tickets with email content

[snake]

I am having an issue with a lot of emails that come into my ticket system which contain eamil and CSS.

These tickets are completely unreadable as all the css is displayed as text, which makes the ticket several pages long, and the html is presumably stripped out,  which makes a mess of the content and completely removes some of it.

Is there any solution to this?

[zitu4life]

WHMCS   recommendations is  to use ticket system only for ticket  purpose, not for others income email so if any commercial email or spam with CSS, pictures, HTML are not support by ticket importing system... I have opened a thread  like this  but did not find any workaround. perhaps a manual filter could be possible, but it is out my skills.  If would a way to filter or block CSS codes would be a must, but do not think it is possible. If some day you overpass  this please follow-up  on this thread.😃

@brian!  pass closely with this code, but it looks would be need to make filter all time new strange things appears.  

 

{$reply.message}
to...

{$reply.message|replace:"<br />\r\n<br />\r\n<br />\r\n":"</br />"}

 

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by zitu4life

[snake]

yes, it is a poor suggestion from WHMCS support when they themselves have everything going through their own ticket system and there is no other direct email address for them.

It is also not really possible to do this, as you cannot pick and choose whose emails go into the ticket system.

The only workaround I have so far, is that I do some filtering on the actual mailbox. So if email comes from a known email address which I know is problematic, then I forward and delete it so it doesn't get imported.

 

[snake]

has anyone found a solution to this yet, it is still a massive problem.

 

[zitu4life]

1 hour ago, snake said:

has anyone found a solution to this yet, it is still a massive problem.

 

It looks that is impossible to fix it... I guess even a module could not fix this scenario.

Why?

1 - WHMCS imports emails, but WHMCS are not able  to distinguish what is real body message, and what is Header and footer coded HTML or css.

2 - some emails marketing or any kind of announcement have body test, pictures, and mix of lot of things...so WHMCS do not have a way to deal with that, and even their developers I guess are not interested in that or simple do not have a way to deal with that.

Personally if I anyone find a way to get it better, or even a module that could filter those garbage I would pay for that, but perhaps it is not possible to be done technically, but I am not a developer.  

[bear]

There's a 4 year old (surprised?) request about this (well, about allowing for a "click to see original message" or something like that) that says it's under consideration. 

https://requests.whmcs.com/topic/add-an-option-to-see-the-original-mail-from-the-client-with-the-original-html-formatting-etc

[snake]

so who would be interested to contribute toward getting a custom module developed to solve this?

[zitu4life]

16 hours ago, snake said:

so who would be interested to contribute toward getting a custom module developed to solve this?

yes, if there is a a group of few users interested to divide amount for a developers to create it, yes, I am interested, and I would contribute. Of course if amount is reasonable to compensate this investment.

Interested:

1 -  @zitu4life
2 -
3 - 
4 - 

[snake]

ok, I have posted a job to find out how much it will cost.

[zitu4life]

@snake @ramfToday while testing 7 days Modules Garden CRM, I found something interesting...CRM module from modules garden has an options where you can set-up your mail box (IMAP or SMTP) that allows you read emails on an Pop-up inside WHMCS,  and for my surprising emails are open like they are (something that never seen on WHMCS before, with all HTML and CSS content...On my crazy thinking I could assume if modules Garden create that years ago...would be possible in somehow, have a module where, when we opened those crazy tickets we could just have a way to open an original email on an popup like happen on Modules garden CRM.....of couse I do not know if in terms of security it is good or not, but if Modules garden have it i should assume their module have passed on huge tests.

https://requests.whmcs.com/topic/add-an-option-to-see-the-original-mail-from-the-client-with-the-original-html-formatting-etc

I think @ModulesGarden could have the skills to create such module, considering that one of their modules already have half of job done!!

 

This is a pop-up email message imported to WHMCS by CRM module

 

After seeing this, now I think it should be possible having  way to read original email inside WHMCS and even with a little good faith reading it without leaving ticket system. 🙂

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by zitu4life
change from to by

[ramf]

@zitu4life  that's looks superb - But I think that this is something that should be a part of WHMCS directly without the need for a separate module... 
But since the feature request have only 39 votes it's somewhat unlikely.

Have you contacted @ModulesGarden and got a price offer for a module that will add the option to see the original mail from the client (with the original HTML formatting etc.)?

In the meantime please vote for the above feature request.
Thanks!
Ram

 

 

 

[snake]

I wouldn;t trust anything that came from modules garden.
every module of their I have tried has been riddled with bugs or just did not work as advertised.
I have paid them for custom work, which they were unable to do and terrible communication from the developer.

 

[ramf]

@snake - I guess this is a bit off topic - But who do you recommend as a developer for WHMCS modules?

[bear]

4 hours ago, ramf said:

But who do you recommend as a developer for WHMCS modules?

I know you didn't ask me, but you might consider throwing some money at @brian! to see if you could convince him to work on one. AFAIK he isn't creating and selling things here, but he certainly has the ability to.

[snake]

I cannot specifically recommend anyone, as any work I have had done to date was via freelancers sites and that has been a disaster to be honest.

I would be looking at the module developers in the market place who have a good reputation and offer custom development (not modules garden though LOL)
I would also  concur with the above suggestion RE Brian, considering he pretty much provides all the support on these forums and seems to answer every single question I post.

What you do have to keep in mind is that you will need any custom addon to be maintained and updated, which is why it probably better to go with a developer/company who are already selling and maintaoining addons.

[ramf]

Superb.

Thank.

[snake]

just gonna bump this to see if anyone found a solution to this very old issue yet.

[yggdrasil]

This is not a simple fix unless WHMCS decides to convert all emails to plain text.

Your only options are:

For support, restrict emails to only registered users.

In general, letting emails pipe to a web system is not really safe if they allow all HTML, so you will have similar issues with other ticket system, while they might try to render some HTML this is more territory into building a fully webmail client that can render emails properly which WHMCS is not, since it's a basic ticket system. WHMCS does not as far as I'm aware, or at least it's very bad for piping emails. Don't expect them to render HTML emails anytime soon if ever, this is rather tricky to make secure, you don't want someone being able to remote log images and track your staff or other potential issues by injecting HTML into your help desk.

Option 2:

A mail filter on your side that strips HTML or makes the render. Most antispam filter have settings to strips specific HTML code which would be doing the job before they go into WHMCS.

Option 3: Don't allow emails to tickets. This is actually not uncommon and most companies with heavy volumes probably do, if you allow emails, again the best option is only from registered users.

If you absolutely must, unless you have an amazing spam filter, this is going to be a nightmare with WHMCS but if you do have a great antispam system, it's rare that one person writes email with CSS. I can only guess you are either receiving spam or commercial emails since most people will not use an HTML template with CSS while sending an email to your helpdesk. The only cases I know people having HTML in the email is if they use a signature.

[yggdrasil]

On 6/28/2020 at 8:40 AM, snake said:

I cannot specifically recommend anyone, as any work I have had done to date was via freelancers sites and that has been a disaster to be honest.

I would be looking at the module developers in the market place who have a good reputation and offer custom development (not modules garden though LOL)
I would also  concur with the above suggestion RE Brian, considering he pretty much provides all the support on these forums and seems to answer every single question I post.

What you do have to keep in mind is that you will need any custom addon to be maintained and updated, which is why it probably better to go with a developer/company who are already selling and maintaoining addons.

The reason you don't find them is because its most likely not possible to do with an addon on WHMCS. The rendering process is done with an encoded PHP file and I don't think the proper API or hooks are available for developers. Since developers can't actually tap into the deep code on the system that pipes emails it would rather be a difficult task to do with a WHMCS module. Best options is passing emails trough a filter that does this before relaying emails back to WHMCS.

[snake]

Quote

For support, restrict emails to only registered users.

The issue is not related to whether a user is registered or not, it is related to the html generated by the email cleint.

 

Quote

In general, letting emails pipe to a web system is not really safe if they allow all HTML, so you will have similar issues with other ticket system, while they might try to render some HTML this is more territory into building a fully webmail client that can render emails properly which WHMCS is not, since it's a basic ticket system. WHMCS does not as far as I'm aware, or at least it's very bad for piping emails. Don't expect them to render HTML emails anytime soon if ever, this is rather tricky to make secure, you don't want someone being able to remote log images and track your staff or other potential issues by injecting HTML into your help desk.

But I am not asking anyone to allow HTML??? 
WHMCS does not allow HTML, it strips it out, but it just doesn't do a very good job of it, since lods of it gets through, esp from outlook.

I have used numerous other ticket systems, and they all work better than WHMCS. And before you say "well won;t don;t you use them then", there is no other ticket system that integrates with WHMCS.

 

[yggdrasil]

20 hours ago, snake said:

The issue is not related to whether a user is registered or not, it is related to the html generated by the email cleint.

 

But I am not asking anyone to allow HTML??? 
WHMCS does not allow HTML, it strips it out, but it just doesn't do a very good job of it, since lods of it gets through, esp from outlook.

I have used numerous other ticket systems, and they all work better than WHMCS. And before you say "well won;t don;t you use them then", there is no other ticket system that integrates with WHMCS.

 

The reason I stated that is because the ticket email rendering system that WHMCS uses is ancient and they are not interested on making deep core changes anymore at this point. They have not fixed basic bugs that take 10 minutes of coding in years. Expecting them to fix something like this which would take consistently more time is something unrealistic as they are more interested on promoting new stuff than improving an existing thing does not bring them more sales.

You can open a support ticket and they will claim it's a new feature 😂. This is why I stated to use something else or filter mails before piping them to WHMCS if you expect some solution. A developer could certainly make a different module that parses emails before the ticket system, but it would be completely separated from the existing piping feature build into WHMCS as we can't change the existing code.

The ticket system that comes with WHMCS is more or less the same in the past 5 or more years. They added tiny things here and there but I'm just being realistic when I tell you not to expect them to take this with any priority.

Edited April 6, 2022 by yggdrasil

[snake]

I am aware of all this, I have been using whmcs myself for 15 years, and I know how rubbish they are at fixing bugs and that they just tell you to submit a feature request despite the fact that they ignore feature requests that have been there for years.

Thus why I am here on the community asking if anyone else has a solution, since all of the 50,000+ other companies who use WHMCS must have the same issue. It seems likely that some of them has developed a solution to it.
I would gladly use an external solution if there some way to integrate it into WHMCS, which bizarrely there still isn't afte rall these years, even though there is an option of ir in the settings.

https://katamaze.com/blog/54/avoid-whmcs-blesta-hostbill-clientexec-ubersmith-hosting

[string]

There is no addon for this because it is time-consuming to identify and fix all edge cases . Yes, a developer would probably see first successes quickly, but the edge cases will make up 99% of the work. And such special cases must be solved in cooperation with the buyer of such a module. And that's where the issues begin - often customers are uncooperative, throwing down any scraps of words as a "full issue description" and so on. 

And even if it's a problem, which happens maybe one in 100 times, an "ASAP" solution is expected when someone spends money on a module. So it's not really an option to say, "yeah, that's just the way it is" without risking that the client going nuts.

In addition - and this is the real reason - the market for such an addon is too small and one can't charge a lot for it, otherwise no one of the few interested people would buy it. In short, it makes no economic sense to invest a lot of time in something like this. If such a module appears on the marketplace, it will probably be from someone who has solved the problem for himself and wants to sell the module.

If you want a solution, you will have to find a developer. And you will certainly have to pay a certain amount of money for the development - i don't think developers are just waiting to take on this job, as it's a boring, time-consuming matter that needs to be paid accordingly. Sorry if this sounds too direct, but that's the way it is 😕.

On 6/28/2020 at 2:40 PM, snake said:

What you do have to keep in mind is that you will need any custom addon to be maintained and updated, which is why it probably better to go with a developer/company who are already selling and maintaoining addons.

At least in this matter I can reassure you. Of course, we never know what WHMCS does next, but if things continue as usual, that module would rarely need updates once it is working as intended.

[snake]

I would disagree that this is a small number of minority edge cases.

the majority of the emails that cause issues come from Outlook/Microsoft 365. Microsoft are not some small mickey mouse email provider, they are  the largest providers in the world, since they are the original providers of hotmail, and windows live mail which predates outlook.com.

So just fixing the issue for outlook mails, would solve the problem for millions of users.

It is also a fairly generic solution, as once you have stripped out most of the HTML tags and their content, this will work on every email. So even the ones that slip through would still be a lot cleaner and easier to read.

 

[yggdrasil]

1 hour ago, snake said:

I would disagree that this is a small number of minority edge cases.

the majority of the emails that cause issues come from Outlook/Microsoft 365. Microsoft are not some small mickey mouse email provider, they are  the largest providers in the world, since they are the original providers of hotmail, and windows live mail which predates outlook.com.

So just fixing the issue for outlook mails, would solve the problem for millions of users.

It is also a fairly generic solution, as once you have stripped out most of the HTML tags and their content, this will work on every email. So even the ones that slip through would still be a lot cleaner and easier to read.

 

What exactly are those tags you mentioned you see which are generic and come from every Outlook/Microsoft email? I emailed myself from Outlook and I don't see a single CSS or HTML tag.

Edited April 6, 2022 by yggdrasil