Ok, here's how I got bounces to work (yay!) My domain is on a shared server, which is why it wasn't working.
This tutorial will assume that you are a total noob.
With that in mind, here's an important point: this tutorial assumes you're going to create the email account no-reply@mydomain.com, but obviously do not create that account verbatim. For example, if you were Bill Gates, you might create no-reply@microsoft.com or maybe bounces@microsoft.com. If your website was www.ireallylovecoolcars.com, the email would be no-reply@ireallylovecoolcars.com
1) Set up a new email account on your domain. To do this, you would go to your web hosting control panel. You should have received this information when you first got your web hosting.
Use the control panel to set up a new email account (for example, no-reply@mydomain.com)
2) Check the "source" of an older email sent from phplist. The easiest way to do this is to use phplist to send a message to yourself. If you are using MS Outlook 2003, you just right-click on the message that you received from phplist, and choose "options." There is a box at the bottom labelled "Internet Headers."
Scroll through the headers and look for the line:
envelope-from <someaddress@somedomain.com>
and this line:
Return-Path: someaddress@somedomain.com
For example, before I fixed the bounces, my envelope was from the shared server, so it was something like this:
envelope-from <azkdh292@c12.hostingco.com>
Return-Path: azkdh292@c12.hostingco.com
Obviously this is not what we want. So...
3) Open your phplist config.php file. It is on your web server. If you installed phplist in the default folder, it would be:
www.mydomain.com/lists/config/config.php
Use FTP or your web host's control panel to download a copy of this file (config.php) and save it to your computer. Once you have it, open the file in a text editor. Windows notepad will NOT work. I use EmEditor Free for stuff like this, which is a great free unicode text editor.
4) Edit your phplist config file.
Scroll down to the "Settings for handling bouces" section of the file. As it has been said before:
Remove the "#" from this line and put the email account that you just created in there so that you change this:
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# $message_envelope = 'listbounces@yourdomain';
into this:
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$message_envelope = 'no-reply@mydomain.com';
Next, scroll down a bit and enter the information. Replace localhost with your email server (probably something like mail.mydomain.com), and then replace popuser with the user name that you use to log in to the new email account (no-reply@mydomain.com) and replace password with the password for the new account. For example, change the following:
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$bounce_mailbox_host = 'localhost';
$bounce_mailbox_user = 'popuser';
$bounce_mailbox_password = 'password';
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$bounce_mailbox_host = 'mail.mydomain.com';
$bounce_mailbox_user = 'no-reply+mydomain.com';
$bounce_mailbox_password = 'somestupidpassword';
Note that you SHOULD have received this information (mail server, username, and password) when you created the new email account no-reply@mydomain.com). This info is going to be different for everyone. For example, my hosting co uses the "+" sign instead of the "@" when you log in. Weird.
Now, save config.php and upload it to your web server using FTP or your web host's control panel. Replace (overwrite) the original config.php in the same folder.
5) Now, go into phplist and create a new list. Add your personal email to this list so you can check if it works. Also add some email that couldn't possibly exist, like: somecrazyguy@somereallylongwebsiteurlth ... yexist.com
This way, that email will get bounced and you can see if bounces are working.
6) Send a message to the new list. When you receive it at your personal email address, check the message header like you did before. You should now see:
envelope-from <no-reply@mydomain.com>)
and
Return-Path: no-reply@mydomain.com
7) Now go back into phpList. Go to "Process Bounces" on the right hand menu. Once this is done, go to "View Bounces" and you should see them pop up for the imaginary email address that couldn't possibly exist.
(I tried going to "View Bounces" first, but nothing happened. Bounces started working after I went to "Process Bounces." Now both "View" and "Process" work fine. I suspect that this is because phpList had to re-load the new config.php file).
8) (Optional). I also double-checked that bounces were being sent to no-reply@mydomain.com by logging into that email account via my web host's web-mail account. Yep! Works fine.
I hope this tutorial helps people who have this problem. It won't solve your problem if you have a web server that doesn't support php list because it's not running the latest version of php or something like that.
