Emails still not sending, 535

eeeee

theres no special characters in the email address

i did have both fields the same, set to that. will try them different

<baris>

The From Name field shouldn't be an email address, that can be just the name of your forum. I've made a fix so special characters shouldn't case issues anymore https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/commit/a489abc763d7499721def088e6fe6e5598ee4056.

Try something like

Jessica Brown

@eeeee Can you try:

telnet smtp.example.com 25
if it connects then: Ctrl ] (right square bracket) quit

You can also try other ports as well:
telnet smtp.example.com 587

If you get something like:
Connection failed: Connection refused

Then it is a firewall block. Probably from your ISP/Hosting. If it is being refused, you can check your server's firewall. (FYI if it is Windows don't ask me, I wouldn't know the first thing about point and clicking), but for Linux, it could be ufw, iptables (those are the most common), let me know your distro and I will write up the instructions.

eeeee

@codenamejessica said in Everything tried and Emails still not sending:

@eeeee Can you try:

telnet smtp.example.com 25
if it connects then: Ctrl ] (right square bracket) quit

You can also try other ports as well:
telnet smtp.example.com 587

Thanks Jessica, Im running my own Ubuntu server, no firewall that I know of
Should I be typing
telnet smtp.example.com 25
In a terminal on Ubuntu on server machine?

Which email service do you use on your site?

Jessica Brown

You would run that on the system that is sending the mail. It would sound like the server. If this is on your home lab, I can almost guarantee that your ISP is blocking port 25. I have never seen an ISP have port 25 open unless you are paying for business class and usually have a static IP.

eeeee

Ah, what is the significance of port 25?

Kindly @phenomlab logged in for me and set up custom settings for fastmail using port 465 and I regenerated the fastmail app password and now its sending test email
However this is a paid service and Im just using it on a 30 day free trial
Would prefer to use a free email (but none of those without the app password work)

Which email service do you use @codenamejessica ? Did you have any of these issues?
Are you using your own internal post-fix mail service, or one of the well known email providers?

Jessica Brown

Yes, so, let's do a few tests here.

Use whatever smtp address they give you for your account:

See if this connects: telnet smtp.zoho.in 465
If you connect, we are going to run a few commands:
- The domain you want to send an email to:
  - EHLO yourdomain.com

Expected output would look something like this:
250-smtp.zoho.in
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10485760
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN

Continue in the prompt:
- MAIL FROM: <[email protected]>
- RCPT TO: <[email protected]>.

Ok now this is where it will get tricky:

`DATA
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Telnet email on

This is my first plain text test email message sent using the Telnet client on Windows`
.

There are some important characters there: the ` is one of the from the beginning and the end. As well as the period at the end.

If everything went well, you should receive something like: 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as <the item id in the queue>

Jessica Brown

@eeeee No I don't have any issues since I use IONOS VPS servers. Over the years I have used them it was just requesting port 25 open, and then opening port 567 on my VPS, it was done. I created my own email (@jbrowns.com, @codenamejessica.com) I have several others as well (administrator, etc).

Jessica Brown

OH VERY IMPORTANT!!!! NodeBB needs at least the M plan (Medium) -- I think right now it is $6/mo

jbrowns.com is running M and that is my DEV
codenamejessica.com is running L and that is my PROD

eeeee

Thanks for that, its a little over my head to be honest but I will study what you wrote and hopefully learn something
So although fastmail is working sending out test email now, Im really wanting a free email.
Ive tried many mails server on the list.
For example just tried AOL. Set up a brand new account. Put those details in Admin panel and got


Error
Invalid login: 535 5.7.0 (#AUTH005) Too many bad auth attempts.

How can there be too many attempts when its a new account.
All the other free emails I tried give this error too

phenomlab

@eeeee too many bad auth attempts means you've specified an incorrect password too many times within an allocated time frame.

If you have your own vps, you can install postfix but will also require SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records added to your domain otherwise any message you send will be sent to junk. You'll also need port 25 unblocked by your provider as its the norm these days for it to be blocked to prevent misuse.

You could relay through Gmail?

eeeee

I tried Gmail but that requires the App password, and it says my free gmail account doesnt have that functionality.

What I dont get is how it could have wrong password too many times, on first try with a brand new AOL account

phenomlab

@eeeee said in Emails still not sending, 535:

that requires the App password, and it says my free gmail account doesnt have that functionality

All Gmail accounts have this functionality, althoughfrom January, they will require OAUTH.

SMTP2GO is a reliable SMTP server that has handled email delivery for its customers since 2006. You can start for free with 1,000 emails per month.

Jessica Brown

Why am I suddenly thinking about Jay-Z: "I've got 99 problems..." and honestly it sounds like your ISP is all of them.

Now, did you try the telnet commands in Ubuntu? We need to see if you can use that port you are trying to send from.

telnet smtp.zoho.com 25 (blocked by Hosting Company)
telnet smtp.zoho.com 587 (open using STARTLS)
telnet smtp.zoho.com 465 (blocked by Zoho)

I do not know your smtp address, I Googled it, and it showed me smtp.zoho.in, I tried it on several different ports, but smtp.zoho.com did work.

This is what I get on JBrowns.com server because port 25 is blocked:

Then I tied 587 as per the instructions on their site https://www.zoho.com/zeptomail/articles/smtp-configuration.html:

I wanted to show you my mail system with port 25 opened:

The bottom line, is if your server or ISP is blocking the port with the firewall, then you will not be able to go any further until you either figure out a way to bypass it, or open it.

eeeee

Yes I did try those telnet commands

telnet smpt.zoho.in 465
Trying 169.148.146.140..
Connected to smtp.zoho.in
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host

It didnt mean much to me.

I rember last time looked into this issue I was told

"There are three ways to send emails from NodeBB:
Emailer plugin. (Like sendgrid). These plugins allow you to use email distribution services like Sendgrid, MailChimp, etc to send out emails. This helps about issues of spam filtering and such, because it's their email servers handling all of that. These plugins contact the email service via http and then the service sends your emails out.
SMTP transport. This is built into NodeBB. It is only used if you don't have an emailer plugin active and you enable "Enable SMTP transport" (previously "Use an external server to send emails") in the email settings. The SMTP transport allows you to either pick from a list of known services (provided by the underlying module nodemailer) or to provide custom settings yourself. It contacts the server via SMTP and then the SMTP server sends your your emails."

Is emailer plugin a better way to send emails??

phenomlab

@eeeee then your port is open. The rest will be simply down to configuration.

Jessica Brown

@eeeee OK, COOL! You are half way there. Now try sending an email with the next commands that are in the post.

phenomlab

@codenamejessica @eeeee one important note for smtp over telnet is that it can be quite unforgiving if you make a mistake when typing commands. If you press the delete key after realising a mistake it never seems to actually correct it despite it looking OK on screen.

Just something to be aware of it it doesn't work.

Jessica Brown

@phenomlab, you are absolutely correct, CTRL-H is how you delete in telnet.

Jessica Brown

Ok, I did some testing. Here is what you need to do:
openssl s_client -connect smtp.zoho.in:465

This will send a handshake request with an SSL. Telnet does not natively support TLS, so you’ll need to use openssl to establish a secure connection and issue commands manually.

EHLO yourdomain.com
MAIL FROM:<email address> (Include the <>)
RCPT TO:<email address> (Include the <>)

I received the email successfully.