Email Problems

[sdunn]

I have my email setup in the Dragnet Setup to what it should be but I am not seeing any emails being sent or even attempted in my mail server's logs. It would be great to see a test button in the setup dialog to ensure we have a valid configuration instead of trying to create or modify bugs to trigger an email.

With that said, I have tested sending emails and that the password is correct for my email acount I am sending from. Any clues? Here some of my settings...

Email SMTP Server: capella.bridgestar.org
Return Address: dragnet@bridgestar.org
Dragnet URL for links: (hidden)
SMTP Server Port: 25
SMTP Connection Timeout: 30
Use SMTP SSL = NO
SMTP Authentication Type: Basic
SMTP Username (Basic\Windows auth only): dragnet@bridgestar.org
SMTP Password (Basic\Windows auth only): (hidden)

Recommendation, change how you have the UI for changing the SMTP password. It is hard to tell if it stuck.

Here is the message I am getting as an example. This sounds like it cannot see the server...

2005-03-11 13:08:47.072 SendEmailNotification Failure - To: shannon.dunn@bridgespangroup.org Subject: [Dragnet Commented - Bridgestar 1.0:1] Controls Purchase Error: Could not access 'CDO.Message' object.[Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. [The message could not be sent to the SMTP server. The transport error code was 0x80040217. The server response was not available ]]

[jclausius]

Does the authentication mechanism for your SMTP server require Dragnet to run under a Windows account?

[sdunn]

No it is a basic email server called Merak Mail Server v8. It works fine to send emails using Telnet to this mail server from the machine that is running Dragnet. Does the server require that I have SMTP installed? When we sent the HELO command through Telnet to the email server it requests an identifying domain name of the sender. Could this cause a problem for the code you have written for sending email through Dragnet?

[jclausius]

Searching the error - 0x80040217 shows that the attempt to access the SMTP server has failed. This could be caused by a number of different reasons - blocked IP, relaying denied, etc.

Does the server require that I have SMTP installed?

No, an SMTP server is not required on the Dragnet server itself. All Dragnet requires is an SMTP server which accepts SMTP request from the Dragnet web application. The SMTP server must be able to accept relaying from the Dragnet server, allowing the Dragnet server to access SMTP on that machine, no manual authentication over a proxy / firewall, and simple authentication.

When we sent the HELO command through Telnet to the email server it requests an identifying domain name of the sender. Could this cause a problem for the code you have written for sending email through Dragnet?

Unfortunately, Telnet doesn't help diagnose the problem because the Telnet process will be running under the Windows account launching the session.

Does the Merak Mail server have any SMTP logging? Is there anything you could trouble shoot from that end?

I don't know much about the Merak Mail Server, so I don't know what to try. If it is requesting a server domain name, is it at all possible it is denying access because the Dragnet mail thread is not running under a Windows account? If it is a Windows Account problem, using Identity impersonation with a special Dragnet server, should solve that problem. If you would like to go this route, notify me using the pm or email button below.

Besides that, the only other thing I could suggest is temporarily trying the Microsoft SMTP server. It is limited in its capabilites, but I know it can be configured for a connection with Dragnet. If we can configure Dragnet to work with the MS SMTP server, perhaps the settings there can help configure the Merak Mail server.

[mculbreth]

I just installed the trial on a server and I'm having the same issue--no emails being generated. I also don't see anything in the log.

Should I assume that the software works (it seems logical) and that it's my SMTP configuration?

[jclausius]

There is an issue with Dragnet 1.0.2 and SMTP servers configured to require a Windows account for authentication. Dragnet 1.0.3, which should be released shortly, addresses some issues where the SMTP servers only allow access based on a valid Windows account .


Getting back to Vault 1.0.2, if there are no error messages, that means the Dragnet server probably connected to the SMTP server and sent the message. Other things to consider are other issues where the recipient's mail server will reject the mail if the user is not a valid user or the reverse DNS on the sending machine fails.

I guess the first step would be trying to see that the SMTP server is receiving the email message. Is there any logging capabilities in your SMTP server to see if the messages are getting through?