Error when posting reply on forum: Failed sending email

[Aquatic Elf]

When posting a reply on the forum, I got the error, "Failed sending email", but my message still posted. I don't mind the error at all, but just wanted to make sure you guys knew about it.

Here is the error:

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This is my forum settings, if it helps at all:

• 

Makes me wonder if someone else in the thread had the Email setting on?

[bringoutyourdead]

It is a bug caused by php and system level security interactions.

Metalbeast knows, but hasn't a high priority on fixing as any fixes impact other sites sharing the same server/software environment.

[FuxieDK]

The bug have been here, for what seems, forever.
I've gone blind to it

It w old be nice to have it figured, but BOYD/Metal east can make better use of their limited time, elsewhere

[bringoutyourdead]

Figuring it was simple.
Solving it is much more time consuming.
And time is Metalbeasts most limited resource.

The core of problem is that the email linkage of this old phpBB is incompatible with modern security processes used by web site providers.

Since Metalbeast is the owner of the ISP/Web services/etc company that hosts this site, he needs to give priority to the security of his paying customers.

The normal solution would be to upgrade the phpBB to the current version which would not conflict with best process security standards .. but..

Rollie when he first set up the site decided to use the code of phpBB to tightly tie in the security of the forums with the overall site security.
The advantage for Rollie that he didn't have to reinvent the wheel and could use existing code for both site and forum logins.

The problem is that since Rollie did custom modifications to the phpBB database schema, any phpBB ugrade which yes also modifies the database will not work as expected.
Manual modifications of the database are required.
Exporting data, rebuilding the schema and then reloading data.

This is doable, as I did that very thing (mostly) on my test bed copy of the site, while I was trying to learn the ins and outs of this site.
However I was working with a very limited data set.. not the whole site databases.. and it was time consuming both in system resources and real time.

[Aquatic Elf]

Ahh, very understandable. Thank you for taking the time to explain it; it's much appreciated :3