Need Assistance Configuring SMTP for Email Notifications in NodeBB

Phill Jones

Hello,

I'm encountering some difficulties with setting up SMTP for email notifications on my NodeBB forum. Despite careful configuration, I'm unable to get the email notifications to work. Here's the situation:

Problem Description:
I've been trying to configure SMTP settings in my NodeBB instance to enable email notifications for users. However, after multiple attempts, I haven't been successful. When I try to send a test email from the admin panel, I receive the error message: "Failed to send email. Please check your SMTP configuration and try again." Unfortunately, this error message doesn't offer much insight into the specific issue.

What I've Tried:

Double-checked SMTP server details, including hostname, port, username, and password.
Attempted using different SMTP ports.
Ensured that the SMTP server allows connections from the NodeBB server.
Checked the NodeBB logs for any relevant information, but didn't find anything specific regarding the email sending issue.

Additional Information:

NodeBB is hosted on a DigitalOcean droplet running Ubuntu 20.04, with Node.js v14.17.0 and Redis 6.2.5.
The forum itself is accessible and functioning properly.
Other features within NodeBB appear to be working without any issues.

I'd greatly appreciate any insights, tips, or suggestions on how to troubleshoot and resolve this SMTP configuration problem. If anyone has dealt with a similar issue or has expertise in NodeBB email setup, your assistance would be immensely helpful. Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

julian

Hi @Phill-Jones, what SMTP-based MTA are you using?

If NodeBB reports that an email is sent, then that means it has done as much as it can on its end to assure delivery. Essentially, it's handed off the letter to the mail carrier, but whether it arrives is a very different story.

It could be that the MTA didn't receive it, or received it and didn't accept it, or it routed the mail but the receiving end classified it as spam... etc.

PitaJ

I think this is a spam post (I just edited it remove a hidden link). If not:

Any SMTP error should be reported to you when you send a test email. At the very least, they should show up in the logs.

What version of NodeBB are you using?

What SMTP server are you targeting (if you don't mind sharing)?

julian

@PitaJ nice catch!