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Size limit in form?? 1

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Wullie

Programmer
Mar 17, 2001
3,674
GB
Hi all,

I am having a problem that is driving me crazy!!

I have a form on my site that allows users to request a quote from me.

The problem is that I have added quite a few fields to this form and now only part of the form is being transferred to me.

I have the form action set to POST and have checked the code loads of times and there is no error in the code that I can see(Probably is one and I have missed it).

You can view the form at
Has anyone got any suggestions?

Has anyone ever had this problem?

Thanks in advance for any help Wullie

 
There could be a problem in your cgi-script and the way it is processing the sent data. Can you post the script for us to look at??
 
Did you make sure that the new fields are inside the form tags. I know it sounds dumb, but it's an easy mistake to make. Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard. [dragon]
 
Hi all,

Thanks..

Teenmonk - I cannot post the script as it is blat I am using, sorry I did mean to mention that.

Tracy - Yes all fields are inside the form tags. I actually wish that it was as simple as that, I would rather feel stupid than still have this problem. It is really annoying me..

I have been checking to see if there was any bugs with blat but have found nothing regarding this.

I am considering other ways of sending the mail, the most obvious to me is PHP.

Thanks for all your help.
Wullie

 
I'm assuming you meant you have the METHOD (not action) set to POST. There IS a limit to the length of data sent by the GET method. What kind of program are you using to call blat? Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard. [dragon]
 
Hi Tracy,

Sorry, I did mean the METHOD.. It's been a long day!!

I am aware that the get method has a limit but it is post that I am using so there shouldn't be a problem with that.

There is no program that calls blat when used from a form, you just have to set blat up as the action of the form. I found this out after I posted in the cgi forum a while back asking for a windows alternative to sendmail and I think it was you that suggested blat...

Thanks for the help, Wullie

 
I just took a look at the page, and it looks OK to me. Which specific fields aren't being sent? Have you tried rearranging the fields? If it's a length problem this would show up when you rearrange the fields. It sounds like an issue with blat.exe to me. Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard. [dragon]
 
Hi Tracy,

Sorry I didn't really explain that well.

To be more precise, part of the form is being submitted but the end of the form just simply is not there..

An example of the end of the email is as follows:

other_items_required=Submission_Forms
other_items_required=Live_Customer_Support
other_i

I am running my own mail server and have been checking the logs to see if there was a similarity in the size of message being transferred and there seems to be a range of sizes being sent..

Some sizes of data sent are 1882, 1875, 1885, 1684, 1921, 1573, 1492 and so on.. Seems to be a connection with some of them..

When I click on the submit button 5 times, all emails sent are the same size and cut off at the same point.

I am beginning to give up on this and am seriously looking at another way of sending the mail..

Thanks for all your help,
Wullie

 
Hi Tracy,

I have found some posts on another forum regarding this same problem BUT they have no solution either. [cry]

I have changed my form to submit as multiple pages at present until I get another solution...

The problem with this is that the form has to be split up and sent as seperate parts so I have multiple emails just for the one form. Another problem is, if someone enters quite a bit of text into the comments field then I am totally stuck as I will only have part of this proccessed..

I have a cgi script that came with the email server but that only sends the basic fields.(From,cc,subject,comments etc.) I am considering setting that up just for the comments incase blat stops vital data being sent. It is not very professional phoning your customer to ask what they entered in your form.. I personally wouldn't deal with a web design company that couldn't set up a form correctly!!

This solution will have to do for now as it is nearly 4am here and I need sleep!! [sleeping]

Thanks for all the help Tracy, I really appreciate it.. Wullie

 
I don't have any experience with blat, so I'm not sure I can be too much help, but it definitely looks like some kind of size problem. I've been working on a program to email form results like you want, only better, but it's not done yet. It works fine with sendmail (unix). I tried to modify it to optionally use Net::SMTP so it would work on non-unix systems too, but my ISP doesn't have that perl module installed, I can't test it on my windows system because I use MSN and I can't get through their #$@% "secure password authentication" to send the email. The program will allow you to actually format the email the way you want it rather than just sending the form data, and will also optionally create a comma-separated values file from the data that can be imported into many database and spreadsheet programs. It's going to be a saleable program when I'm done, but if you want to help me test it with Net::SMTP (or maybe even blat), I'll give you a copy and credit. Let me know. Tracy Dryden
tracy@bydisn.com

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard. [dragon]
 
Thanks tracy,

I am not sure if this would work but could you not send the mail directly through my mail server?

I could set you up as a trusted domain if you want.. Just a suggestion..

I would love to test this program for you..

If you want to contact me regarding this my email is william_nisbet@hotmail.com

Thanks a lot Tracy, I really appreciate it.. Wullie

 
I was just replying to another related problem and it occured to me that you could try something like this and if it works you would isolate the problem to the mailer.

<html><head><title>Comments</title></head>
<body bgcolor=&quot;yellow&quot;><b>TO:
XYZ@home.com
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;SUBJECT:Comments</b>
<form method=&quot;POST&quot;
action=&quot;mailto:XYZ@home.com?subject=Comments
&quot;enctype=&quot;text/plain&quot; target=_blank>
<textarea name=&quot;Data&quot; rows=&quot;3&quot; cols=&quot;75&quot;>
</textarea><br><br><b>
<input type=&quot;submit&quot; value=&quot;Submit&quot;>
</b></form></body></html>
 
Hi mate,

:mailto wasn't an option for me..

It was for a web design site and I personally think that using a mailto action is an amateur way to mail a form, especially when I have full cgi access.. It also makes it more difficult as I have about 30 fields in this form..

I eventually gave up with blat and tried Tracy's program that is mentioned above and all my problems are solved..

I am very impressed with the program that Tracy has developed and would recommend it to anyone!!

Thanks anyway mate,

Wullie Wullie

 
Wullie,

If you're still considering using another method and wanna utilize your CGI capability, I recommend a script on Matt's Script Archive called *FormMail*. It's really easy to use and you can check it out at:


I have a form with about the same fields as yours and that's the script I use. If you wanna check it out, please visit:

 
Hi mate,

I have used formmail already but this is for use on a windows server, so sendmail is not an option..

Blat is a windows alternative to sendmail.

As previously mentioned, I now have the script that is going to run this, and all the other forms I create in the future, on unix and windows..

Hope this helps Wullie

 
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