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Anyone else experience broken links when sending emails via Sendgrid?

  • 15 January 2024
  • 8 replies
  • 879 views

Hey everyone. Sendgrid, email, URL issue.

Context:
So I have an odd issue when sending emails using Zapier and Sendgrid. This issue has only just started, or this is the first time I have noticed it, and it is happening to an existing Zap, not a new Zap, this Zap had worked as expected previously.

 

The Zap:
My Zap sends a user an email notification, email send via Sendgrid, and is triggered when a record is updated in Airtable, the emails contain a link, hardcoded in the HTML, it does not come from Airtable, and is a link back to our platform for the user.

 

Problem:
The URLs sent from SendGrid seem to be broken, the HTML for the link looks like this: <a href="https://www.thepetsitter.io/user/bookings>Respond Now</a> but when it has been sent the URL becomes something like this: http://url344.thepetsitter.io/ls/click?upn=qx8yLwlgWzG88dN8gk8ElHBv4-2FdaC1L8WBhowm-9Bz8xAtGZzhyx9CzFU8jLJGl9K-2F-pID_s8-8Bjl8hf1jsmDro-2FDbPw8ZmbpCHChFeKcaodeo4iFzKWLHBdgZMOkfYyCn3KeiwGqDOWiT615dEopeawPzf4DcWrhyGY9r1tR2Vuhx6l3-2VBr01e-2FQ-2B0Cknf9PvNf8XZhjCGHUXJ9pDcaaXhfvNHZvy7r4v-2FcfrG3a-2BRqxJi9ptnGcDSNKytzqVEA8gr17ey8xUvww2FG7cewLc88D848BA-88-8D and this URL doesn't work / load.

 

No idea where this issue arrises, anyone got any ideas, or faced a similar issue? These emails did work previously. I have tried with a shortened URL, and used both Plain Text emails and HTML emails, ran across the same issue. Not sure how to debug this further and I am not sure this is a Zapier issue or Sendgrid?

8 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @grae 

The longer links looks to be a SendGrid tracking link for the link you input.

I would reach out to SendGrid Support for help troubleshooting.

Yeah, I just figured that out too, this is indeed a tracking link issue, and it looks like the issue I am having is local to my device / my settings, on iOS / macOS / iPadOS privacy settings. I will leave the post up incase this helps others in the future. Thanks Troy 🙏

​Hello, @grae!

I'm having this problem too. I  deactivated the tracking setting on de API Key on SendGrid, but continues to make the URL larger. ​Even though the problem might be on my device I use this email to send import information to a large number of people.

 

Did you finde another solution?

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Sorry we missed your post here @kasilveira

Are you still running into issues here or were you able to get it sorted? 

Keen to ensure you’re all set so please do let us know whether you need any further assistance at all!  

Userlevel 1

@SamB I just found this thread because I am experiencing the same issue and there doesn’t appear to be a stated solution. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @Dan Schwartz 👋

I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this issue as well. I did some digging and couldn’t see any bug reports matching this issue of the tracking links setting causing links to be broken when sending emails via the SendGrid app on Zapier. So I think it would be best to reach out to our Support team here to have this investigated further. They’ll be able to inspect the logs for your Zap and can open up a bug report with the app’s developers to get this fixed. 

Eager to make sure this gets sorted so please keep us updated on how you get on with them! 🙂

Userlevel 1

I was able to fix the link by sending the emails as HTML and removing the tracker, which was unnecessary for this particular case.  The HTML code is in this old post, option #2 of the first answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35713017/how-to-disable-link-tracking-for-certain-links-with-sendgrid-and-rails

I wouldn’t want to do this every single time, but for this use case it was fine and helped get the Zap up and running.

Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Thank you so much for sharing how you managed to fix the link @Dan Schwartz. The Community greatly appreciates it! 🤗

Seems like you’re all set for the moment now that your Zap is up and running, but do reach out again if anything changes on that! 

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