CDONTS email not sending but no error getting logged?

[BillLumbergh]

We have an application that automatically generates an email and sends them to the users when certain events happen. We are using the CDONTS object to do this. The problem is that we get these users who swear up and down that they never got the email. The application, however, does not throw an error, the badmail directory in c:\inetpub\mailroot does not have an entry for the email in question, the email is not still in the queue to be sent, and there is nothing in the event viewer to indicate that there was a problem.

Assuming that the email address we have for them in the system is correct, is there a possibility that the email is not sending, but no error is being logged? In the system directory of the event viewer, from time to time, I see SMTPSVC warnings that a message delivery failed; however, it seems to try again later and succeed. Is there a point at which it failed altogether and stops retrying, and at that point, does it log an error there? I know the c:\inetpub\mailroot\badmail folder contains emails that I believe have failed n times and will not be tried anymore; however, I would think that if the event viewer logged warnings, it would also log it as an error on the very last unsuccessful try to send the note, the try that sends the email into the badmail directory.

Is it possible that the email is not getting there and we just don't know it? At what points in the process could the email get "lost"? I've looked everywhere that I know to look, and I can't see that there is a problem. Part of me is inclined to believe that these users are generally clueless and they get the email and delete it without really knowing what it is; but another part of me thinks that it is happening with enough regularity to make me wonder if there really is a problem; however, I see no evidence of one.

Does anyone have any knowledge of these emails not getting sent but there being no indication that they were not sent? Is there some setting somewhere in IIS that I need to change or look at?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[TonyU]

In the meantime
Cc yourself to test it.

[tt]
[sup]"The only ideas that will work for you are the ones you put to work."[/sup]
[/tt]

​

 

[mww22]

Are you sure that your SMPT virtual server is running in IIS?

 

[BillLumbergh]

Yes it is running as we have successfully sent emails from the site to our own email addresses. It's not an error that we can replicate; it basically comes down to a user saying "I didn't get the email", when there is no evidence whatsoever that it didn't send. When we send email to our own addresses, we get it fine. The thing is, our users are pretty much computer illiterate, they need us to hold their hands through pretty much every step, so when they tell me they didn't get the email, I'm inclined to believe that they did get it; they just don't have an understanding of what it is they got or don't know to look for it. Bottom line is, I believe they did get it, they just don't know what they're talking about. The only thing is, the number of people saying this is such that I do wonder if some of them really aren't getting the email. What can happen to it once it leaves our server (assuming the address is valid)? Could their email server reject it for some reason without notifying the sender or recipient? I have a general idea of how email gets from the sender to the recipient but it's more of a textbook diagram knowledge as opposed to a nuts and bolts understanding of what is happening at a detailed level, and I'm just wondering if something is happening at that level that I'm not aware of. Even so though, I think it would either be returned or an error would be logged, but to have no evidence at all, that's what makes me skeptical.

 

[japes89]

You can look at the SMTP log which may be sister to the W3SVC directory of logs. Check in
C:\WinNT\System32\LogFiles\SMTPSVC

there you will see a log of the activity of the mail server and determine what mail was sent.

I have never seen emails get lost as much as you are purporting, but I would check the SMTP log as well as the Event Log for service errors. And best idea that I have used before to show individuals that the system was working was to BCC the messages to myself for a while.

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