CMS Made Simple Forums

I'm having issues of not being able to have the site send emails. I went into the CMSmailer module and set all fields to the correct fields for gmail

SMTP
smtp.gmail.com
use SSL
port 465
my.from.address@gmail.com
SMTP authentication CHECKED
SMTP timeout of 1000
username: my.from.address@gmail.com
password entered correctly


I logged into the gmail address to make sure the email and password were correct and they are. I also tried with a secondary gmail address I just setup to see if that was it but no luck. Any other ideas why I can't send emails? I'm running CMSMS 1.11.7

I don't usually have any problems using Gmail's outgoing server. But, I usually use TLS with port 587.

Keep in mind that Gmail will limit how many can be sent using a third party application. I think it is 100 per day for Gmail and older Free Google Business Apps accounts.

hmmm. I gave that a try but am still not having luck sending emails. The page reloads when I send a test email and doesn't show an errors (just takes a long time to load).

Here are my settings

Nothing looks out of the ordinary. I also just upgrade to 1.11.10 so I'm on the latest version of CMSMS. Module Manager doesn't show any module updates either.

Any ideas?

I just tested with these settings in CMSMS 1.11.10. No issues here.

I used my gmail credentials, and sent the test message to my hotmail address.

Looks right, as long as the from address from username and username is all the same (full) email address.

so weird! I tried it with a Google Apps address and brand new Gmail account I setup yesterday just for this purpose. Tried SSL and TLS, tried port 465 and 587. Made sure from address, from username, and username were all the same and were the full email address and double confirmed the password. Tried sending to a gmail address as well as a comcast address.


I'm on Bluehost, do you think this could be some server setting or is there maybe a way to get a more in depth look if the CMS is giving any errors? I turned on debug mode in CMSMS but doesn't seem to give me any obvious errors as far as I can tell.

I also tried a Bluehost email (from a different domain, but still Bluehost email system instead of Google) and still got no errors or no test email

so odd!

I also tried a Bluehost email (from a different domain, but still Bluehost email system instead of Google) and still got no errors or no test email

Strange. So, maybe there is a corrupt file with the CMS Mailer module. Try downloading the CMSMS core package and just upload the CMS Mailer module to your modules directory. Then go to the Modules page in the Admin just to make sure it says 'installed'

Setting the CMS Mailer to 'smtp' should circumvent any of your host settings because it does not use sendmail or php which is managed by the server...

yes, very strange! I upgraded my PHP to 5.4.24 (just in case, who knows) and redownloaded CMSmailer and uploaded by FTP and overwrote the existing files. Still not sending any emails... This is so odd!

I guess it is time to check with your host to make sure there isn't anything misconfigured with PHP

Jumped on Chat Support with BlueHost and got an answer I wasn't expecting:

Me: I have setup Google Apps and setup all MX records correctly so I can send and receive emails at my email address through Google Apps email

BlueHost Support: Ahh, that would be why, the server doesn't allow you to use other email servers for email through scripts, this keeps people from spoofing emails like @facebook.com and similar.

So even though all my MX records are setup for Google Apps, I was able to create a noreply@mywebsite.com within BlueHost and use their SMTP settings in the CMSmailer setup and it sent the test email successfully!

Don't know how that works since MX isn't setup for that, but as long as it works I'm good with it! haha

BlueHost Support: Ahh, that would be why, the server doesn't allow you to use other email servers for email through scripts, this keeps people from spoofing emails like @facebook.com and similar.

Wow!~ I never heard of a web host doing this. Happy that you got to the bottom of it. But, IMHO it is rather sucky of them. And this is why.

I use SMTP service providers as my outgoing server/email domain for newsletters. There are big advantages to doing this
1) they help getting through to picky ISPs,
2) they let you send volume (mass mailings) without per day and per hour restrictions,
3) you get excellent tracking to see who opened the mail, who went to your links, better bounce management, etc...

So, if you are stuck only using their outgoing server, then they should offer comparable tools....

Here's rule #1 why this is a sucky policy:

There is no rule that says you have to have http://www.mywebsite.com on the same host as your mail server. You can use whatever web server service you want, and whatever mail server service you want.

you can have multiple web servers for the same second level domain) i.e:
http://www.mywebsite.com
forum.mywebsite.com
chat.mywebsite.com
news.mywebsite.com
ALL of which can use the same 2nd level domain for mail addresses i.e:
somebody@mywebsite.com
CMSMS does this, numerous subdomains are on different servers, and our mail server is only on one of them. Thank god we operate VPS'

If this is really the case it'd be a pretty big thumbs down for this host IMnsHO.

EDIT: it's the role of the mail (SMTP) server that you connect to when sending mails to decide whether it's appropriate to allow sending mail as someuser@foo.com ... not the role of the host of mysubsubdomain.mysubdomain.mywebsite.com to disallow outgoing SMTP connections.

i.e: when wanting to use google via SMTP to send an email, it is google's responsibility to decide whether or not it is allowed. not your hosts.