Dnn.platform: Email message formatting

[jncraig]

Description of bug

Email message formatting needs to be cleaned up: Password Reset Message

Steps to reproduce

Click the password reset link on the login page

Current result

I get a message like this:

Dear Joe Craig, You have requested a Password Reset Token from DNN Open Source Community. Please login using the following information: Website Address: dnnsoftware.org
Username: jncraig Link to reset password: https://dnnsoftware.org?ctl=PasswordReset&resetToken=57e12270-0ee8-4398-a0ec-9151e26e358d Sincerely, DNN Open Source Community *Note: If you did not request a Password Reset Token, please tell us immediately in the forums: https://dnncommunity.org/forums/aff/13 

Expected result

Dear Joe Craig,

You have requested a Password Reset Token from DNN Open Source Community.

Please login using the following information:
Website Address: dnnsoftware.org
Username: jncraig
Link to reset password: https://dnnsoftware.org?ctl=PasswordReset&resetToken=57e12270-0ee8-4398-a0ec-9151e26e358d 

Sincerely,
DNN Open Source Community

*Note: If you did not request a Password Reset Token, please tell us immediately in the forums: https://dnncommunity.org/forums/aff/13 

Screenshots

If applicable, provide screenshots to help explain your problem.

Error log

Paste the error log that is related to this issue.

Additional context

A few days ago I responded to a message over on Aderson's Open Help Slack about a similar problem.  So, this probably needs fixing in the DNN source, too.

Also, probably all email messages need to be reviewed and cleaned up.

Affected version

• [x] 9.3.2 or whatever version dnnsoftware.org is running.

Affected browser

Not a browser issue.

[markandcurry]

Did anything happen with this? I'm experiencing the same issue.

[valadas]

@markandcurry not yet no, should be a simple fix though, just editing the resource file I guess... As a workaround, it can be edited in the localization resource files. I _think_ it is in global resources, if you search for email you should see a few keys that are the email templates...

[sleupold]

This should be an issue with the ressource key on dnnsorftware.com, it has not been reported as issue on DNN platform itself.
Info should be forwarded to DNN Corp, who is maintaining dnnsoftware.com (and closed here)

[valadas]

Actually it is reported as dnnsoftware.ORG, le me try an install here...

[valadas]

@sleupold is right, this is a content issue, not the platform. It works fine with a clean install here. Let me see if I can move this to the right place...

[valadas]

Since this is content, I have created this forum post, I am closing this and the discussion can continue at:

https://dnncommunity.org/forums/aft/148

[Tychodewaard]

I just tested locally (9.3.2, nvquicksite) and I see the following (below) in globalresources.resx. As there is no html, it explaines why this is not displaying properly in the mailclient. If you reopen the issue, I'll create a PR.

Dear [User:DisplayName],

You have requested a Password Reset Token from [Portal:PortalName].

Please login using the following information:

Website Address: [Portal:URL]
Username: [User:Username]

Link to reset password: [Portal:PASSWORDREMINDERURL]?ctl=PasswordReset&resetToken=[Membership:PasswordResetToken]

Sincerely,
[Portal:PortalName]

*Note: If you did not request a Password Reset Token, please disregard this Message.

[sleupold]

@Tychodewaard
If there are no html tags, the email should be sent as plain text with the current formattion. It is important to check, why either line breaks are eliminated or the mail is unexpectedly sent as HTML.

[valadas]

I reopened this for further testing, but @sleupold is right though. Could this be that it is email client specific or some token that is replaced contains html ? @jncraig

[markandcurry]

I was able to get around this by encoding the messages as ASCII HMTL entities and updating the relevant fields in their respective .resx files. Kind of a hack, but it solved the problem for the time being.

[valadas]

@markandcurry can you let us know which email client you are using please, wanna see if the plain-text vs html format is related to some specific clients or what... Thanks. Just wanna see why it works fine here using outlook and a clean install.

[Tychodewaard]

I use Office 365 (outlook.office.com)
I have no breaks unless I add it in the globalresources.resx. And the reset link is not a link either.

[sleupold]

@Tychodewaard
the issue on dnnsoftware.org might have been caused by by the SMTP server (Sendgrid) which adds a hidden image to the end, i.e. it turns the plain text mail into an HTML mail but does not convert the line breaks to br tokens.

[valadas]

Oh, that makes sense. So I guess it would be nice to modify the default text to actually be html, right?

[valadas]

Just double-checking we do have an agreement to make the default template html? I don't believe there are much mail clients that don't support html these days right?

[hismightiness]

I'm running into a similar issue with a client, but with the social messaging. In our case, I think that the messages sent from the profiles are being identified as not containing HTML and incorrectly sending them as plain text, instead of e-mail. Is anyone else running into this?

https://github.com/dnnsoftware/Dnn.Platform/blob/develop/DNN%20Platform/Library/Services/Mail/Mail.cs#L62

The result of this is that the line breaks in the messages are being replaced by spaces instead of line breaks. (So this is related, but not.) :)

[hismightiness]

Example message text:

Hello!

What's up?

Is this on a new line, or what?
<br /><br /><br />
What about this one?
\n\n\n
And this one?

Result:

[hismightiness]

Yeah... This maybe should be a separate bug, I think...? 🤔

Example without HTML in it:

Geez!

Not everything was on a new line, huh? 

This try is without any HTML in it.

Result:

[sleupold]

AFAIR, there is a very simply "IsHTML" check, looking for a "

" tag inside the message content or sth like this.

[hismightiness]

No... I dug into this more. It's more involved than that. I have a new issue created and most of the code written already.

https://github.com/dnnsoftware/Dnn.Platform/issues/4166

[stale[bot]]

We have detected this issue has not had any activity during the last 90 days. That could mean this issue is no longer relevant and/or nobody has found the necessary time to address the issue. We are trying to keep the list of open issues limited to those issues that are relevant to the majority and to close the ones that have become 'stale' (inactive). If no further activity is detected within the next 14 days, the issue will be closed automatically.
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[stale[bot]]

This issue has been closed automatically due to inactivity (as mentioned 14 days ago). Feel free to re-open the issue if you believe it is still relevant.