Thread

Error
Unable to send email at this time.
Debugging Message

hello: 

Failed to Send Command. Error:

from: 

Failed to Send Command. Error:

to: 

Failed to Send Command. Error:

data: 

Failed to Send Command. Error:

Failed to send SMTP email. Error:
Unable to send email using SMTP

Sending the email is obviously failing but nothing is getting returned with the debugging.  Any advice would be helpful.

horizonvp,

1. What version and build of EE are you using?

2. Are you using any extensions?

3. Is this a local install or a professional hosted environment?

4. Double check your SMTP settings with your host

5. Is this the Communicate page or somewhere else?

6. Can you try and switching the protocol to PHP mail?

Figured out the issue that was causing the lack of any response.  Now I need help with the error message we are getting.  I’ve attached a screenshot and provided more details below.

1. 1.6.8

2. Playa, Checkboxes, Fieldframe, Gypsy

3. Professional

4. Double checked

5. Communicate

6. Works with PHP mail but need to setup a mail relay

It looks like your SMTP server simply times out? Have you asked your host / postmaster about it?

From the server admin:

The session time out is set to 30 sec.  I can increase that but it should not take 30 seconds to send email.  This is a standard set by Symantec and I route millions of emails a day with that 30 sec time out. 

I did a test and set the time out to 2 minutes and got the same error.

Is that a Windows server?

Nope, it’s a linux SMTP engine

horizonvp,

What was causing the lack of any response?  That might give us a clue.

If I try to telnet to that server on port 25 I get

554 You are not allowed to connect.

Could be an incorrect configuration or security setup on that server?

Not likely at all.  When I telnet to the system I get a 220 ********  that mean you have access.  I also have received bounce back emails.

Make sure you are using the correct IP 24.171.165.131 or you can use listserv.ncsurveyors.com

Also, we’ve been able to successfully relay from another external connection.

Ok, so when we changed the timeout window to a couple of minutes we ended up getting this error:

MySQL ERROR:

Error Number: 2006

Description: MySQL server has gone away

Query: SELECT * FROM exp_ff_fieldtypes WHERE enabled = “y”

This thread seems to suggest the same kind of issue:
http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/108927/

Can you try to add

$conf['email_crlf'] = "\r\n";
$conf['email_newline'] = "\r\n";

to your config.php, see if that makes a difference? That said, it’s beginning to look like some sort of configuration issue with the SMTP server, do you have access to it’s logs?

Below is what my server admin sent me about the issue. 

I tried adding the lines of code you suggested to the config.php file and it seems to have worked.  I’ll do some more testing and confirm.

Thanks

The reason that the mail server is not able to handle the emails sent via smtp on Expression Engine is because the message is not RFC compliant. 

Below is a typical RFC compliant email conversation:

220 mail.example.com ESMTP Ready on Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:29:31 -0800 [a.mail]
HELO mail.somewhere.com
250 a.mail.somewhere.com Hello 98.76.54.32.somewhere.com [98.76.54.32], pleased to meet you
MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
250 2.1.0 <[email protected]>... Sender ok
RCPT TO:<[email protected]>
250 2.1.5 <[email protected]>... Recipient ok
DATA
354 Enter mail, end with “.” on a line by itself
Hello there!
OK, bye!
.
250 2.0.0 0987654321 Message accepted for delivery
QUIT
221 2.0.0 a.mail.example.com closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

————————————————————————————————————

This is a example of a Expression Engine Conversion:

220 listserv.somedomain.com ESMTP
EHLO http://www.somedomain.com
MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
RCPT TO:<[email protected]>
DATA
User-Agent: ExpressionEngine 1.6.8
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:39:56 -0400
From: “test” <[email protected]>
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
To: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Subject: =?utf-8?Q?test?=
Reply-To: “[email protected]” <[email protected]>
X-Sender: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
X-Mailer: ExpressionEngine 1.6.8
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

test

.
550 esmtp: protocol deviation
————————————————————————————————————

You’ll will notice that once Expression Engine responds with a EHELO it does not wait for a response from the mail server.  Expression Engine just starts sending data.  The receiving mail server see’s this as a protocol deviation and drops the message.

This can also occur when there are whitespaces in the SMTP commands.

Here is the RFC compliance url http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5321

Thanks

I tried adding the lines of code you suggested to the config.php file and it seems to have worked. I’ll do some more testing and confirm.

Very good. Just keep us in the loop, please.

The receiving mail server see’s this as a protocol deviation and drops the message.

I’m not sure that’s very userfriendly behavior. Most SMTP servers seem to manage just fine. That said, I’ll forward this to our dev team.

Solved the problem.  Many thanks for the help!