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Suppose our client, Bob, has the following email address: [email protected]. He has setup an auto responder on this address, so if you send a mail to it, it automatically replies with:

Thank you for contacting me, Bob, your uncle. I love you.

Now, suppose we have a helpdesk ticket system with the following address: [email protected]. Everytime someone sends an email address, it replies with:

Your ticket number is ABCDEF. Thank you! :-) Bla bla bla.

Now, suppose bob sends a mail to [email protected]. Here's what will happen:

Bob sends a mail to [email protected]
Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr
Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received
Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr
Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received
Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr
Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received
Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr
Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received
Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr
Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received

Notice the infinite loop? So... how do ticket systems deal with this?

I use WHMCS, and I have no idea how to set this up to avoid infinite loops.

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1 Answer 1

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The easiest way is to set the reply address on the email your helpdesk sends to something that just deletes everything it receives (or anyway doesn't send an autoreply).

So

Bob sends a mail to [email protected]

Helpdesk replies to [email protected] with ticket nr

Bob's auto responder replies to thank for the mail that it received (to [email protected])

The end.

(This is why such things often have a message saying "don't reply to this email".)

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