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Troubleshooting Muse Form Widgets Used on Third-Party Servers

Adobe Employee ,
Jun 11, 2013 Jun 11, 2013

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When you build websites in Muse you can add Form widgets to pages to allow visitors to submit messages to a specific address via email. In previous versions of Muse, the Form widgets only worked on sites that were hosted on the Adobe Business Catalyst servers. However, this limitation has changed. You can now add Form widgets to pages that are published using third-party hosting providers.

When you upload sites to servers other than the Adobe Business Catalyst servers, there are some server requirements and best practices to consider. Keep in mind that when you publish trial sites, they are hosted on the Business Catalyst servers. Always test the content on your live site after publishing the site to other hosts to confirm that the site features continue to work as expected.

The following list answers common questions regarding Form widgets, as well as providing tips for troubleshooting issues.

What is the workflow for adding Forms widgets to sites hosted on a third-party server?

Create a new site and drag the Form widgets to the page. Follow the normal process to position the form in the site design, configure the options in the Options panel, and use the panels in Muse to style the appearance of the form within the Muse workspace. When the site is ready to go live, use the FTP Upload feature within Muse. Or use the Export HTML feature to save a copy of the entire site folder, and use a third-party FTP client to upload all of the site files to the host servers of your choosing.

Are there any server-side requirements for Muse Form widgets to work?

Yes. Your web host must support PHP, and the PHP mail service must be properly configured to send email messages. If you use the FTP Upload feature within Muse, Muse will attempt to warn you if it detects that your web host does not meet these requirements.

Are there any Form widget features that only work when a website is hosted on the Adobe Business Catalyst hosting servers?

Yes. The CAPTCHA field only works if hosting on the Adobe Business Catalyst servers. However, all the other form features work on most hosting providers that support PHP.

Do the Form widgets in Muse include logic to limit spam form submissions?

Yes. On most hosting providers, Muse forms limit the rate of form submissions from a single IP address.

When I use the FTP Upload feature to upload my site to my hosting provider, Muse displays a warning that says the Form widgets may not work. Why won't they work?

Some web hosts don't support everything Muse Form widgets need to work.

When you upload to your host using the FTP Upload feature in Muse, logic in the service attempts to determine if everything is configured properly on your host provider's servers. If not, Muse displays a warning with information about the missing requirements. You can contact your web-hosting provider and ask them to fix the configuration problem.

How can I check if my hosting provider has the required technology enabled for my website?

After uploading your Muse site containing a form, you can point your browser to your-site-address.com/scripts/form_check.php

If your website supports everything needed for Muse forms to work properly, you should see 3 green checkmarks on this page. If not, contact your hosting provider. They should be able to look at the php code for this file and determine what configuration changes need to be made on your server for Muse PHP forms to work properly.

I've uploaded my new Muse form, and tried submitting it in the browser, but I never receive an email with the form data. What's wrong?

This could be caused by a few different problems. Follow these troubleshooting steps:

    1. Check your email Inbox spam folder. Mark the form messages as non-spam.

    2. Some hosting providers refuse to send mail to an email address on a different site's domain. For example, if your website is www.example.com, but your form is configured to send email to someone@email.com, your web host provider may refuse to send the email generated by the Form widget.

Solutions:

    1. Update your form to send email messages to someone@example.com. This change may resolve the issue and allow the messages to go through.
    2. If you're hosting is GoDaddy and you're form e-mail address is to a non-GoDaddy e-mail account, you'll need to enable "remote" mail in cPanel. (A similar change may be required on other hosting providers.)
      1. Navigate to your cPanel on GoDaddy.  This is where you manage your web hosting.
      2. On the main cPanel page, scroll down to where it says ":::Email"
      3. Click on "MX entry" which is located right below "Accounts".  This is the Mail Exchanger setting.  By Default, GoDaddy assumes you will be using a GoDaddy email account.
      4. Make sure that "Remote Mail Exchanger" is turned on.

By default GoDaddy assumes you will be hosting your e-mail through GoDaddy.  If you set up an email address for your form in Muse that is not a GoDaddy hosted email address, then GoDaddy does not accept it by default. You have to give GoDaddy permission to send a form to what GoDaddy considers a "remote" email address.

    3. Some IT Departments block emails from someone@bigcompany.com to someone_else@bigcompany.com if the email message isn't sent by the standard bigcompany.com mail servers.

Try changing the form's options to add another email address (listed first), which does not end with: @bigcompany.com. This change may allow the form messages to be delivered to both email addresses.

    4. Visit http://my-site.com/scripts/form_check.php in a web browser and make sure you see all green checkmarks. If some items do not display green checkmarks that means that the hosting server is not configured correctly to allow the Form widgets to send email messages to the address you've specified.

Contact your web-hosting provider about the server configuration problem. Describe the items that are not marked as green in the form check page, so that they can help you set up the servers to use the correct settings.

If you continue to encounter issues with Form widgets that are published to third-party hosting servers, post a message on the Muse Support Forums. The Muse team reads these messages and the online community can help you resolve issues with forms.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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I was wondering about the email the forms generate. I get all the green checkmarks and I also get the mail, so that all works. However, the mail contains mostly code with the info I input in the online form hiding out within the code.

Is there anyway to get the generated email to show only the info, and not all the code around it? If I get one or two mails like that, it wouldn't be a problem, but with a lot of mails it's going to be a dayjob digging through them to find the relevant information.

I have no troubles with other html mails coming in like that.

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New Here ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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I also face the same problem... Please help!

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Adobe Employee ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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Which email client(i.e. Apple Mail, Outlook, gmail in browser, etc) are you using to read the emails sent by the form?

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New Here ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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Hi, I'm using outlook

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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I'm using Outlook as well.

This is a screenshot of the generated e-mail with the information I entered in the Muse-form online:

muse-form.jpg

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Adobe Employee ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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Which version of Outlook, on which OS?

Thanks.

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New Here ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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I have exactly the same problem with cristafloor. I'm using outlook 2007 and the OS is Windows 7.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 24, 2013 Jul 24, 2013

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ah yes, I should've added that info sorry.

I use Outlook for Mac 2011 (version 14.3.6) with Mac OSX 10.8.4 (build 12E55)

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Adobe Employee ,
Sep 30, 2013 Sep 30, 2013

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We've identified an incompatibility between Muse PHP forms and some unix PHP mailers. We will fix this in a future update to Muse.

In the meantime, if you're able to request a different mailer from your hosting provider, sendmail seems to work better with the current Muse PHP form code than either qmail or postfix.

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New Here ,
Feb 14, 2014 Feb 14, 2014

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Hi adobelance,

I have a question about this topic.  I am re-building a website and placing the site on a server that doesn't have php installed on it.  The IT department is concerned about installing anything to their server.  Other than getting the occasional spam email, do you know of any security risks they run by configuring php to the server.  I need them to install the php so I can run my muse forms - but they want to make sure it is safe for their server.  Any Info on this topic would be greatly appreciated! 

Thanks

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New Here ,
Jul 26, 2013 Jul 26, 2013

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I've seen this quite a bit supporting various other applications and have to make sure that what I develop does not generate emails such as the one shown above.  In all the cases that I have experience with the cause was found to be that either the outgoing settings for the email are set to send text only emails OR the recipient's email settings are set to only receive/accept text only emails.  I noticed on my Business Catalyst site that you could go into the emails that are generated by the site and change the setting for the emails being sent from text to html or vice versus.  You might try checking that you can receive html emails first, then you should check that the sending email application is set up to send html emails.

Hope that helps.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2013 Jul 27, 2013

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I've checked to see whether the settings in Outlook are set to receive only text mails, but I have no problems with other html-mails so I don't think that's the problem. However, my site isn't on a Business Catalyst server, it's on a server where my domain is hosted. Maybe I can find out if I can change a setting there.

Thanks, if it works I'll post it

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New Here ,
Jul 27, 2013 Jul 27, 2013

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Without knowing the exact configuration of your email system, receipt of other emails in html format may or may not indicate that your Outlook is configured correctly for emails coming in from that specific domain but I’ve used that assumption to move Outlook to the bottom of the suspect list.

The other two locations to check are with the sending server software and then in the code itself. Check that the sending account settings are configured for html at the server level. If that fails to be the culprit then take a look at the actual code. Many of the older and free versions of lightweight mail programs such as the older versions of ASPMail and Persists, have the default set to send text emails unless specific code is added to set the value to html.

If you don’t uncover the problem at the server level and you aren’t a coder or have access to one let me know. I’ve got more than 20 years writing code and debugging code others wrote and am going to have to do some troubleshooting on the Muse generated code myself to fix a few minor issues related to one of the Muse embedded forms so I can review it for potential issues while I’m in there. Just let me know.

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New Here ,
Jul 27, 2013 Jul 27, 2013

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One more thing, before you go any further in troubleshooting your issue..... try opening the email up on a PC and if you still have the same issue then try submitting the form from a PC and see if that makes any difference on how it is rendered on a Mac vs. a PC. About a month ago a client was having this same email issue. It cost one individual their job before the problem was found to be code related and specific to Mac users.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2013 Jul 27, 2013

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Thank you so much for taking the time to help with this

I've just asked a friend with a pc to fill out the form to see how it looks in my mail.

I only have rudimentary html-coding skills, but the other suggestions you gave are things I'll have to take some time to figure out. If I get stumped I'd like to take you up on your offer. I'll let you know how it goes!

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New Here ,
Sep 30, 2013 Sep 30, 2013

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I am having a huge problem with forms in Muse. I have used them on two sites now and only some of the emails are reaching my / my clients inbox. I have all three ticks as you can see http://clearview-sealed-units.com/scripts/form_check.php

I know that my hosting provider (Heart Internet) is set up to handle the requirements. Can someone Please help me!

Many Thanks

Dan

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New Here ,
Oct 16, 2013 Oct 16, 2013

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Hi, I uploaded a site to a 3rd party server that I created with Adobe Muse. On the contact page I have a contact form,  however the form is not submitting correctly. When I click submit, it says the server encountered an error. I am somewhat of an amateur when it comes to web design and programming, and I followed Adobe's procedure for running a form check which okayed the PHP version and the mail configuration but said there was a problem with the SQL configuration (I am not sure what that even is). What do I need to do to get the form to work? Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated!

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 06, 2014 Apr 06, 2014

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Well,Im in the same boat here, I do not know much about code but for what I think ,It has to do with the configuration of the php in a utf-8 site.

Here:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1605760/how-to-best-configure-php-to-handle-a-utf-8-website

It requires to open the php. form in dreamweaver and see if It works.I still haven`t try it yet,but I`ll ! If someone have ever done so,please tell me the results!I`ll post my results when Im done with it.

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New Here ,
Apr 21, 2014 Apr 21, 2014

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Is there any way to make the CAPTCHA feature work on an outside hosted site?

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New Here ,
Apr 21, 2014 Apr 21, 2014

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I think my previous question appeared in the wrong place.

Is there any way to make the CAPTCHA feature work on an outside hosted site?

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Participant ,
May 11, 2014 May 11, 2014

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I'm not getting the PHP message, but the information from the form seems to go nowhere. I put the email address in - nothing happens.. . . .

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Explorer ,
Jul 02, 2016 Jul 02, 2016

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kgrafix, you probably made the same mistake I did at first, just either clicking or pasting the link that was there.

Where I have "indymcduff.com" you need to insert your own site to check the PHP, and don't forget the http://first.

However, I STILL cannot get the forms to send.  I do have the captcha key both private and public put in, but it is not sending.  It is my own domain, and I mailed to another address on my own domain to test, and nada.

Let me suggest to Adobe that when inserting the private and public keys into the options box, if you cut and paste one and then try to cut and paste the second one, the first one disappears.  Now these are very long keys and mistyping or misreading is all too possible.  Cutting and pasting would be the most prudent way, no?  But Muse won't let you do that.  Right now I'm working with a numb arm and hand (cervical hiccup) and typing is challenging.  That little bug in Muse caused me to waste a lot of time as the left hand cannot feel the keys presently.

I've tried from both Windows 10 AND Win 7.  I use Outlook2010, MS Suite.  The mail just isn't sending.  Goodness knows there is enough spam every day to sink the Titanic, so the reCAPTCHA is wanted.

I have written my service provider to ask for help.

I also own indymcduff.net, which I purchased from GoDaddy but intend to run from my Synology.  I shudder to think of the complications that will arise.  Will I have to go back to Dreamweaver?  FrontPage used to be SO easy...it's gone now phpCapture.JPG

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Explorer ,
Jul 02, 2016 Jul 02, 2016

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I had just typed a large answer to you but only the graphic showed up.  you are making a simple mistake.  Don't just cut and paste the link or double click on it.  Type in http://whateveryoursitenameis.com/scripts/form/check.php.

Mine says it works, but it doesn't.

I've a numb left hand and typing this twice is really difficult.  I cannot feel the keys and I am a touch typist.

indymcduff.com is hosted on my internet service providers own servers.  I used the reCAPTCHA widget, got the private and public keys.  Please note Adobe:  The option box does not let you cut and paste these keys.  It will let you do one, but when you have to click away to grab the other, the first disappears.  Now these keys are very long and complex.  Cutting and pasting is more than just prudent, it is needed.

I've written to my ISP to see if they can help, but as you can see from the above Snippit, supposedly it is working fine...and I was doing a test message from another indymcduff.com email account.  One machine is Win 10, another is Win 7, MS Office with Outlook 2010.

I shudder to think what will happen when I try to set up my other domain using my Synology.

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Community Beginner ,
May 26, 2014 May 26, 2014

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This issue of unreliability with web forms cuts right across the "no coding required - ease of use" proposition put by Adobe for its Muse product offering. Since the sites I make are mostly for clients and since I am still only researching the need or benefits of using Muse instead of or in addition to other proven and very reliable platforms, I have to say at this stage that I am unlikely to invest in Muse.

IT appears almost as if a Muse user is held to ransom. Use Business Catalyst to host your sites or don't use forms. If you do use forms, don't bother backing up your site for disaster insurance. The site won't be worth hosting on your own servers because the forms probably won't work. And a site without forms today is ancient history.

LIke someone said above, a simple, happy and carefree site design experience becomes a "day job" to debug.

Not good enough, Adobe.

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