Registration URL does not work

[Charlie Amoah]

I registered as a user on Mahara and got sent an email with a link. In then copied the link and pasted it in my browser, when I clicked enter I got this error:
Sorry, there does not seem to be a registration with this key. Perhaps you waited longer than 24 hours to complete your registration? Otherwise, it might be our fault.

And that was under 10 seconds.

[Richard Mansfield (richard-mansfield)]

We get a lot of similar complaints from mahara.org but still haven't managed to find the cause - it's a very intermittent bug.

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

Having looked into it with Andrew, I believe the problem happens if "Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable" is not treated by mail client correctly (or has been removed/replaced by MTA), so URL in email body contains non-decoded "quoted-printable" characters. Given that '=' (equal sign) after quoted-printable encoding is replaced with '=3D', any non-decoded URLs with parameters looks like "http://apache.local/mahara/register.php?key=3DO1mVGHqKCsPfNb2o" in the email client (while correct key is O1mVGHqKCsPfNb2o).

The attached patch allows you to replicate the bug (it simulates as if Content-Transfer-Encoding is not set).

By the way, if email has been bounced, you will have the same '3D' prefixed key in URL on your $cfg->noreplyaddress, as original headers will be replaced and email client will not apply quoted-printable decoding.

Carlie, can you please have a look at problematic URL and confirm whether key value starts from '3D'. Also would be helpful if you paste headers from registration email if possible. Can you please also tell us what sort of email client do you use and whether you use any anti-virus software that checks incoming mail?

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

If Charlie confirms that URL is prefixed with 3D, the easiest solution of course could be using 8bit (default in phpmailer) encoding rather than 'quoted-printable', assuming that most of servers support 8BITMIME. Though, it may have some implications I am not aware of as I do not have a deep knowledge in mail systems.

[Charlie Amoah (charlie-catalyst)]

Here is the email for the registration which wouldn't work!

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

The email seems correct to me and it does contain 'quoted-printable' encoded characters along with correct headers. Charlie, it would be helpful if you tell how this link looks in your email client (in the same client you used when encountered the bug) to confirm my expectation about quoted-printable decoding. Just copy-paste the URL from your email client to here.

[Charlie Amoah (charlie-catalyst)]

Here we go Ruslan the email URL :http://master.dev.mahara.org/register.php?key=s8cEBfiH9YPI7CXZ

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

The URL seems correct to me as well. Can you replicate the bug again?

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Ruslan,

We continue to have registration issues. Registration emails don't seem to be sent always. I could so far not replicate that error though.

Kristina

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

Hi, Kristina,

It might worth filling in another issue, as this one above is related to malformed registration URL.
It definitely needs more detailed information, logs, ensuring that mail is being filtered by spamchecks on client side, etc. At the moment it sounds more like a mail delivery problems, than Mahara bug.

Ruslan

[Kristina Hoeppner (kris-hoeppner)]

Hi Ruslan,

Will do either if I get more info from the person who had the issue the latest or when it comes up again. :-)

Cheers
Kristina

[Ruslan Kabalin (rkabalin)]

A similar issue has popped up: https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/691366 will not mark as duplicate at the moment, try to investigate separately.