ACF 2021: Can't Check Maintain Connection to Mail Server

[Homestar9]

I am running ACF 2021 (2021.0.18.330341) standard edition, and attempting to configure mail settings. I noticed something strange where, when I check the box "Maintain Connection to Mail Server" and then "Submit Changes", the box shows as unchecked, despite seeing the green "Server has been updated successfully" message:

This feels like a bug to me. Can anyone else confirm if they have the same issue.

I tried enabling TLS connections on and off to see if it made a difference. It does not.  

Note: I have a successful connecction to the SMTP server and can send mail fine.  The reason why I want to enable this setting is because we frequently send out a "burst" of emails at once and read that enabling this feature is recommended.

[BKBK]

I think you should report a bug. There has apparently been an issue with "Maintain connection to mail server" as far back as ColdFusion 8, sixteen years ago. 

The issue also occurs on ColdFusion 2023.

Please include the links to the forum posts in your bug report.

[BKBK]

Another forum post on the issue: https://community.adobe.com/t5/coldfusion-discussions/slow-cfmail-spooling-and-cfadministrator/td-p/... 

[BKBK]

Remark that may be relevant: looking further into this I discovered that the configuration file C:\ColdFusion2023\cfusion\lib\neo-mail.xml has no setting for connections.

[Homestar9]

Thank you, @BKBK; I believe you are correct.  Someone submitted a bug a few years back but then mistakenly set the status to "withdrawn".  I have created the bug report here: https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/CF-4225202

[BKBK]

Thanks, @Homestar9 , for the bug report and for sharing the link.

Voted for it.

I also added these comments to the bug report,

I wish to add the following note to "Actual Result":
The text "Server has been updated successfully" appears on the screen.
There are no related errors in the logs.

I wish to add the following note to "Expected Result":
If, for whatever reason, the setting "Maintain connection to mail server" does not apply, then ColdFusion should produce an appropriate warning or error message.

[Charlie Arehart]

Good discussion. I'd seen it over the weekend and had been meaning to check into and report here some things.  Hope it's helpful.

First, the bug is not so much that the Mail page's setting you're changing ("maintain connections to mail server". BTW, you should find that the same is true as well for the "Backup Mail Server" setting.)

Instead, the bug is that you shouldn't see those two settings appearing on the page, unless you're running CF Enterprise.  Those two (and a couple more) are among a few features on that Mail page which are ENTERPRISE-ONLY. You can see this clarified in the docs here.   BTW, it's not only on CF Standard that this problem you report happens also with the free Developer edition (so the settings should not be appearing there either.) 

As further clarification of "where the bug is",  I'll note that in a CF instance that IS using an Enterprise license key, that will not only let you save changes to these two settings, but more important it also shows two MORE settings on that page: "Mail Delivery Threads", "Maximum number of messages to spool to delivery", as well as the choice of "to Disk" or "to Memory" for the "Spool mail messages for delivery" option (that otherwise appears in all editions, only spooling to disk by default).

This last point clarifies that the "bug" is that Adobe didn't hide those first two settings ("maintain connections to mail server" and "backup mail server") from appearing in anything but an Enterprise-licensed instance, like they do for those other Mail settings I just named.

I'll add this comment to the bug report you created, in case people may not see this thread there (though I do see Dave L listed this thread among a couple others he shared as having long raised this issue in different ways).

If anyone learns something to the contrary, I welcome correction of course.

[BKBK]

Thanks, @Charlie Arehart , for the remark about the relevance of ColdFusion's Enterprise Edition to the setting "Maintain connection to mail server".

[Homestar9]

Agreed, thanks @Charlie Arehart.  It's a shame Adobe has been teasing Standard Edition users with this feature for over 16 years, when the actual bug is that Standard users aren't supposed to see the setting.  It's like letting a kid hold an ice cream cone, but they don't get to taste it!

[Charlie Arehart]

Well, I think an argument could be made that the fact that it's never saved the setting change should diminish this being something that caused everyone to have been "teased"--at least if they noticed that, of course. 🙂 But I agree it's been unfortunate.

It's also always been documented that these were enterprise-only features, so it's not a bait and switch. That said, I realize that most never read the docs.  🙂 

What's more curious is that there's been virtually no other reporting of the issue all these years. I suspect many just accepted it as "it doesn't work", which is too bad--and its own lamentable state of affairs.

Anyway, let's hope Adobe addresses this.

And for some it's at least a wake-up call about the many high-performance advantages of cf enterprise, and how that could help especially with email delivery (this is made more clear in the classic post by the late Wil Genovese, pointed to from the forum thread bkbk had pointed to).

But I realize also it will lead some to lament the fact that some improvements are held to ONLY be in Enterprise. Adobe's a commercial company, of course, and cf is a commercial product. The tension there (vs free or lower cost) is a constant one.

Maybe something will change with Cf2025. We won't know until it's released (the announced subscription change could be a pro or a con for some). 

[Charlie Arehart]

Following on my last comment, actually this points to it being an opportunity for Adobe...ro leave such enterprise-only things on the screen in the admin, but grayed out, unselectavle, showing that they are enterprise-only, and/or reflecting whatever is the value for standard (like how for standard the "spool to" option is memory-only for standard, whereas enterprise offers a disk option that would be grayed out).

Just something to consider, for this and other cf admin pages. 

[BKBK]

@Homestar9 , I agree with you. Letting the maintain-mail-server-connection feature be available in the Standard Edition amounts to teasing the users. After all, the Administrator API accepts the setting, validates it and responds with "Server has been updated successfully". That is sloppy design and leads to disappointment.  Worse still, this has been going on for so long, across so many versions of ColdFusion, 

In any case, I think that the setting "Maintain Connection to Mail Server" should not be Enterprise Only. By enabling reuse of the connection, the setting improves performance and efficiency when an application sends multiple e-mails. 

Such reuse is not an extra luxury for Enterprise. It is a fundamental best-practice, irrespective of the context. As such, the setting should be available to Standard Edition as well. Otherwise, Adobe would be selectively penalizing Standard Edition users by imposing bad-practice on them.

[Charlie Arehart]

To be clear, I wasn't questioning or debating whether that or any other feature SHOULD be held back from Standard. We could have that debate about MANY features...indeed, more than some would realize exist as distinctions, for the very reason of my last comment.

I've been focused on explaining WHAT seemed to be happening and why. 

But as long as you've changed the focus, I'll say that I've been wondering if the announced move to subscription-only licensing in cf2025 might well also entail the end of cf Standard. I say this because the current subscription-based cf licensing approaches

(that for CFs AWS and Azure AMIs, as well as for Adobe's ETLAs) offer enterprise only. Yes, this would mean the price goes up--though as opex vs capex, which would benefit many. But it would put an end to such debates while fully empowering cf everywhere, at least those moving 

forward.

But this is getting far afield of the original post, and mine is merely speculation--and is another topic that could be vigorously debated. Again, I was just considering how it might be a POSSIBILITY. Adobe never discusses such things before a release, and they don't seem to be open to debating such choices publicly. It's their baby, to do with as they wish.

Thankfully there are alternative paths for those who find their choices repugnant. The rest of us can try to make the best of things.

And if the std/ent distinction does remain into cf2025 and beyond, then perhaps a new thread should be opened to debate the dozens of features held back from Standard, many of which could be regarded as "best practices" that anyone could wish were open to all. 

[BKBK]

@Charlie Arehart , On the subject of the availability of features in the Standard Edition, I should point out that I didn't ascribe any opinion to you. Instead, I proferred an opinion of my own.

Long story short: I didn't disagree with you; I agreed with @Homestar9 .