Images blocked in Apple Mail

Hello there @tedandtom ,

Thank you for reaching out and for sharing your thoughts about the Apple Mail image issue. I understand how important this is to you and other MailPoet users, especially for creating seamless newsletters.

We do update the documentation page you referenced whenever we have important new updates, so it always reflects the most current information we can provide. Regarding the situation with Bluehost, I’ll look into the current status of our efforts with them and get back to you as soon as I have more details to share.

Just in case it takes a little while to gather updates, please don’t hesitate to respond in this thread. It will ensure your query stays active in our queue as open.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding. If there’s anything else I can assist you with in the meantime, let me know!

Just wondering if you have any update on how recently mailpoet worked with Bluehost on the “user agent” problem that is causing images to be blocked on iphones. Thanks again!

Hi @tedandtom, sorry for the delay. I checked with the team, and unfortunately, we couldn’t fix this with the Bluehost, so this remains a known issue. As we can’t fix it on MailPoet’s side, I’d suggest contacting Bluehost support if they can fix it for you.

The KB post is updated to no longer claim we’re working on the fix.

Hello and good day, TedandTom! 
 
Thank you for the interesting question! In regard to the image block you are seeing for apple mail users, We have two theories on what the issue may be, and while I can’t promise a fix, we’d be happy to help however we can! 
 
1.)  Turning off “Limit IP Address Tracking” 

We did find an article on Apple’s discussions page titles “How do I get my Mail to load images automatically?”

The post describes the issue being that images aren’t being immediately displayed and requires a click to open, it may also apply to your users not loading the images at all. As a test, on your own device, you and temporarily turn this off in Wifi and find Limit IP Address Tracking in the Settings app.  
 
However, I understand that using this option may be a bit much, as you are doing this for only one app, and may wish to keep your other connections private.  
 
2.) Contact Bluehost Support and ask for a Mod Security Check 

They may be an issue with our ModSec system blocking some “suspicious looking” requests to the server. The agent will ask for your domain, and most likely with have you test sending a newsletter to your own email connected to apple mail, to see if an error or rule loads upon you opening the newsletter. ?

However, there may be a possibility that no rules are being hit, and from there, further escalation would be needed to investigate what the source is. ?We hope to hear from you soon! ?

-Edited for Grammar

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 5 days ago by BluehostSupport.

Hi @bluehostsupport, as we already did some digging from our side, I’ll share our finding here, as they might be useful.

The issue appears to be related to ModSecurity rules on Bluehost servers, specifically a rule that blocks requests from user agents containing Mozilla/5.0, which Apple Mail uses to fetch images.

1. We tested on a real Bluehost site.
2. A direct curl request to Bluehost using the Mozilla/5.0 user agent returned a 406 Not Acceptable error.
3. We tested Bluehost’s built-in Cloudflare integration, but it did not solve the issue.
4. Bluehost’s IPs were listed on UCEPROTECT, so that might play role if Apple is using their database. But after enabling Cloudflare didn’t solve it, which IPs are not listed, that might be unrelated.
5. Hosting images on any other host solved the issue

Hope this helps to solve the issue.

We put restrictions on our shared servers as changes to the server by an individual user can impact all users on the server. Root access is restricted for the same reason and to protect users on the shared environment. Some settings can be adjusted by our support team so it’s worth the call to check. 

Otherwise, if more control and flexibility to have custom settings is needed, it would be advisable to get a dedicated server or VPS hosting package which allows root access and a more customizable environment. 

@bluehostsupport the response from the curl request for an image at my Bluehost site is as follows:

“Not Acceptable! Not Acceptable!

An appropriate representation of the requested resource could not be found on this server. This error was generated by Mod_Security.”

I have a WordPress Professional Hosting plan, but that is still a shared server. Is it possible to make changes to Mod_Security just for my site?

A better solution would be for Bluehost to fix this for all Mailpoet users. iphones make up about half of the users reading our newsletters and they can no longer see the images because they are blocked by Bluehost. Mailpoet reports that Bluehost is the only hosting company where this is happening. I see other Bluehost users on other forums asking for help on this same issue. If the only solution is to go to a dedicated server or VPS, then that isn’t a solution for me as I don’t have the system administration skills to do that. My only solution then would be to leave Bluehost.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by TedandTom.

Hi again! As we mentioned above, we put restrictions on our shared servers as changes to the server by an individual user can impact all users on the server. Root access is restricted for the same reason and to protect users on the shared environment. Some settings can be adjusted by our support team so it’s worth the call to check.?

Hey @tedandtom ,

If after talking to Bluehost support, you still can’t have that change made on your server configuration, please contact us via https://www.mailpoet.com/support/sales-pre-sales-questions/ and include a link to this forum thread.

Below is the response I got from Bluehost Support today after sharing this forum post. They say they resolved the issue, but what they really mean is that they have a response, which is that it can’t be fixed on a shared server. They say “the action your software is attempting is not allowed on our servers”, but this is actually Apple that is doing this, not MailPoet.

” Dear Ruth ,

We hope this message finds you well. Our escalated support team has successfully worked on your recent ticket E-275326  and resolved the reported issue. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience throughout this process.

Resolution Details:
From the case notes, I understand that the images on the website?https://…. .org/ hosted in Bluehost are not loading on iphones and thank you for providing the forum articles to check this issue further.

I have checked the Modsecurity block for this domain on our servers and could find the below block under mailpoet plugin:
[*] Rule ID: 900095
[*] Times Hit: 120
[*] URLS Affected: /wp-content/plugins/mailpoet/assets/img/newsletter_editor/social-icons/01-social/Twitter.png
[*] Description: Bad UA :: Fake Mozilla Agent

I went ahead and tried to whitelist it, but unfortunately this setting is made on your shared server globally. In order to resolve this issue, you?will need to contact any developer or use an alternative solution, as the action your software is attempting is not allowed on our servers.

You may also consider updating your codes by a developer or moving to a VPS/Dedicated server where you will have more control over which rules you can apply to your server.

I hope the above information was helpful. Thank you for your time!”

Hey @tedandtom ,

Thanks for the update. I understand that Bluehost support confirmed they will not be able to make this change on sites hosted on their shared server plans.

I’m afraid that if loading images on Apple Devices is critical for your audience (which I understand it is) you’d need to either:

• Upgrade your Bluehost plan to a VPS/Dedicated server
• Or migrate to a different hosting provider (we’ve only received reports of issues with Apple Devices from sites hosted on Bluehost shared server plans).

I’d recommend checking WordPress.com plans (you’d need at least the Business plan) or any other high-quality WordPress hosting provider.