Topic: Anybody having recent issues with gmail?

[Jailer]

I've got a small private forum I host from home. I use gmail for forum notifications and activation emails. It's been working flawlessly for quite some time but since 3-29 it quit working. Any time it attempts to send a mail it generates the error "Couldn't get mail server response codes".

Did google change something recently to make gmail no longer work with the forums? Is anyone else having issues or is it just me?

[Shambles]

I noticed the very same issue at the very same time. I had to switch to using my host's email system.

I wrote a script to duplicate SMFs send_mail function, with diagnostics at each point. Gmail no longer returns a AUTH LOGIN string, which is causing the problem. I'm still working on finding the reason.

[青山 素子]

Possibly related to new security settings that Google has been rolling out. See Allowing less secure apps to access your account for a possible fix.

[Jailer]

Possibly related to new security settings that Google has been rolling out. See Allowing less secure apps to access your account for a possible fix.

Already had that in place and it doesn't work. Tried enabling 2 factor authentication with an app password and I get the same result.

They obviously changed something but what I don't know. I've seen some posts on the gmail support forums where others have had issues receiving mail that started at the same time so something definitely changed.

[Shambles]

Yep - not 2FA and not a less-secure-app issue (but thanks anyway, 青山 素子)

My wanderings have taken me to google-api discussions where it appears that a business/work account may now be required to pass socket authentication data via smtp.gmail.com from a non Google domain; under these circumstances (if it is correct) the business owner become a Google Admin and can list the domains from which gmail will be authenticated.

Still searching for answers...

[Raffaele1977]

Thanks for the discussion.
I'm interested into i.

If I find a solution, I'll share it...

[Rob Lightbody]

Given the number of topics being raised about this in SMF Support 2.0 (one of them was mine, after searching for an answer), perhaps this topic shouldn't just be in chit-chat?     Its a very useful topic, thanks for the contributors so far.

I have the same issue, starting on 29th of March. 

I do have the "enable less secure" turned on (it already was)

[Night09]

If you took the time to read properly Illori then you would have merged the posts and put them into support thread. Its not a 'chit chat' issue its a concern every SMF forum owners going to face using gmail.

From what I can work out its an Oauth setup needed but not worked out the details so that the site authenticates via secret key with google. SMF isnt the only effected service in the last few days and WP users are reorting it too.

Why would people be looking in 'chit chat' for support related help?....

[Jailer]

I started it in chit chat becuse I figured it was a gmail problem and not a SMF problem (it's not). But thanks to the mods for moving it to support.

I had read a bit on the Oath problem but from what I could find it seems to be a problem with earlier versions and anything 2.0.x or higher should be working fine.

[Rob Lightbody]

Hi,

I have changed my SMTP to use a free account with "SparkPost" which is working well for me already.  It has some added bonuses such as reporting on the emails that have been sent etc.

So from my point of view, I'm no longer looking to a solution as to why you can't send email from SMF to Gmail any more!

Thanks for everybody's time and expertise.

- Rob

[Jailer]

Hi,

I have changed my SMTP to use a free account with "SparkPost" which is working well for me already.  It has some added bonuses such as reporting on the emails that have been sent etc.

So from my point of view, I'm no longer looking to a solution as to why you can't send email from SMF to Gmail any more!

Thanks for everybody's time and expertise.

- Rob

Have any issues getting things set up at ParkPost? I'm trying to get mailgun working and not having any luck getting the records set up and working with Namecheap.

[Jailer]

Well I managed to mailgun setup for my forum and it's working great. I'm done with gmail and the constant issues.

I'll keep checking back out of curiosity to see if someone can get this gmail thing figured out.

[青山 素子]

I'm happy to help out anyone that wants to switch to Mailgun or Mandrill. They're properly built for this kind of use.

[Jailer]

Mine was more of an issue of getting the records set up properly with namecheap. But I'm a noob at this so that is to be expected.

I'm just glad my forum has working email again for notifications.

[Raffaele1977]

Mailgun: https://www.mailgun.com
Maindrill: https://www.mandrill.com
SparkPost: https://www.sparkpost.com

Any tips for configuration?
Comparison between these services?

Tks.

[青山 素子]

It looks like Mandrill has already stopped accepting new accounts and are moving their service into the main MailChimp completely, so no-cost options are a bit more limited.

Both services are backed by decent companies. MailGun is run by Rackspace and SparkPost by Message Systems. I'm more familiar with MailGun, but they both look like good options for sending out messages.

Regarding pricing, MailGun is a more expensive service. If you're looking to maximize the number of messages you can send before paying, SparkPost will be a better option. One nice bit of MailGun is that it can act as an e-mail forwarder, accepting inbound messages and forwarding to a different address. SparkPost will only post incoming messages as a WebHook.

[asmith]

Is there any news on this?

I can't find appropriate topics on Gmail. My search doesn't return anything specific on this.

[Samker]

Is there any news on this?

---

I have the same question... & still looking for solution which will fix sending via gmail.

Anybody ?!

Thanks!

[Shambles]

Ok I have found a resolution to this problem, which requires a minor code change.

The clue was in this post here:

EHLO invalid argument in ssmtp


What I've done is edit Sources/Subs-Post.php as follows:

Code: (Find) [Select]

// EHLO could be understood to mean encrypted hello...
if (server_parse('EHLO ' . $modSettings['smtp_host'], $socket, null) == '250')


Code: (Replace With) [Select]

// EHLO could be understood to mean encrypted hello...
// if (server_parse('EHLO ' . $modSettings['smtp_host'], $socket, null) == '250')
if (server_parse('EHLO ' . 'localhost', $socket, null) == '250')


All seems to be working now.

[CoDTurkiye]

Thanks, working with gmail.

Ok I have found a resolution to this problem, which requires a minor code change.

The clue was in this post here:

EHLO invalid argument in ssmtp [nofollow]


What I've done is edit Sources/Subs-Post.php as follows:

Code: (Find) [Select]

// EHLO could be understood to mean encrypted hello...
if (server_parse('EHLO ' . $modSettings['smtp_host'], $socket, null) == '250')


Code: (Replace With) [Select]

// EHLO could be understood to mean encrypted hello...
// if (server_parse('EHLO ' . $modSettings['smtp_host'], $socket, null) == '250')
if (server_parse('EHLO ' . 'localhost', $socket, null) == '250')


All seems to be working now.