Troubleshooting SMTP problems

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SMTP or sending mail problems are common and usually easy to troubleshoot. This document will help customers troubleshoot SMTP problems on all (mt) Media Temple hosting platforms.

The first step in any troubleshooting procedure is to try to identify and recreate the problem. Use your mail program to send an email messageto a verified working address. If you receive an error message it will likely be one of the following. Please click on the one relevant to your error:

If your error is not listed above click here for other solutions.

5.7.1 Relaying denied

  • If this email address is on your primary domain this is most likely an authentication problem. Turn on Outgoing SMTP authentication as illustrated in our Setting up email – All purpose article near the bottom.
  • If this email address is on an alternate domain that has been added recently please allow 24 hours for necessary mail services to restart. This would only apply to (ss) Shared-Server accounts.

553 errors

  • This is essentially a “relaying denied” error from a (dv) server running qmail. Make sure outgoing server authentication is enabled.
  • If SMTP authentication is enabled check that the domain is properly configured in Plesk with email services ENABLED. You can also check from the command line with:
tail -f /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

If you see output similar to the following next to messages that are not delivered:

Sorry._Although_I'm_listed_as_a_best-preference_MX_or_A_for_that_host,/it_isn't_in_my_control/locals_file,_so_I_don't_treat_it_as_local._(#5.4.6)

If you run:

cat /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts

you probably will not see the domain name in question. In this case please enable email services for the domain by logging into Plesk and clicking on “Domains > domain.com > Mail” and click the “Enable” button.

If mail for the domain is enabled, make sure that the mail relay isn’t set to ‘closed’ in Plesk under “Server > Mail > Maximum letter size and relay mode parameters” Check the bubble next to “authorization is required:” and then the box next to “SMTP”

Bad Login or Username/Password

  • Make sure this email address was correctly set up in your WebControl panel or Plesk. Some help on this can be found here: Setting up email – All purpose.
  • Check to see if the outgoing server is correct. For example: Some customers will use something likess##.shared.server-system.net on a (ss) Shared-Server. You should always change it to mail.domain.com or the IP address of your server if the domain does not resolve yet.
  • Make sure username (or account ID in Mac Mail) is your full email address. The username for the email address someone@mt-example.com would be ‘someone@mt-example.com‘. If you are on the (ss) Shared-Server you would just use ‘someone’ for the username.
  • Check to make sure you are using the correct password. Log into your WebControl Panel or Plesk and change it to something you can remember if possible.

Server not found

  • Make sure that you have internet connectivity, if you are reading this document online you are connected.
  • If the email address is at a new domain or one that has been pointed somewhere new recently, check to see if the domain has propagated yet. This typically takes 24-48 hours (see Important note regarding “domain forwarding/pointing”) your can check on http://networksolutions.com. Finally you can ping your domain from your computer to see if the correct IP address is coming up (see Common DNS troubleshooting tools)
  • If your are using mail.your-domain as your outgoing mail server make sure the A record for that name resolves to your Media Temple server.
  • Make sure you are NOT using SSL, SPA or any authentication method other than ‘Password’
  • Check to see if port 25 is being blocked using our following guide:

Mailbox full/Quota Exceeded/Could not create output file

  • This is NOT a sending mail problem but rather a receiving mail issue. This usually means that the recipient’s email box is full, please contact them to let them know

Rejected: User does not exist/No such address

  • This is NOT a sending mail problem but rather a receiving mail issue. This usually means that your email wasn’t addressed correctly, please check your recipient.

(dv) Incorrect SMTP Configuration Files

If you are having issues sending/receiving mail it is possible your SMTP Configuration Files may be mis-configured or incorrect. Lets check your smtp configuration files by using the following command:

ls -1 /etc/xinetd.d/smtp*

You should then see the following results:

-rw-r--r-- 1  root root 416 Sep  2 15:20 /etc/xinetd.d/smtp_psa
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 417 Sep  2 15:20 /etc/xinetd.d/smtps_psa

Be sure the names have underscores. Also make sure the permissions and ownership match above.

If underscores are missing you can restart the mail subsystem altogether with the following command: 

/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/mailmng -o ; /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/mailmng -p ; /etc/init.d/xinetd restart ; /etc/init.d/qmail restart

If that fails you can restore settings for all mailboxes with the following command:

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/mchk --with-spam

This command  will repair/rebuild all Qmail configuration files and restore settings for all mailboxes.

Other Solutions

So none of those worked huh? Try sending mail using your webmail or creating a test account and trying to send mail with the new one instead.

  • If you are able to log into webmail, webmail.mt-example.com, but unable to send email please submit a support request through the AccountCenter with a clear description of the problem and an error message if available.
  • If webmail works then is this is likely not a server problem, please try to use the troubleshooting procedures outlined in the above sections.

Webmail doesn’t work?

  • If you are able to log into webmail, webmail.mt-example.com, but unable to send email please submit a support request through the AccountCenterwith a clear description of the problem and an error message if available.
    • POP/IMAP is up emails can be sent to the domain without a bounce back
    • Users can usually log in with an email program, webmail lets them login as well
    • Sending email takes forever, doesn’t return an error and never actually goes out
    • Sending mail via webmail returns a “data could not be sent error”
    • No incoming/outgoing mail, all of it is queued

Webmail works but your mail program still does not? This might be the result of quirky software, you might want to try Mozilla Thunderbird (http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird) which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, has excellent support for POP and IMAP mailboxes as well as built in spam filtering.

  • If you are troubleshooting an existing account be sure to configure Thunderbird to use IMAP so it will leave all messages on the server so they can be downloaded by your primary client once you get it working.

If you can get webmail to work but cannot get Thunderbird to send mail and none of the above solutions work

  • Please submit a support request through the AccountCenter with a clear description of the problem and an error message if available.

553 sorry, that domain isn’t in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)
Setting up email – All purpose near the bottom.

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