SMTP Question

[andylaw]

It was working before I upgraded to version 1.8. But, now I received
the follow error:

---------------------------------------------------------
Testing mail servers..

[Bounce Handling]
Is enabled?  Yes, Using bounce.cgi
Sending TESTBOUNCE email to bounce address.. Success!

If you receive an email at your "Administrator Email Address" bounce.cgi is configured correctly.

[SMTP Server]
Is enabled?  Yes
Checking mail.. Connected!
Verifying username and password... Verified!
Connecting to SMTP server..
Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to mail.alphabizweb.com:25 in /home/andylaw/public_html/mail/editconf.php on line 1620
Could not find server!

The SMTP server is not configured correctly. Check your settings.
---------------------------------------------

Please help!

Thanks,
Andy

[DW]

This might be a temporary error where your mail server is down.

Regards

[andylaw]

The error has been here more than 5 days. I don't think the server
is down, because I can still check email and send email from
my Eudora. What else may cause this problem?

[DW]

I just tested the server with the command:

telnet mail.alphabizweb.com 25

..and the server appears to be responding properly there.

What could be happening is the web server, where ListMail is installed, cannot resolve and/or connect to the mail.alphabizweb.com domain...

Double-checking this, it appears the web site and mail server are the same computer/IP, so this shouldn't happen.  Try a setting of "localhost" instead of "mail.alphabizweb.com".

Regards

[andylaw]

I tried to change it to localhost, but same error occurs.
Is it possible that there are something wrong with my hosting??
What kind of questions should I ask my hosting to check with?

[SMTP Server]
Is enabled?  Yes
Checking mail.. Connected!
Verifying username and password... Verified!
Connecting to SMTP server..
Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to localhost:25 in /home/andylaw/public_html/mail/editconf.php on line 1620
Could not find server!

The SMTP server is not configured correctly. Check your settings.

[DW]

It seems that the fsockopen() function is supported by the server, since ListMail is able to check email.  What 'host' do you have set for the Authorize by checking email feature?  Using the same host with SMTP should result in a connection.  

Does the same error occur when doing a test mailing to a test list using SMTP?

Regards

[andylaw]

Yes, I use the same host "mail.alphabizweb.com" to authorize by
checking email. It results successful by checking email.
And, it does occur the same error when I doing a test mailing to
the list (the message is queued and can't send out).
I suspect it is my web hosting problem because it was working
before. But, I've no idea what questions should I ask them to
figure out the problem.

[DW]

Perhaps your host has disallowed connections to SMTP from the local server because they detected ListMail doing it.

I suppose you should let them know you have a script that uses SMTP and ask if there are any restrictions against this type of connection.  It seems strange to me that I was able to connect to the SMTP server but ListMail is not able to.  You can probably connect to it from Outlook, too.  This type of selective blocking can only be done manually with a firewall setting.  It seems like a bit of a long-shot to me, but I don't have any other ideas.   PHP appears to be fine.  Even the mail server seems fine... Hopefully your host has done something recently that they can reverse or use for troubleshooting this.

Regards

[andylaw]

Hi Dean,

Thank you for your help and followup. I seeked help from my web
hosting support. Finally, they fixed the problem and Listmail is working
now again. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Andy