IIS SMTP EMAIL STUCK in Outbound Queue
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
We have just configured our first ever Cloud Server under GoDaddy Cloud Service – we have it running Server 2008 with IIS 7.5 – have configured our ourbound SMTP email server and now when running tests we try to send email out but its just sitting in the outbound queue and doesnt get released by the server – We think this means thast the SMTP server has processed it correctly as we get a properly formatted outbound filename..EML file but it doesnt go anywhere – anytbody else have thios issue ? Is it a DNS issue with GoDaddy ? We are not using the GD SMTP server as it doesnt support attachments and we need eventually to send small attachments.
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
Update on this – the SMTP log is reporting error 4006 Message delivery to the host “”<ip address>”" failed while delivering to the remote domain “”<domain name>”" for the following reason: The remote server did not respond to a connection attempt. We have sent attempted emails to lots of different domains all with the same result.
MikeD said 1 year, 1 month ago:
You must use the GoDaddy outbound SMTP relay servers in order to send mail. Other outgoing SMTP connections are blocked in the network as a spam deterrent.
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
Hi Ah OK that explains it – but then how do we send attachments – I was told by GD support that the supplied relay servers do not support any email attachments. Regular emails went out fine but ones that had attachments didnt go anywhere.
vincent said 1 year, 1 month ago:
There are limits (30MB max message size) but the relay servers definitely support attachments. Just be sure I tried sending a small attachment and a nearly 30MB attachment from my Cloud Servers account, both worked.
Do you have a bounce or error from the SMTP server that can help narrow the problem down?
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
We didnt get anything when we used the GD relay server – the one we were using was p3smtpout.cloud.secureserver.net – is that the correct server ? Is that what you are using for your attachment test ? Including yours, I have now received 3 different anwers for this problem from GD support – so Im really confused. Should we now go back to configuring our email test to use the relay server p3smtpout.cloud.secureserver.net ? if we do thast then you will see from the logs what is happening – we cannot get into the logs of that server as we dont have access to it.
vincent said 1 year, 1 month ago:
I’m sorry that you got different answers from support; both @MikeD and I work exclusively on the development of the Cloud Servers product, and I previously worked on the email system.
p3smtpout.cloud.secureserver.net is the correct server and should be configured as the “Smart host”. This is the only way to send mail, the SMTP port to any other destination is blocked.
Those servers allow messages up to 30MB in total size, and messages are scanned for spam and viruses. IIS appears to default to a 2MB message size limit.
The best way to troubleshoot this is to enable logging in IIS.. Under SMTP Virtual Server -> Properties -> General, check “Enable Logging”, then click on Properties. The location of the log is shown so you’ll want to note that; then go the Advanced tab and check everything.
That log will show if you’re actually connecting to the relay server at all, and if the message is accepted or the reason for rejection.
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
Yes we already had the logging switched on to try and diagnose the problems. We will configure it per your suggestion over the weekend and try again – pls keep the ticket open as we really need to nail this – I will have more feedback for you over the weekend – thank for your continued help on this !
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
UPDATE : OK so to test this more throughly we have designed a simple web page which send email from the GD relay server both with and without attachments. Without attachments the email goes almost instantly – but with the attachment and we are only takning a PDF that is 54Kb) it takes over 5 mins to be received. Can you tell me why we are getting such a delay. Its that delay that caused us to think it wasnt working at all but in fact it is its just VERY slow. Feel free to test yourself at :
vincent said 1 year, 1 month ago:
You are correct and I can now replicate the same behavior, regardless of the attachment size. I didn’t notice it at the time but the delay is in the headers of the tests from yesterday.
I will have someone from the email team investigate.
vincent said 1 year, 1 month ago:
The cause of the delay is resolved now. I tried your test page and the message delivered in a couple seconds.
livilops said 1 year, 1 month ago:
Yes agreed – all seems to be OK now – that’s great Thanks ! So the last question – is it OK to make our cloud server a real production server and let our clients use it – or is it likely we will see a re-occurrence of this issue ?
vincent said 1 year, 1 month ago:
There was an issue preventing the SMTP servers from reaching a component of spam/virus scanning; after 3 minutes they time out and delivered the mail anyway. This is resolved now and should not re-occur.
Your demo page looks to be connecting directly to our SMTP server; That was good for debugging, but for production use I would highly suggest configuring your app/site to send mail to localhost and letting IIS handle delivering to us as a smart host. This decouples your app from our mail servers; no matter what’s going on with us, your message is accepted locally and queued immediately and a user isn’t sitting waiting. IIS will then deliver it to us and follow all of it’s normal retrying logic.
livilops said 1 year ago:
Yes we have done that and its now passing email correctly so whatever you did its working really well now – so pls dont change it !! Thanks for your speedy help with this – good job.
Mike
6 min expected wait time