MailChimp Double Optin API not sending conf. email - mailchimp

I've created an express backend and I want to setup double optin. My code already works if I set the status to 'subscribed', but changing this to 'pending' does not result in the confirmation email being sent.
I have also updated a list for enabling double optin (and created a 2nd audience to test as well, same result).
I upgraded my mailchimp account from free to a paid option, and it's still not sending the confirmation email or adding the email at all in the audience (the code is responding with successful, though)?
Here's the pertinent part of the code:
const data = {
members: [
{
email_address: email,
status: 'pending'
}
]
}
const postData = JSON.stringify(data);
const options = {
url: 'https://us4.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/lists/mylistid',
method: 'POST',
headers: {
Authorization: 'auth mykey'
},
body: postData
}
Any thoughts?

Ugh, never mind. After what seemed to be 20+ minutes, I finally received the confirmation emails. The contact won't show up in MailChimp until a user confirms their email, so that's why it wasn't showing up in the MC UI.
Pretty disappointing it took that long for a confirmation email to be sent out. That will result in people forgetting to confirm -- hopefully that was just an exception and not the norm in the response time.

Related

Is Single Sender Validation in Sendgrid possible without logging in?

Was just wondering if it's possible for Single Sender Validation to be completed without having to login to Sendgrid as part of the process (e.g. click-through without login). For context, sometimes the people who "own" a mail address that we want to use for sending don't have access to Sendgrid, and we'd like them to be able to validate it. I think they can't by design, but wanted to confirm.
Looking at the API documentation, it looks like you can use the token sent in the validation email to complete the validation process, but I'm not sure if there's any way to effectively make use of that to redirect the user back to a process we control. There's another post that mentions the same kind of challenge, but thought I'd ask again as there wasn't anything definitive.
Is there a simple way to have the user who receives the validation redirect back to something other than sendgrid directly?
Thanks in advance!
The only alternative to logging in is to use the SendGrid API.
First, you either request the verification using the UI, or you use the Create Verified Sender Request API to start the verification for the single sender.
Then, the verification email will be sent to the specified email address which contains the verification URL. Usually, this URL will redirect you the the actual URL containing the verification token, as mentioned in the SO post you linked.
Once you get the verification token, you can use the Verify Sender Request API, passing in the verification token, to verify the single sender.
Note: All these APIs require a SendGrid API key.
So technically, you could have an application that prompts your user for their email address to verify, then uses the SendGrid API to start the verification which sends the verification email, then ask the user to go to their email inbox and copy in their verification link, then let the user paste in the URL from which you can extract the verification token, and use the API to verify. While the user didn't have to log in, it still requires some manual work.
However, the inputting of the email address and the checking the email inbox can also be done programmatically, so this process can be 100% automated, although it takes quite a bit of programming.
Here's a C# sample:
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities;
using SendGrid;
namespace VerifySender;
internal class Program
{
public static async Task Main(string[] args)
{
var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
.AddUserSecrets<Program>(optional: true)
.Build();
var apiKey = configuration["SendGrid:ApiKey"]
?? Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SENDGRID_API_KEY")
?? throw new Exception("SendGrid API Key not configured.");
var client = new SendGridClient(apiKey);
// replace this JSON with your own values
const string data = """
{
"nickname": "Orders",
"from_email": "orders#example.com",
"from_name": "Example Orders",
"reply_to": "orders#example.com",
"reply_to_name": "Example Orders",
"address": "1234 Fake St",
"address2": "PO Box 1234",
"state": "CA",
"city": "San Francisco",
"country": "USA",
"zip": "94105"
}
""";
var response = await client.RequestAsync(
method: SendGridClient.Method.POST,
urlPath: "verified_senders",
requestBody: data
);
if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Failed to request sender verification. HTTP status code {response.StatusCode}.");
Console.WriteLine(await response.Body.ReadAsStringAsync());
Console.WriteLine(response.Headers.ToString());
}
Console.WriteLine("Enter verification URL:");
var verificationUrl = Console.ReadLine();
var token = await GetVerificationTokenFromUrl(verificationUrl);
response = await client.RequestAsync(
method: SendGridClient.Method.GET,
urlPath: $"verified_senders/verify/{token}"
);
if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Failed to verify sender. HTTP status code {response.StatusCode}.");
Console.WriteLine(await response.Body.ReadAsStringAsync());
Console.WriteLine(response.Headers.ToString());
}
}
private static async Task<string> GetVerificationTokenFromUrl(string url)
{
/*
* url could be three different types:
* 1. Click Tracking Link which responds with HTTP Found and Location header to url type 2.
* 2. URL containing the verification token:
* https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/sender_auth/senders/verify?token=[VERIFICATION_TOKEN]&etc=etc
* 3. URL prompting the user to login, but contains url 2. in the redirect_to parameter:
* https://app.sendgrid.com/login?redirect_to=[URL_TYPE_2_ENCODED]
*/
const string verificationBaseUrl = "https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/sender_auth/senders/verify";
const string loginBaseUrl = "https://app.sendgrid.com/login";
if (url.StartsWith(verificationBaseUrl))
{
var uri = new Uri(url, UriKind.Absolute);
var parameters = QueryHelpers.ParseQuery(uri.Query);
if (parameters.ContainsKey("token"))
{
return parameters["token"].ToString();
}
throw new Exception("Did not find token in verification URL.");
}
if (url.StartsWith(loginBaseUrl))
{
var uri = new Uri(url, UriKind.Absolute);
var parameters = QueryHelpers.ParseQuery(uri.Query);
if (parameters.ContainsKey("redirect_to"))
{
url = $"https://app.sendgrid.com{parameters["redirect_to"]}";
return await GetVerificationTokenFromUrl(url);
}
throw new Exception("Did not find token in verification URL.");
}
var clientHandler = new HttpClientHandler();
clientHandler.AllowAutoRedirect = false;
using var httpClient = new HttpClient(clientHandler);
var response = await httpClient.GetAsync(url);
if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Found)
{
var uri = response.Headers.Location;
return await GetVerificationTokenFromUrl(uri.ToString());
}
throw new Exception("Did not find token in verification URL.");
}
}
Take note of the comments inside of GetVerificationTokenFromUrl. Since I don't trust the user to copy the URL from the email without clicking on it, I added support for three types of URL:
Click Tracking Link which responds with HTTP Found and Location header to url type 2.
URL containing the verification token: https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/sender_auth/senders/verify?token=[VERIFICATION_TOKEN]&etc=etc
URL prompting the user to login, but contains url 2. in the redirect_to parameter: https://app.sendgrid.com/login?redirect_to=[URL_TYPE_2_ENCODED]
Here's the full source code on GitHub.

React js AJAX sends sometimes GET instead of POST and getting 304 strange

I've got a problem and I have no idea why it appears. The circumstances of its appearance are very strange for me...
I've got a POST REST service /login. It expects json {"email":email,"password":password}. I am using ajax and everything works correctly... except for the case when email (is in real format) contains '#' sign and some letters before and after( I know it is strange but only in this case such error appears). When I pass email i.e "mum#mum.com" then few things are happening:
I see that browser sends GET request instead of POST and obtains 304 http status
In the browser console I see infomation "The development server has disconnected. Refresh the page if necessary" and page refreshes automatically
The above things happen only when email is in format I described above.When I pass "aaa" or "aaa#" as email everything works correctly(browser sends POST request and I don't get error in console).
I honestly have no idea why this happens... would be extremely grateful for your help and I will answer all your questions concerning this.
PS.
When I use REST web service tool in IntellJ everything always works fine.
handleLogin() {
const input = {
email: this.state.email,
password: this.state.password
};
$.ajax({
url: CONST.USER_SERVICE + "/login",
type: "POST",
data: JSON.stringify(input),
contentType: "jsonp"
})
.fail(function () {
alert("Wrong data");
})
.always(function (arg1, arg2, arg3) {
if (arg3.status === 200) {
alert("ok!");
}
}.bind(this));
}
Try making the ajax request like data: input without stringify. Ajax expects an object.

How come I keep getting a "Request failed with response code 401" when trying to push via Urban Airship?

I have double, triple, and quadruple checked that I have the right master key that I'm passing. My parameters are taking directly from the UA website also so it can't be that. Anyone see what I'm doing wrong here???
Parse.Cloud.define("sendPush", function(request, response) {
var Buffer = require('buffer').Buffer;
var parameters = {
"audience" : "all",
"device_types" : "all",
"notification" : {
"alert" : "Hello from Urban Airship."
}
};
var params = JSON.stringify(parameters);
Parse.Cloud.httpRequest({
url: "https://go.urbanairship.com/api/push/",
method: 'POST',
headers: {
"Content-Type" : "application/json",
"Authorization" : 'Basic ' + new Buffer('MASTER_KEY').toString('base64'),
"Accept" : "application/vnd.urbanairship+json; version=3;"
},
body: params,
success: function(httpResponse) {
response.error(httpResponse);
},
error: function(httpResponse) {
response.error('Request failed with response code ' + httpResponse.status);
}
});
});
I've also tried adding in APP_SECRET:
"Authorization" : 'Basic ' + new Buffer('APP_SECRET':'MASTER_KEY').toString('base64'),
It's not clear from your code sample if you are including the app key in your request. API requests to Urban Airship use HTTP basic authentication. The username portion is the application key and the password portion in this case is the master secret. The application secret is restricted to lower-security APIs and is for use in the distributed application. The master secret is needed for sending messages and other server API requests.
Urban Airship provides a guide for troubleshooting common API issues.
I had the same problem and tried to figure it out by Network diagnosing tools for more than two days. Because after debugging I checked that I send the right credentials to UA. After all I called the UA and ask them to check the Credentials (in my case was appKey and appToken for streaming with java-connect API) if they are still valid. They checked and approved the validation but just in case sent me a new credentials. And I could connect with the new credentials!
It is for sure a bug by UA because I tested the whole time by another test application, which was a Desktop java application and I could connect to the server (with the same appKey and appToken) and get the events, but I got 401 error in my main Application, which was a Web Application running on TomCat 8.0 . It means It worked in a same time in with the same credential for one application and did not work for another application.

Can Mandrill be asked to dry-run sending of an e-mail? (Parse Cloud Code)

I'm using a Parse Cloud Job to send e-mails to all our ~1000 of users with Mandrill right now. Currently, I use a Parse.Cloud.httpRequest like so:
function sendNewsletterWithMandrill(info) {
var mandrillBody = computeMandrillBodyFromInfo(info); // takes a while per user
return Parse.Cloud.httpRequest({
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json;charset=utf-8'
},
url: 'https://mandrillapp.com/api/1.0/messages/send-template.json',
body: mandrillRequestBody
});
};
I want test that this implementation runs within the 15 minutes for wall-clock time limit that Parse Cloud Jobs have.
i.e. I want my code to take the time to compute the e-mail body, and actually perform the request, but NOT actually send the e-mail.
How can I achieve this? Cheers.
You can create in Mandrill a test api key, it will make the request and give you a positive answer if the email was ok but it will not send the email.

Backbone/JS: looking to access the Twilio SMS API via an AJAX call

Looking to set up Twilio's SMS service so that when a user presses a certain button, it leverages my account with Twilio to send a text.
Using Backbone.js with coffeescript, and this has to be done client-side for the moment, so I'm doing something like this:
events: {
"click .button": "sendText"
}
and then sendText looks like this:
sendText: ()->
accountSid = '{my account sid}'
authToken = '{my auth token}'
ToNumber = "{string of a number to text to}"
FromNumber = "{string of my Twilio number}"
Body = escape("Hey, this is working.")
myJSONData = "To=%2B1" + ToNumber + ", From=%2B1" + FromNumber + ", Body=" + Body
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
url: 'https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/'+ accountSid + '/SMS/Messages',
data: myJSONData,
success: (data) -> {
console.log('SMS sent successfully!')
}
})
Is this heading in the right direction? I know that I haven't entered my auth credentials anywhere yet, but I'm not certain where to do that yet.
You shouldn't, under any circumstance, have your authToken (and the situation is worse as you're also including your account sid) available for anyone who wants to see you source code.
With that info, I can provision numbers on your behalf, make calls, return numbers... You just can't do it on the client side.
You should connect (using Ajax if you want) to your server, which in turn would connect to twilio passing your credentials. That way, the only one who knows them is your server.

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