < [email protected] >

Reply-To: "[email protected]" < [email protected] >

From: "Test Name" < "Test Name"@strangeemail.net.au >

X-Sender: Test Name

X-Mailer: ExpressionEngine 2.7.3d

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In the Notification Template I have:

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From Name: {name}

From Email: {email}

Reply To Email: {email}

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I created {name} and {email} as text fields with Name set to 'Any' Field Content Type and Email is set to 'Email'.

How is the Return-Path generated and why is it incorrect? Occasionally my client isn't receiving the notification at all because the from email has the person's name in quotations before the domain name. The site's database is MySQL 5 and PHP 5.2. It looks like the incorrect domain name in the email address is something to do with the site host's mail, although they have said I must have entered something incorrectly in my notification template!

Any ideas/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Karen

Answer 1

Karen, make sure that your email address is set in EE; Admin > Email configuration > Return Email address for auto generated emails. AFAIK this is what is used to generate the 'From' header in outgoing emails. Without this emails look like spam.

I don't think that the client's notifications are getting spam-flagged because of an incorrect Reply-to address, but rather because of an incorrect From address.

Answer 2

As Solspace commented, it turns out there was a bug with Solspace Freeform itself. Updating to the latest version of Freeform (4.1.8 as of the date I updated it) has fixed the problem. Thanks Solspace.