E-Mail Issues - Relay access denied

[megafu]

Good Afternoon All,

I have recently upgraded to actinic catalog v8 from v6 and, after quite a few problems in design stage, I have managed to upload it this morning to replace the old site - thankfully it seems to be working ok and have downloaded orders etc without problem.

The issue I have is with the automatically generated e-mail when a customer places an order (i.e. it doesn't get sent!) and with sending e-mails via the customer order "mail" tab, where the error "relay access denied" appears.

Unfortunately this isn't a new problem for me and I was hoping that the upgrade would perhaps offer a solution. When using v6 I was able to use the "localhost" fudge for a while (until it stopped working) and then the "sendmail instead of smtp" code change which up until yesterday was the solution.

I guess that I can use the code change again on v8 (!?) but wondered if anyone had any ideas or experience with this issue that might save me messing around with the code or changing host (I'm with Hostway).

Thanks,

James

[jont]

** removed to prevent possible confusion **

[Mike Hughes]

Can we please try and tie this one down once and for all.

Using actinic you should be using your website email address and your hosts email server.

so if your website is www. mydomain.com then you should use an email address such as me@mydomain.com. Not me@btinternet.com or me@aol.com.

The reason for this is straightforward. Hosts set up the email server to block emails from sites they don't host. Similarly ISPs block attempts to connect to their email servers from the internet. This is to avoid relaying spam email.

If you do use me@aol.com, etc then actinic will be unable to send those emails. The hosts email server will reject the emails and your ISP will more often than not reject them as they will be coming from the internet and not from your ISP connection.

So avoid all discussions about static IP addresses, opening different ports for smtp traffic, etc. Just use an email address from your own domain and your hosts email server. This is the way it's supposed to work.

Mike

(edited for a typo)

PS. I use BT as my ISP and have had no problem with sending emails. AFAIK the only time you need to contact them is if you want to send emails for a non-bt address using their smtp server. If you use your hosts smtp server then there is no problem.

[megafu]

Hi Guys,

thanks for the replies.

To be honest the whole thing confuses me but all I know for sure is that the "sendmail" code change does the job on v6.

Our e-mail has always been sales@mydomain.co.uk (entered in the business settings contact section). In fact the "sendmail" code changes the e-mail to one that has no bearing on the domain name but nevertheless manages to send the e-mails.

I've tried "mail.mydomain.co.uk" and "smtp.mydomain.co.uk" with and without username and password in the e-mail settings part of network setup. It doesn't make any difference to the problem.

I've set up a support issue with Hostway so maybe they'll find a way to sort this!

Thanks,

James

[Mike Hughes]

Hi James.

Try entering "localhost" as the smtp server, without the quote marks. Leave username and password blank.

If this doesn't work then your host will need to give you the right address for the email server.

Mike

OK. From what I can see:

1. you've already tried 'localhost'.

2. hostway only offer POP3 email access because they want to sell you MS exchange email services.

My advice would be:

1. take up the issue with hostway.
2. If no joy then move host.

[megafu]

Hi Mike,

thanks for your advice - much appreciated.

I think you're right - it's a case or either resolving it with Hostway directly or changing host.

Thanks again,

James

[pinbrook]

I always use my mole-end mail server and all worked fine until I got BT broadband, to get that to work I had to phone BT and give them my website details.

BT often require proof of ownership of a domain before they will allow mail relay.

[Mike Hughes]

BT often require proof of ownership of a domain before they will allow mail relay.

OK. but this where I get confused. If you set up Actinic correctly then there is no mail relaying going on.

Can you explain a bit who is relaying what and why BT is getting involved because it's got me stumped at the moment. I can see that if BT (or whoever) decide to block SMTP on your DSL connection (and I haven't experienced this on either of my BT ADSL lines) then this could cause a problem when using an email client like Outlook, but Actinic doesn't ever use smtp from your PC. Actinic either sends the email directly from the server (in the case of the 'order received' email, or https the email content up to the server from the PC (in the case of all the other emails) and smtps them from there. So there is no smtp for BT or anyone else to block.

So any problems in the form of this:

The issue I have is with the automatically generated e-mail when a customer places an order (i.e. it doesn't get sent!) and with sending e-mails via the customer order "mail" tab, where the error "relay access denied" appears.

Can have nothing to do with ISPs blocking smtp. Or can it ?

Mike

[Mike Hughes]

Ok. So the issue of BT blocking SMTP relay (if and when they do) is a question for BT.

The rest of the thread though, is about setting up actinic and actinic emails not being sent is unrelated to this as no smtp is being sent.

I think Jan and Jont were mistakenly advising about a problem that might occur when using outlook (or other email client) to send emails using an address that's other than BTs. As I've said though, this is unrelated to the OP issue and has nothing to do with Actinics email setup or sending emails of any kind from actinic.

I think Jont realises this. I still believe Jan is mistaken in defending her position and we ought to get this cleared up to avoid confusing the two problems and giving incorrect advice to other users.

Mike

[Mike Hughes]

Unnecessary but if that's what you want to do then fine. Perhaps actinic would like to confirm that Actinic doesn't send smtp from the PC and the issue of ISPs blocking smtp can only affect other email clients such as outlook. Maybe then we can put this issue to rest.

Mike

[Paula Nassif]

Hi there,

I am trying to set up the email settings on my website. My webhosting is streamline and I tried as they suggest:

SMTP server: authsmtp.streamline.net
SMTP username: your email address (ie root@brazilbazaar.co.uk)
SMTP password: your password
SMTP port: 25

The email address I am using is sales@brazilbazaar.co.uk
and my password is the usual .

However I got the following results when I test it on actinic catalog software:

'The computer you specified as your mail server is not a valid mail (SMTP) server. Check the computer name or address and try again. If it fails again, then it is possible, you were locked out by a firewall program, or you don't have network connection to this server.'

and:

Actinic Mail Test completed successfully
server: passed
connection: passed
sockets: passed
communications: failed
authorisation: failed
message: 535 Error: authentication failed


At actinic they say the problem may be that I don't have some sort of 'Relaying' permission.

Please can someone help me ? I got to put this website to work properly on the net.
By the way: I am horrible in computing stuff!!!!

Many thanks
Paula

[NormanRouxel]

Your error is

message: 535 Error: authentication failed

This usually means either that the username and or password that you're using is incorrect.

[pinbrook]

network settings inc SMTP settings for streamline can be found here

http://community.actinic.com/showpos...55&postcount=3

or a community search on streamline within the Upload Problems, Connection Problems & Network Settings may throw up more ideas inc using localhost