notifications via metadata alerts and email configuration troubleshoot and logs

theCA

I have CA 1.7.17 running on Ubuntu.
Im trying to use the metadata alerts. I would like to understand the big picture in how the alerts supposed to work. Im sending this post also as a form of documentation about what i found for the community.
Main objective: I want to be notified via email when a date is about to reach, mostly for loans and insurance.

If I configure a metadata alert with Trigger type "modification" and Deliver notifications "to dashboard", when the metadata element changes I get a notification in the "notification inbox" in the dashboard. So far so good.
If I change the Trigger type to Date and set Notify user to "6 hours after date", when the system date matches the metadata element date nothing happens. I also considered timezones.
If i run /var/www/html/ca/support/bin/caUtils check-metadata-alerts, i get the notifications in the table ca_notifications. Therefore I assume I need to run this task hourly (at least) in cron.
If from 1 i just change the Deliver notifications "to email" i never get the emails. I have all the information for the smtp server in setup.php. I can see the alert added to the table ca_notifications.

So i have two main issues.
A. I dont know how to troubleshoot the email configuration. Where are the logs? How can I test it?
B. How to process the ca_notification table to get notifications to process the notifications from the table ca_notifications? should i add the following line to cron to run the task every 30 mins?:
*/30 * * * * root /var/www/html/ca/support/bin/caUtils check-metadata-alerts

monica

I've not used 1.7.17, so not sure it's changed since then, but I've never had to run that command in Cron.

To test email, there is a caUtils command to do that and logs go to app/log
There are some extra settings in app.conf for metadata alert email sending.

theCA

Hi monica, thanks for your prompt reply!!

What is the current release? We installed this recently.

I made the changes in app.conf:
#Email notifications
#Settings for notifications system used for metadata-based alerts notification_email_sender = [email] to match my setup.php email from. notification_email_subject = (<app_display_name>) Metadata Notification from CollectiveAccess

in app/log there is only:
2024-06-05 19:17:29 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/dcraw -i 2> /dev/null' 2024-06-05 19:17:29 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/libreoffice --version 2> /dev/null' 2024-06-05 20:20:25 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/mediainfo --Help > /dev/null' 2024-06-05 20:20:25 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/ffmpeg> /dev/null 2>&1' 2024-06-05 20:20:25 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/dcraw -i 2> /dev/null' 2024-06-05 20:20:25 - DEBUG --> Executing command: '/usr/bin/libreoffice --version 2> /dev/null'

The caUtils help doesn't mention anything related to emails:
`CollectiveAccess 1.7.17 (158/RELEASE) Utilities

export-profile                	Export current system configuration as an XML installation profile.ma
install                       	Performs a fresh installation of CollectiveAccess using the configured
                              	values in setup.php.

push-config-changes           	Pushes configuration changes from this system out to other systems.

update-installation-profile   	Updates the installation profile to match a supplied profile name. Backup
                              	your database before you use this!

Content management

scan-site-page-templates      	Scan site page templates for tags.

Cron

process-task-queue            	Process queued tasks.

Import/Export

export-data                   	Export data to a CSV, MARC or XML file.

import-data                   	Import data from many types of data sources.

import-media                  	Import media.

load-AAT                      	Load Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) into CollectiveAccess.

load-ULAN                     	Load Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) into CollectiveAccess.

load-chenhall-nomenclature    	Load AASLH Chenhall Nomenclature from an Excel file

load-export-mapping           	Load export mapping from Excel XLSX format file.

load-import-mapping           	Load import mapping from Excel XLSX format file.

print-system-guid             	Print system GUID value used for replication.

replicate-data                	Replicate data from one CollectiveAccess system to another.

Maintenance

check-media-fixity            	Verify media fixity using database file signatures

check-metadata-alerts         	Checks periodic metadata alert triggers

check-relationship-type-roots 	Check for and repair missing relationship type root records.

check-url-reference-integrity 	Checks integrity for all URL references in the database.

clear-caches                  	Clear application caches and tmp directories.

clear-search-indexing-queue-lock-file	Remove search indexing queue lock file if present.

do-configuration-check        	Performs configuration check on CollectiveAccess installation.

fix-permissions               	Fix folder permissions. MUST BE RUN WHILE LOGGED IN WITH ADMINSTRATIVE/ROOT
                              	PERMISSIONS. You are currently logged in as root (uid 0)

generate-missing-guids        	Generate missing guids

generate-new-system-guid      	Generates a new system GUID for this setup. Useful if you're using the
                              	sync/replication feature.

load-metadata-dictionary-from-excel-file	Load metadata dictionary entries from an Excel file

precache-content              	Pre-generate content cache.

precache-search-index         	Preload SQLSearch index into MySQL in-memory cache.

purge-deleted                 	Completely and permanently removes records marked as deleted in the
                              	database.

rebuild-sort-values           	Rebuilds values use to sort by title, name and identifier.

regenerate-dependent-field-values	Regenerate template-generated values for fields that are dependent values.

reload-object-current-location-dates	Regenerate date/time stamps for movement and object-based location
                              	tracking.

reload-object-current-locations	Reloads current location values for all object records.

reload-service-values         	Reload InformationService attribute values from referenced URLs.

reload-ulan-records           	Reload records imported from ULAN with the specified mapping.

remove-deleted-representations	Detects and, optionally, completely removes object representations marked
                              	as deleted in the database. Files referenced by these records are also
                              	removed.

remove-duplicate-records      	Show and, optionally, remove duplicate records

remove-unused-media           	Detects and, optionally, removes media present in the media directories but
                              	not referenced in the database.

reset-password                	Reset a user's password

update-database-schema        	Update database schema to the current version.

validate-using-metadata-dictionary-rules	Validate all records against metadata dictionary

Media

regenerate-annotation-previews	Regenerates annotation preview media for some or all object representation
                              	annotations.

reindex-pdfs                  	Reindex PDF media for in-viewer content search.

reprocess-media               	Re-process existing media using current media processing configuration.

Performance

precache-simple-services      	Pre-cache simple service responses.

create-ngrams                 	Create ngrams from search indices to support spell correction of search
                              	terms.

process-indexing-queue        	Process search indexing queue.

rebuild-search-index          	Rebuilds search indices. Use this if you suspect the indices are out of
                              	sync with the database.

theCA

Also tried
/var/www/html/ca/support/bin/caUtils process-task-queue
Just in case but no email or log appears

monica

Seems there test email is part of 1.8 +

Version 1.8 has been used for a few years now from the develop branch, but has never (and probably never will) been officially released.

Version 2.0 is the php8 supported version in Dev/php8 branch where all new functionality has been added to and has been stable for at least a year now. New features are being added here.

theCA

monica
Where can i get the latest available version?
In https://github.com/collectiveaccess/providence is 1.7.17

monica

theCA on that page is a drop down that says master. Master is the default branch. There are lots of different branches under here, for different purposes. The branch 'develop' is version 1.8. And branch 'dev/php8' is version 2.0

These both have many extra features compared to 1.7.17.

theCA

so dev/php8 will become the stable release soon?
I will try to see if works.
Thanks!!!!

theCA

Hi any news with the 2.o release?