I am trying to: enter an email address in an email custom field when creating a post
Link to a page where the issue can be seen: I can provide privately
I expected to see: the email address accepted
Instead, I got: An error saying the email is invalid
I am receiving an error when entering an email address with a specific domain (that I can provide privately). The error is:
"Field "Student Email" not updated: Please enter a valid email address."
The post appears to save as expected when I use any other email addresses that I try, but not when it has this particular domain. It's very strange...?
Hi Katrina,
Thank you for contacting us and I'll be happy to assist.
I've set your next reply as private so that you can share the link to the page and the exact email address/domain that is not being accepted.
Once I'll have this information, I'll be in a better position to guide you accordingly.
regards,
Waqar
Oops - i have redacted this message because it wasn't private when i logged out! Where can i enter the information for you privately?
Hi Katrina,
Thanks for sharing the information and it is strange that it wasn't private.
I've got the contents of your original message, though.
The Toolset's email validation function not only checks for the format of the entered email address, but it also checks if the domain name used also has a valid MX ( ref function: hidden link ) and DNS ( ref: hidden link ) records attached to it.
If you'll check that email address's domain's through any tool like hidden link, you'll see that no MX or NS records exist for it, which is why it is failing the validation.
In case your project doesn't require this level of validation for the email addresses, you can turn off Toolset's own email validation, by unchecking the checkbox next to "Email" in your email field's validation settings, which is available on the custom field group's editing screen.
( screenshot : hidden link )
I hope this helps.
regards,
Waqar
Hi Waqar,
How interesting. Thanks so much for the explanation. I have a couple of follow-up questions:
- If there are no MXrecords associated with the domain, does that mean the email address is non-functional and unable to send/receive emails?
- Is there anyway in Toolset to modify the email validation so that it checkes the format, but disregards the MX validity?
Katrina
Hi Katrina,
Thanks for writing back.
> If there are no MXrecords associated with the domain, does that mean the email address is non-functional and unable to send/receive emails?
- Since the MX records decide the route for the email, a domain missing an MX record is highly likely to have non-functional email addresses.
In absence of MX record, the email will be attempted to be delivered to the domain's A record, which is a subset of NS record.
( ref: hidden link ).
For this reason, if MX and NS are both missing for a domain, it is absolutely likely that its email addresses are non-functional.
(which is the case for the domain that you are using)
> Is there anyway in Toolset to modify the email validation so that it checkes the format, but disregards the MX validity?
- I'm afraid, the default Toolset validation for the email field can't be modified, but even if it is disabled, the email custom field will still remain "email" input type.
( hidden link )
This means that most modern browsers will still apply some level of automatic validation for the correct email format to this field.
regards,
Waqar
Thanks so much Waqar for your help and for explaining everything so thoroughly. I really appreciate it.
