GitLab

Scheduled Job, fetch_bounces with is_create_activities=1 parameter creates a new Contact ("Return-path" Contact) using the Return-path email address which is incorrect. An Inbound Email Activity is then created and associated with this new Contact.

The expected behaviour is that CiviCRM looks up the emailed Contact using the Return-path address and then creates the Inbound Email Activity for that Contact. No new contact is required.

The impact of problem is that:

1. a lot of "Return-path" Contacts are created which confuses CiviCRM users, "who are these contacts? how did they get here? have we been hacked?"
2. a CiviCRM admin needs to manually read each Inbound Email Activity to figure out what contact it actually relates too
3. the "Return-path" Contacts need to be deleted as they serve no real purpose
4. this is a performance hit when sending out large mailings, as CiviCRM is also creating Contacts and Activities as bounce emails are processed.

It does appear that the emailed Contact is being correctly detected as bounced, as it appears in the bounced contacts report for the Mailing.

Possibly related to this documentation issue, documentation/docs/sysadmin#217

Agileware Ref: CIVICRM-1778

CiviCRM 5.40.1