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I use our CiviCRM database to send out mailings to members. The mailings contain links to articles on our website. It has worked well for years but now when I press 'Send' the links in the email corrupt and reference a CiviCRM link instead of the website link so recipients can't access it. For a while I didn't notice because of course when I click the link myself in the copy I receive, it opens, and CiviCRM doesn't give an alert or warning.

Any idea what's happening and how I can fix it? (Remember I'm not an expert!)

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2 Answers 2

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When you create a mailing with CiviMail, there's an option:

Track Click Throughs

Track the number of times recipients click each link in this mailing.

NOTE: When this feature is enabled, all links in the message body will be automatically re-written to route through your CiviCRM server prior to redirecting to the target page.

Perhaps you have enabled this option? This wouldn't normally prevent the links from working, however.

Are the links in the email something like, http://mysite.com/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=123&qid=12345 ? If so, that is normal when tracking click throughs is enabled.

What happens when a user clicks on one of the links?

Which CiviCRM version and CMS (Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla) are you using?

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  • What happens is that the link which should be to our website is now saying something like 192.168.1.4/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/… - not like yours. When I click on that it takes me to our civi program and shows me the page I wanted on the website, but when other people click on it they see nothing because they're not authorised to access our Civi program.
    – Carol Thornton
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 15:26
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    Your link seems to be like mine except for having 192.168.1.4 in place of a hostname. 192.168.1.4 is a private IP address, meaning it can only be accessed from within your local network. Two solutions: either turn off "Track Click Throughs" on future mailings, or talk to your network administrator, refer them to this post and ask if external access can be configured for /sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php . You may also want access to open.php in the same location, to track people opening the emails.
    – davejenx
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 15:49
  • Thanks - that looks plausible - I've passed it on to the IT guys (who we buy in, so I try not to use them too much!) and we'll have a play with it later to see if it works.
    – Carol Thornton
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 8:27
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If it works for you but not for anonymous users, it is likely connected to a permission problem either caused by CiviCRM/your CMS or your server set up. Did you change anything on your set up lately e.g. put your install behind a VPN?

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  • Maybe I didn't explain properly. What happens is that the link which should be to our website is now saying something like 192.168.1.4/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/… - when I click on that it takes me to our civi program and shows me the page I wanted on the website, but when other people click on it they see nothing because they're not authorised to access our program.
    – Carol Thornton
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 15:21

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