Support

As per ticket #24288, I am also having trouble with SpamAssassin, but I can't find out how to configure it to allow mails from Admin Tools through. The problem is just getting worse. Eventually, all emails will be blocked unless I turn SpamAssassin off. I can't configure SpamAssassin too much through CPanel, so I suspected I'll have to edit the code somehow.

As per the previous ticket, emails are sent from AdminTools, but blocked locally by SpamAssassin before leaving the webserver. I then get an email generated by the webserver, which is then sent to the same destination address ironically, saying that the email was blocked. The original emails never even exit my host.

I've configured SpamAssassin from my cpanel to whitelist the appropriate "from" email address. This has not helped. Emails are still blocked.
I increased the score at which SpamAssassin detects a message as spam (from 8 to 20). This helped for a bit, but then they broke this score too. The score keeps going up. It is making SpamAssassin less effective on incoming emails.
Not all AdminTools messages are marked as spam, even though the content is pretty much the same. Most are fine.

I believe SpamAssassin is gradually increasing the score associated with some AdminTools emails and so more and more will start to be blocked.
I would like to know how to whitelist them or reduce the score as you suggested in the previous thread.

I also directed one of the emails to "isnotspam.com" to see what scores are being allocated. The SpamAssassin part is below. This score was relatively low, however, as I can't actually send a blocked email to isnotspam... because they are blocked.
The scores of one blocked email before today was 20.3. Today three were blocked at over 30 even though three emails generated at the same time for similar IP addresses were not marked as spam at all.

I'm therefore not convinced that the addition of ~1.5 from the X-Priority is the complete answer, although it may be part of the solution, because the total scores are now upwards of 25-30.

Just a hint at the code I'd need to change to reduce the score would he helpful. I know you don't support SpamAssassin, but you do seem to know what the solution might be, and it is AdminTools emails triggering it.

SpamAssassin extract of example email sent to isnotSpam - mail was not blocked and isnotspam states it is not spam:

* 0.0 URIBL_BLOCKED ADMINISTRATOR NOTICE: The query to URIBL was blocked.
* See http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/DnsBlocklists#dnsbl-block
* for more information.
* [URIs: akeebabackup.com]
* 3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99 to 100%
* [score: 1.0000]
* -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
* 0.2 BAYES_999 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99.9 to 100%
* [score: 1.0000]
* 0.1 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message
* 0.3 MIME_HTML_ONLY BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
* 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily
* valid
* 0.4 HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG HTML-only message, but there is no HTML tag
* 0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
X-Spam-Status: Yes, hits=4.6 required=-20.0 tests=BAYES_99,BAYES_999,
DKIM_SIGNED,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG,MIME_HTML_ONLY,SPF_PASS,
T_DKIM_INVALID,URIBL_BLOCKED autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1
X-Spam-Score: 4.6

Thanks Nicholas.

I understand your frustration, and I'm not blaming Admin Tools for this at all. You have an excellent product that has saved me on so many occasions.
I've been recommending your product to all and sundry, so I'm hopeful you actually got more business from this.

I also completely understand that Admin Tools and PhpMailer are doing the right thing according to the standards. I'm definitely not saying you need to change either. I was just looking for some advice on what *I* need to change.

I don't want to turn off the mailing part of Admin Tools. It is really useful. What I wanted to do is configure SpamAssassin to turn off the "stupidity" features it has enabled by default. My coding expertise is a bit rusty, but as I know I have some limited options on SpamAssasin via the CPanel UI, I must be able to do more somehow, perhaps at a code level. I have done some code-level changes with varying successes on my Joomla website, and I work in the software industry, so if I have some instructions or pointers then I might be able to make it work. I just didn't want to give up so easily, and as you know the cause of the issue, I was hoping I could use you to kick-start me in developing a solution. Happy to share it if I can make it work.

So I may be able to configure SpamAssassin at the code level, I just don't immediately know what I'm looking for. I was therefore hoping for maybe a pointer or a website suggestion that might show me how to adjust the appropriate part of SpamAssassin. You can't be the only person who knows SpamAssassin isn't working correctly, right? So somewhere there must be a guide on how people have managed to make it work. Even if I can't do it, I can forward it to my host with whom I've had several open tickets on this issue so that they too understand the problem. I took your excellent feedback in the last ticket and trawled the web looking for a solution, but I couldn't find one. If you know of one, a pointer to it would be so useful.

If there is no fix to SpamAssassin, then I'll just turn it off, because it is that that is annoying and causing the issue, not the Admin Tools email feature. I'll raise this with my host as well so they know of the defect in their recommended Spam defence tool.

Thanks for your excellent help and advice.

Ok, well if you need a site to trial it on... let me know. Happy to be a bit of a guinea pig if needed.

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