CF Can't Connect To Mail Server

[Syzzle Inc]

I have been running CF 8 since release and generally no problems. Now, it can't connect to our mail server and there appears to be no reason. Here's the setup: We have CF 8 Standard on Win 2003 server. The same box runs SmarterMail 4.3.

When I try to verify connection settings in CF Administrator, it fails, using all of the same settings that worked 2 hours ago. I've tried restarting the CF service and that didn't help.

Any ideas are much appreciated!

[Newsgroup_User]

> it fails, using
> all of the same settings that worked 2 hours ago.

Something has changed in your config.

It might not have been you who changed it, so ask around.

THis sort of thing doesn't just "stop working", without intervention of
some description.

Have you checked your SMTP server is responsive?

Have you given the system a reboot (it is Windows after all, so this is
almost the first troubleshooting step).

Is you mail server set to relay email for the CF server? (NB: do NOT set
an OPEN relay. That would be bad).

Have your relay settings, or login creds changed?

Has anyone been fiddling with your firewall or port filters or anything?

Have you asked your mail admin what they've been doing?

There's really a lot of things you could investigate and report back on, I
think.

--
Adam

[Guest]

Are you running McAfee? It has an option to block outbound port 25 traffic. And it likes to turn itself on from time-to-time without being asked.

[Guest]

Try pinging your mail server from the system you have CF on. That's a start to see if it's CF or a firewall/network/IP problem.

[Syzzle Inc]

Thanks for your questions and suggestions.

Adam, since I control both CF and the mail server I can say nothing has changed. We're not an open relay. The problem is not consistent. Yes, we've rebooted the server and that works...for a while. Then it stops again. That's what's so interesting/frustrating!

We're running a dedicated server at a hosted facility, so one good question is whether anything has changed on the network, which I'm investigating.

ke4pym, good question on the firewall, but best I can tell port 25 is open and working for other connections.

I'm leaning toward this being a mail server issue , possibly aggravated by the way CF sends mail to the server (since other servers have no problem). Still digging and I'll report anything else I find should it help anyone else.

[Kalgash]

I ran into the same thing on several servers this morning. They are running CF Ent 7.x fully patched. The config included both standalone and JRun4 clusters on Windows 2003 Server w/SP2.

It would error out trying to close the pop3 connection from our mailserver. This resulted in no mail being delivered. You can ensure that your pop3 settings are good by adding debug=yes to your cfpop config and then examining the server-out.log file

Java 6 Update 3 was the culprit in our case. It was accidentally installed and resulted in no other apparent issues. Do an uninstall and restart your instance(s) and you should be good to go. We were.

Enojy.

Joshua Cook
IT Administrator
Zoom Airlines.

[Guest]

ColdFusion 6 and 7 had this nasty habit of having the mail handler sub-process dying from time-to-time. But that was rumored to be fixed in 8.

Can you telnet to port 25 on mail.yourdomain.com from the ColdFusion server when CF isn't able to send mail?

Try it. And if you get connected, issue a command like "helo cnn.com". That should illicit a response from the SMTP server. That'll tell you REAL quick if it is CF dying or a plug in the pipe on port 25.

FWIW, pinging the mail server won't tell you if something else is blocking the connection to the mail server.