At 1:00 AM -0500 12/6/01, B & A is rumored to have typed:
Thanks for the response. The line (Only addresses below this line can be automatically removed) is still there. Yes, of course I've been "mucking about" in my dist file... if I hadn't, no one would have gotten unsubscribed for the last two months! LOL
That's not necessarily true, and it sure as heck ain't funny. Did you try using X-Commands? Do they work? Do you know what an X-Command _is?_
My dist file is beautiful.
With the possible expection that SmartList isn't mailing anything out to it...
No <CR>s that I can see, no empty lines.... of course, I know nothing of this Unix editor of which you speak... (Stop wincing, your face will stay that way!)
How are you viewing your dist file? You _really_ need to give some specific information before anyone can help you. (And pay attention to Peter's letter; he was smart enough to realize that you didn't understand what I was talking about when I talked about line feeds and carriage returns. My bad, not your, I should have explained it better and not assumed you'd understand.) But you _do_ need to start taking this seriously.
My newsletters have gone out faithfully, though nothing else has worked.
(*sigh*) That's like saying, "I have this tumor on my arm, but I can still walk, so everything's fine." Anytime you have a quantifiable problem, you are asking for trouble if you don't fix it. These things can cascade, especially when you try to "fix" the symptoms without understanding the underlying problem.
I'm about ready to give up and find a list host... they're all just so expensive and I like to do these things myself.
They aren't _all_ that terribly expensive, and forgive me for being blunt in suggesting that you may not be _ready_ to do _this_ thing yourself. I'm not suggesting you give up, but I _am_ telling you that you need to be prepared to make an investment in learing how this all works if you plan on fixing it, even _with_ our help. You need to learn enough so we can speak the same language...we'll help you all we can, but _you_ have to learn it.
Trouble is, though I know HTML well, I'm new to this list management thing, and know nothing about Unix.
THIS is the problem. Never mess around with internals until you know what you're doing.
Is there a text editor I can download? I'm really trying to get the hang of this. I apologize greatly for my ignorance. Being blonde is only half of it. <grin>
For WHAT OPERATING SYSTEM? Look, all I know for sure about you is that you are sending your email to the list using Windows (I can tell that by the X-Mailer header field.) I don't know whether you root the box that SmartList is on (although I'm placing a whole lot of money that you aren't and are paying a few bucks/month for a shared machine), and I sure don't know how you're looking at the files (although I'm betting you're either using some web-based thingie or FTPing the files into your Windoze machine). You need to help us out a little bit.
I saved the old rc.init file. I guess I'll go see if I can get it to work with that. But what of this marvel, this wonder, this "Unix editor" of which you speak?
I'm with Peter here - what the devil are you doing messing around with your rc.init? Now we have to deal with debugging possible screwups in your rc.init file as well as the dist file. Let's all sit down, take a few deep breaths, and relax. The first thing we're going to do is decide NOT to try sending anything else through your list until the problem is fixed. Second thing we're going to decide is that you're NOT going toi muck around with anything else in any fashion whatsoever until we figure out where you _are_ and how to get you back to where you're going. Now we need to deal _seriously_ with the problem - let's start by you carefully detailing _exactly_ what you're doing and how. Start with how SmartList is set up (on a machine you operate, a leased machine you control, or a shared "virtual hosting" machine, a friend's machine, etc., etc.), what software you are currently using to view or edit the files AND ON WHAT MACHINE (the machine that's running Smartlist? your desk machine? a modem-based typewritter?), whether or not you have telnet/SSH access to a command line on the machine running SmartList (if you don't know what that means, we'll assume you don't), exactly how you routinely access the machine that's hosting your SmartLIst install, that kind of thing. Be specific (you obviously don't need to give us login passwords, the IP of the machine, and the like, but we DO need to know what the heck you're doing before we can tell you what not to do anymore), and don't leave anything out no matter how insignificant it might be to you. There are a gadzillion different ways of doing things, but only one way that _you_ do things, and we need to know how you do it before we can do any more than guess how to undo the problem. Charlie (who also suggests you stop top-posting, and including the entire message to which you reply)