14 October 2014, 22:08

Hi

We are running Mahara 1.9.2 and are getting mail error messages, such as that shown below, this error is generated for pretty much every action that a user takles that involves mail.

exception 'EmailException' with message 'Couldn't send email to Rhuanedd Deroy-Jones with subject Meddwl: New friend request. Error from phpmailer was:

SMTP Error: data not accepted.' in /var/www/html/mahara/lib/user.php:686

Stack trace:

#0 /var/www/html/mahara/notification/email/lib.php(86):

email_user(Object(stdClass), Object(stdClass), 'Meddwl: New fri...', 'You have been s...', NULL, NULL)

#1 [internal function]: PluginNotificationEmail::notify_user(Object(stdClass),

Object(stdClass))

#2 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/mahara.php(1562): call_user_func_array(Array,

Array)

#3 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/activity.php(722):

call_static_method('PluginNotificat...', 'notify_user', Object(stdClass),

Object(stdClass))

#4 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/activity.php(792):

ActivityType->notify_user(Object(stdClass))

#5 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/activity.php(75): ActivityType->notify_users()

#6 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/activity.php(34): handle_activity(Object(stdClass),

Object(stdClass))

#7 /var/www/html/mahara/user/requestfriendship.php(105):

activity_occurred('maharamessage', Object(stdClass))

#8 [internal function]: requestfriendship_submit(Object(Pieform), Array)

#9 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/pieforms/pieform.php(527):

call_user_func_array('requestfriendsh...', Array)

#10 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/pieforms/pieform.php(162):

Pieform->__construct(Array)

#11 /var/www/html/mahara/lib/pieforms/pieform.php(71): Pieform::process(Array)

#12 /var/www/html/mahara/user/requestfriendship.php(65): pieform(Array)

#13 {main}

I would be grateful for any help or guidance

Kind regards

Kevion

15 October 2014, 9:23

Hi Kevin,

Things I would check are:

1) That the email address of the user is actually a valid email address.

2) That the underlying server's SMTP mail system is set up to send emails correctly

3) you can turn on greater debugging info by editing htdocs/lib/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php and changing    public $SMTPDebug = 0; to a higher number (line 306)

Cheers

Robert

15 October 2014, 11:42

Based on that error message it sounds like you're using an external SMTP server to send your mail (instead of your webserver's "sendmail"), and the external SMTP server is refusing to send your message on.

The first thing I'd check is your site's SMTP settings. These are under "Administration -> Configure site -> Site options -> Email settings". Check that the SMTP account and server listed there are still valid. (Maybe try them out in a desktop email program, or ask your mail admin).

You could also try simply deleting the contents of the "SMTP host" field, which will cause Mahara to fall back to using local sendmail. If emails then go out successfully, that would definitely point to a problem with your SMTP account.

Cheers,

Aaron