evolution: problem sending email

[Terrence Enger]

On Tue, 2008-07-01 at 00:23 -0400, ted leslie wrote:
ping the smtp server see if you get packet drops, or very poor
bandwidth.
> 
> I tend to think it was the smtp server, but then, if others are
getting to it no problem?

That was my first guess, too.  <whine>Sent email to my ISP and
waited for response.  Phoned customer support, and waited the 48
hours that they requested for a fix (still waiting on that one).
Silly me.</whine>

> 
> try another email program to aid in the detective work, should be
about a 4 minute task?

Hmm, would you believe `telnet` plus a copy of RFC 2821?  It took
me more than 4 minutes, I must admit.

>From the command line, everything works.  (Well, subject to the
confusion that torfree.net, which does not require authorization,
accepts mail to my account there but not to my account
elsewhere.)

> 
> i experienced a freaky problem once,
> i could web browser, but had issue with ftp (and other stuff -
probably email),
> turns out i had a noisy cat 5 wire hookup
> that suffered from certain types of traffic and not others, bizzar as
hell,
> straightened out the cable and then fine.
> 
> but yeah, just get another email program hookup to rule in or out
stuff.
> also you could tcpdump your wire, and compare it to a sucessful one,
> to maybe see some useful info.

I have learned how to make Evolution produce a log of its SMTP
commands.  Just now, I went looking for examples to copy in here,
and I find--for my preferred outbound server--that all my
successful examples are to one address and that I have not
collected any failed examples.

So, having turned on Evolution logging, I shall break off now and
try to send this.  I am not sure whether to hope it works or
fails.

Thank you, Ted.  You have given me another path to check out.

> 
> 
> 
> -tl
> 
> 
> On Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:26:17 -0400
> Terrence Enger <tenger-P1ovA8G34VBEfu+5ix1nRw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> > Greetings,
> > 
> > I am using Evolution 2.22.2 on Ubuntu Hardy.
> > 
> > At least one of my available SMTP servers requires authentication.
> > (Natch!)  Sometimes, Evolution prompts for my password on that
server,
> > and the transmission succeeds.  Sometimes, despite everything I can
> > think of trying, Evolution does not prompt for the password, and the
> > server reports "Relay access denied".  The latter situation is more
> > common, to the extent that I expect to have to paste this message
into a
> > telnet session at the command prompt.
> > 
> > ( Well, I just (Monday, 14:16) succeeded once again.  Holding off on
> > sending this.   Okay, I have had a couple of hours of good usage.
Now,
> > 16:20, its failing again.)
> > 
> > Along the way, I have taken the menu option File > Forget passwords,
I
> > have checked and unchecked the "remember password" option, I have
> > cancelled all Evolution jobs and restarted Evolution, and I have
deleted
> > and reentered the mail account.  My question on ubuntuforums.org has
> > brought no response.  The debugging output suggested by
> > <http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/bugs.shtml> has been
helpful
> > only to the extent of pointing my suspicions to Evolution rather
than
> > the SMTP server.  Some of the reported bugs I found sound similar to
my
> > situation, but still a bit different.
> > 
> > Sigh!  I would appreciate any suggestions about what I can do or
what I
> > should read.  


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