Overview

In hopes of tracking your sending engagement, you've enabled click tracking. However, the click tracking links, for some reason, will not resolve. Not to worry - we have a few common troubleshooting tips to help get your links up and running.

Checking the CNAME

The first step we recommend is to make sure you have the CNAME record for the sending domain properly configured. The tracking hostname should return mailgun.org for the US region, or eu.mailgun.org for the EU region. This can be easily checked in a terminal using a dig command (Linux/Mac) or an nslookup command (Windows). If the terminal scares you, you can always use a web-based tool like MX Toolbox. 

Note: The CNAME will not return if you've configured the CNAME as proxy/CDN, such as CloudFlare.

Dig: 

$ dig -t CNAME email.domain.tld +short
 

Nslookup: 

nslookup -q=CNAME email.domain.tld

You should receive the response "Mailgun Magnificent API" if you make an HTTP request to the base tracking hostname, like below: 

$ curl -s http://email.domain.tld
Mailgun Magnificent API

Checking HSTS

Mailgun currently only supports HTTPS tracking links via the use of a configured CDN; more information on that in this article. The source of your issue might be a combination of this element of our system with your settings relevant to HSTS. HSTS tells browsers to enforce HTTPS connections to the domain.  This will result in the tracking links timing out.  The following curl request will quickly confirm if HSTS is enabled: 

$ curl -s -D- https://domain.tld/ | grep -i Strict
strict-transport-security: max-age=2592000; includeSubDomains; preload
 

You'll need to disable HSTS or use a different domain without HSTS for the tracking links to resolve. If you are unable to disable HSTS, or your use case requires HTTPS, you can check out the help article detailing the steps needed to enable HTTPS tracking links via the link above. 

Checking the original links

Another element to check is verifying the original links are valid. The best way to do this is to grab the original MIME via either the API or the control panel, providing the message is less than 7 days old (the amount of time our system retains message bodies, depending on your account's plan and the domain's settings). We'll show you how to do this below:

1. First, log in to the Mailgun Control Panel (if you have not already done so).
2. Then, within the left-hand navigation pane, click the Send product and then click the Reporting option to expand its list of suboptions.
3. Next, click the Logs suboption.
4. Now, click the Filters button. 
5. Next, select a source of Message ID and enter the message-ID of the message in question. Click the Add button and then click the Apply button.
6. Once the event for the message in question is located, click the elipsis icon to expand the drop-down list of options. Select the MIME option to view the full MIME.

   

Once you've obtained the MIME, you can inspect the links to see how they looked before they were rewritten to ensure the original links are valid.

Need Support?

Our Support Team here at Sinch Mailgun is happy to help! Reach out to us in the Support page of your Mailgun Control Panel, and we'll be with you shortly!