[SOLVED] My SMTP Connector just stopped working - but there's more!

tazinlwfl · 10-31-2008, 08:52 AM

It's something that is causing us a major heartache -

A large number of messages are pending in the e-mail server send queue.

Verify that you have Internet connectivity. If you can view Web sites normally, contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to determine if there is a problem with their e-mail server.

You can disable this alert or change its threshold by using the Change Alert Notifications task in the Server Management Monitoring and Reporting taskpad.

But that isn't the half of it..
before this, two days ago, it was giving us an "Undeliverable 5.7.1 relay denied" error for each email.
The weird thing is that I haven't changed anything on the server and its been working for the past several months...
So I checked my SMTP connector and everything is fine (as far as I can tell)
Then it stopped giving us the undeliverable message completely.

At 4:30 (as I was heading out the door) it sent ALL of the email that was built up over the day (including about 20 test emails I sent).
In the meantime I was on the phone with my web-server provider (I use a Virtual Windows Server for my website and we still use their provided email service strictly for the SMTP). They were able to create a pop account in OE, use telnet, etc and it all worked fine. I tried using Outlook to create a Pop account and it can't find the SMTP server (using the smtp.FQDN.com or using their suggestion - which we used to use for the POP accounts).

Hoping that it was all fine now (because when it finally delivered all of the mail, I still hadnt changed anything) I went home relieved... The next morning, it was happening again (not delivering mail - but with no error)
At ~ 5:00 it delivered all the mail just the same...
still extremely confused, I went home that afternoon and did a lot of Googling with no luck.

This morning I got that alert/email (at beginning of post) from the server saying the SMTP connector has a lot of emails to send. My "SMTP Provider" says it works. I can use THEIR webmail and it works. I can go to the server and log in (https://smtp.FQDN.com) and send mail and it works. But my server doesnt appear to be able to find it (or my outlook for that matter).

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help!

tazinlwfl · 11-03-2008, 08:39 AM

Okay, I think I found the culprit.
People were relaying messages through us to our SMTP... >.<
So, it was clogging up our system (over 15,000 message pending delivery). After I cleaned it up (created a new SMTP Connector and had all messages run through that, then deleted them all from the queue in that folder) I restricted the ability to relay message to only the users in our system, and only under one namespace instead of the wildcard "*" (we only use one anyway).

After monitoring it for the weekend, it seems to be okay.

And thankfully before we get blacklisted for spam...

10-31-2008, 08:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
tazinlwfl Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Palm Beach Gardens, FL Posts: 93 OS: Windows 7 Beta/RC, Vista SP1, XP Pro SP2/SP3 My System	[SOLVED] My SMTP Connector just stopped working - but there's more! It's something that is causing us a major heartache - A large number of messages are pending in the e-mail server send queue. Verify that you have Internet connectivity. If you can view Web sites normally, contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to determine if there is a problem with their e-mail server. You can disable this alert or change its threshold by using the Change Alert Notifications task in the Server Management Monitoring and Reporting taskpad. But that isn't the half of it.. before this, two days ago, it was giving us an "Undeliverable 5.7.1 relay denied" error for each email. The weird thing is that I haven't changed anything on the server and its been working for the past several months... So I checked my SMTP connector and everything is fine (as far as I can tell) Then it stopped giving us the undeliverable message completely. At 4:30 (as I was heading out the door) it sent ALL of the email that was built up over the day (including about 20 test emails I sent). In the meantime I was on the phone with my web-server provider (I use a Virtual Windows Server for my website and we still use their provided email service strictly for the SMTP). They were able to create a pop account in OE, use telnet, etc and it all worked fine. I tried using Outlook to create a Pop account and it can't find the SMTP server (using the smtp.FQDN.com or using their suggestion - which we used to use for the POP accounts). Hoping that it was all fine now (because when it finally delivered all of the mail, I still hadnt changed anything) I went home relieved... The next morning, it was happening again (not delivering mail - but with no error) At ~ 5:00 it delivered all the mail just the same... still extremely confused, I went home that afternoon and did a lot of Googling with no luck. This morning I got that alert/email (at beginning of post) from the server saying the SMTP connector has a lot of emails to send. My "SMTP Provider" says it works. I can use THEIR webmail and it works. I can go to the server and log in (https://smtp.FQDN.com) and send mail and it works. But my server doesnt appear to be able to find it (or my outlook for that matter). PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help! __________________ Cuil^google

11-03-2008, 08:39 AM	#2 (permalink)
tazinlwfl Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Palm Beach Gardens, FL Posts: 93 OS: Windows 7 Beta/RC, Vista SP1, XP Pro SP2/SP3 My System	Re: My SMTP Connector just stopped working - but there's more! Okay, I think I found the culprit. People were relaying messages through us to our SMTP... >.< So, it was clogging up our system (over 15,000 message pending delivery). After I cleaned it up (created a new SMTP Connector and had all messages run through that, then deleted them all from the queue in that folder) I restricted the ability to relay message to only the users in our system, and only under one namespace instead of the wildcard "*" (we only use one anyway). After monitoring it for the weekend, it seems to be okay. And thankfully before we get blacklisted for spam... __________________ Cuil^google