E-mail not sent, test e-mail returns an error

[Mornagest]

Hello,

I'm facing a annoying problem with vB4.2.2 PL6: I cannot send e-mail anymore from vBulletin.

There is no e-mail for notification, no e-mail sent from the contact form, no e-mail sent to users... well, no e-mail

I ran the e-mail diagnostic utility and this is its reply:

SMTP: localhost
sendmail_from: None
sendmail_path: -t -i

The fact is that I can send and receive e-mails from my server. The contact e-mail address works fine when I use it with SquirrelMail, BUT it doesn't receive contact e-mails sent from the forum form.

Would you have any idea?

Thank you in advance!

[snakes1100]

Verify that smtp email processing is disabled.

If smtp is what you want to use, verify the login & server credentials are correct.

If you have log access on server level, send a test email while using for example tail while in a shell: tail -f mailllog | grep "email@yousentto.com"

If not download the log, like thru ftp if it isnt a dedicated server with shell access & search for the email you sent to, im going to guess you should see a lot of errors if the site sends out daily notifications.

[Mornagest]

Hi Snakes1100 and thank you for your answer

The SMTP protocol is disabled in vBulletin options.

We have a dedicated server.

tail found nothing. We use exim4 and its log looks like this :

2020-11-22 19:27:45 1kgu5Q-0004rB-AR <= EdwardHarrisczoir@iconpln.net.id H=(132.42.202.160.iconpln.net.id) [XXX] P=esmtp S=5550 id=1FDF493F.C830B142@iconpln.net.id
2020-11-22 19:27:45 1kgu5Q-0004rB-AR => administration <administration@mysite> R=local_user T=mail_spool
2020-11-22 19:27:45 1kgu5Q-0004rB-AR Completed
2020-11-22 19:28:04 no host name found for IP address XXX
2020-11-22 19:28:04 SMTP protocol error in "AUTH LOGIN" H=(User) [141.98.10.192] AUTH command used when not advertised
2020-11-22 19:29:20 no host name found for IP address XXX
2020-11-22 19:29:20 SMTP protocol error in "AUTH LOGIN" H=(User) [141.98.10.136] AUTH command used when not advertised
2020-11-22 19:39:31 no host name found for IP address XXX

[...]

2020-11-22 19:53:30 Start queue run: pid=19272
2020-11-22 19:53:30 End queue run: pid=19272

[...]

I skipped many lines that look like those ones.

I have no mail in queue as shown in main admin screen on vBulletin.

So I do not know where the problem lies...

Thank you for your help!

[snakes1100]

tail -f /var/log/exim_mainlog | grep "email@yousenttointest.com"

If you say no outbound email works, then exim's mainlog should be full of clues as to why.

[Mornagest]

So to be sure I'm doing things right, I log on my server and run

tail -f /var/log/exim/mainlog | grep "myemail@blabla.com"

The i open the admin panel in vB and ask him to send a test e-mail via the diagnostic tools.

But nothing shows on the terminal of the server. The tail process is pending without any output.

I wonder where the chain is broken...

Thank you for your help, Snakes1100 !

[snakes1100]

tail -f /var/log/exim_mainlog | grep "email@yousenttointest.com"

Not exim/mainlog

Run that in a shell & then send a email.

[Mornagest]

Sorry for my silliness but the file doesn't exist:

tail -f /var/log/exim4_mainlog | grep "me@blabla"
tail: impossible d'ouvrir '/var/log/exim4_mainlog' en lecture: Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
tail: aucun fichier restant

It's in French but I guess you can understand

What goes wrong with these mails?

Thanks for your help!


edit: same error with tail -f /var/log/exim_mainlog | grep "me@blabla"

[snakes1100]

exim by default stores all its logs in /var/log.

not sure what your setup is or who may have did anything custom on it, but you'll need to find the exim logs & see why its failing to send out emails.

[Mornagest]

I'm surprised as I just checked on my computer by installing exim4 and the mainlog is in /var/log/exim4 as well.

I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 and our server runs on Debian 10. Maybe this point was different before, I don't know.

[snakes1100]

Do a search for the exim logs then.

find / -name exim_* -print