Invalid SMTP server on Upload Test

[johnwarde]

Hi,

I am new to Actinic (v8) and I have an unexplained SMTP problem ...

In Web->Network Setup, I have entered valid SMTP details for our own SMTP server, when I click the 'Test' button Actinic says that the mail server is not a valid mail (SMTP) server, see attached image.

From the same computer I can log into the SMTP server from a telnet session in an MS-DOS prompt window (i.e. I get a "235 Authentication successful" message back).

On another PC, I am able to make the mail server connection within Actinic. This usually points to a firewall problem, I have Norton Internet Security installed on my PC and I have added Actinic's "Catalog.exe" to "Program Control" with "Allow". But at this stage I don't know what else to try

Questions:
1. Does the Actinic application connect in exactly the same way I did from telnet?

2. Is there a setting in Actinic (or registry) that allows it to connect to a port other than the default port 25? If there is I can't find it.

3.How can I determine if is definitely something on the local PC that is doing the blocking OR is there some way to tell if the remote SMTP server is blocking?

Thanks for you help,

John

[leehack]

Try using 'localhost' as the mail server with no UN or PWs. See if that works, it often solves most problems in this area.

[Duncan Rounding]

I may be wrong but I thought that the test connection is made on the server side only via an uploaded script - not locally from Actinic at all. The error, should there be one, is then reported back to Actinic. Hence why localhost resolves many of the server side smtp issues.

If you can advise your host, hosting package and also post your network settings (without usernames and passwords) someone may spot something wrong.

[johnwarde]

Try using 'localhost' as the mail server with no UN or PWs. See if that works, it often solves most problems in this area.

Hi leehack,

The mail server is not local, we have a dedicated machine at an ISP which we have full control over. I tried "localhost" (with and without UN and PWs) anyway just to be sure but it hasn't worked.

Is there a setting to change the the default port of 25 in Actinic? Want to check it has changed on the problem PC.

Thanks,

John

[johnwarde]

Hi drounding,

Our SMTP server is on the same machine as the remote web server. It would make most sense to me that, as you suggested, Actinc uploads a perl script to the remote server and executes that script on the remote web server by "browsing" to that perl script and Actinic reads the output to determine success or failure - is this what Actinic does?

"localhost" should have worked in this scenario too.

If this is what happens, then I should not have my current problem i.e. if the network setting on one local PC work then the same settings (for remote server) should work on another PC. Unless, the problem PC is getting blocked when it attempts to "browse" to the perl script to check the SMTP set-up, I will look into this but I have my doubts.

Do you know which script .pl script is run by the 'Test' button to the the SMTP server?

Thanks,

John

[johnwarde]

Hi,

I discovered the reason why I was getting an "Invalid SMTP server" error on one PC an not on another ...

On the problem PC, in "Settings->Business Settings ...", in the "Company/Contact" tab I had entered "sales@mycompanyname.com" into the "Email Address:" field of the "Contact" section. I had set up "sales" as an alias and not as an actual account on the email server. On the working PC I was using a valid email account.

We are using SmarterMail as our email server and it validates which account you send from (by default anyway).

Hope this info is helpful to someone else.

John