Automatic reply not working

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Level 1

8 points

Automatic reply not working

I am trying to get the automatic reply function to work under rules. However the reply just does not seem to work. No message is sent. I have been trying to get the rules to automatically reply if it see's an email to a particular email address but this just does not happen. I have tried deleting the message rules plist and that has not helped either.

Any ideas ?

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 3, 2006 1:33 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 3, 2006 1:50 PM in response to miloco1

The information you've provided is too vague for us to be able to figure out what's the problem.

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Answer 2

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 3, 2006 2:01 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Sorry I shall try to be more precise. I receive email for an email address which I want to set up an auto reply letting the sender know that I am now using a new email address. In rules I setup

If Any of the following conditions are met
To Contains nick@milomagic.com

Perform the following actions
Reply to Message
I then write some text in the reply text window and save the rule.

However when I receive mail addressed to nick@milomagic.com the 'reply to message' rule does not happen.

I have changed the rule to make the background colour yellow and this works fine so it seems the 'reply to message' automation is not working for some reason.

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Answer 3

Oct 3, 2006 2:07 PM in response to miloco1

Well, showing your real address wasn't necessary. You may want to edit your post and disguise the email address, so that spam bots cannot gather it.

How do you know that the rule isn't working?

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Answer 4

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 3, 2006 2:14 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

It wasn't my real address - but thanks for the advice... I know because I send a mail to that email address from another email account and I do not get a reply to that email address. That seems like the logical way to check it ? Interestingly I tried it on another mac with the same versions of software but the same problem. So I am guessing I am doing something wrong but I cannot see what.

Thanks

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Answer 5

Oct 3, 2006 3:49 PM in response to miloco1

What type of account is this (POP, IMAP, .Mac)?

The received messages that Mail fails to auto-reply initially appear as unread and show the corresponding blue dot in the message list, right? Does the blue dot change to a reply arrow after viewing the contents of the messages, i.e. when they become read?

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Answer 6

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 3, 2006 11:45 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

It is a POP account. Yes the message arrives with the blue dot but once read the reply arrow does not appear.

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Answer 7

Oct 4, 2006 2:40 AM in response to miloco1

1. Open /Applications/Utilities/Console.

2. From the File menu, choose either Open Console Log, or Open System Log, or both, so that the Console application displays the contents of both system.log and console.log.

3. Try to reproduce the problem and look at the bottom of the Console windows for messages that might be written there as a result. If any, they may provide some clues as to what's going on.

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Answer 8

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2006 4:35 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

OK I sent another dummy email to recreate the problem and checked in the console log and system log but no error was reported. Basically the reply feature just does not seem to even try to work which is really strange.

If you have any other ideas let me know.

Thanks

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Answer 9

Oct 4, 2006 5:02 AM in response to miloco1

I can confirm that it does not work with messages already in the inbox, using Message/Apply Rules. The background colour changes, but no message is generated. (I test it disconnected from the network, so there would be an error message if it was working. Likewise, forwarding does not work from a rule. These functions as far as I rememeber do not work in Applescript either.

If you really need it to work, have your rule fire an applescript and let it build a new message from the info in the incoming message and send the new message. That does work.

AK

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Answer 10

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2006 6:15 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

That is very helfpul. I shall have a go at the applescript route - is this easy to do ? As a matter of interest why does the reply option appear in rules if it does not work ? Is this an apple bug ?

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Answer 11

Oct 4, 2006 6:44 AM in response to Austin Kinsella1

Austin,

This rule cannot be tested while offline. Mail doesn't save a copy of the message that the rule sends as it would do if the reply was sent manually, and it just fails silently if you're offline. If you were online, however, it should work, both manually and automatically.

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Answer 12

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2006 6:58 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

I have been testing the 'reply to' rule while online but nothing has worked. So I presume there must be a bug ?

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Answer 13

Oct 4, 2006 8:28 AM in response to miloco1

Mail keeps information about outgoing servers in a separate list, independently of any specific mail account. The account settings just associate one of the available outgoing servers with each account. Orphaned or dangling outgoing server entries (i.e. not associated with any account) sometimes cause weird sending problems, so let's look at this possibility.

Go to Preferences > Accounts > Account Information > Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP), choose Edit Server List from the popup menu, and delete any servers that shouldn't be there. The Edit Server List panel shows the account each outgoing server is associated with.

BTW, have you tried manually replying to those messages? When you do that, do you observe anything that could be relevant here?

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Answer 14

miloco1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2006 9:25 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Bingo - That was it. I have about 8 different SMTP mail servers and the right one was not selected for that account. Now you have solved this one any ideas on how I get this to automatically occur if I mainly switch between two locations and hence two SMTP servers ?

You have however solved this problem which is great !

Thanks

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Answer 15

Oct 4, 2006 9:45 AM in response to miloco1

You're welcome.

how I get this to automatically occur if I mainly switch
between two locations and hence two SMTP servers ?

Take a look a the following collection of AppleScripts:

http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Mail_Scripts.html

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