E-mail element stopped working with version 10?

[ghostt]

Howdy all!

After picking up version 10, I was kind of distracted with all the huge leaps forward (love the touchscreen UI, client/server, nice release!). However after a week or so of the new version, today I suddenly realized something, I was no longer receiving e-mails when events occurred. I use the e-mail element rather heavily, anytime a door opens or mailbox opens, etc, I get an e-mail to my blackberry.

So I went to investigate tonight, and found that I could send e-mails just fine from the e-mail setup menu (where you specify your SMTP server, etc). Sending a test message worked fine. However, no use of the e-mail element would work any longer in visual programs. All of my existing ones were not working, and I created a few test programs, which also failed.

I jumped over to my SMTP server (I host mail and web servers for a living), and watched the logs. When sending from the test e-mail area, the mail goes through and I see the traffic in the logs just fine. When I execute a program with an email element in it, however, the HCA machine never once even initiates a connection to the sendmail daemon.

It is important to note that the visual programs in question are indeed executing as expected, all other operations within the visual program execute just fine, the lights do what they're supposed to, etc, its just e-mail that's not seeming to execute..

I was a bit more perplexed at this point.. I opted to roll back, re-install back to version 9, load up my backup of my version 9 home layout, and voila, e-mail elements in visual programs worked fine again. I then upgraded from 9 to 10, and again, the e-mail element stopped working again.

Any ideas what is causing this? I make fairly heavy use of email with my home control, so for now I've switched the e-mail elements to program execute elements, and am running a windows port of the mailx program to send mail. It works, but I'd love to get back native mail support. Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

[skippy76]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear that you have having issues. I'm the developer of the Email component so hope that I maybe able to help you in some way.

I have to say that it's certainly an unusual one that we have not come accross before. I'll first try to recreate it and let you know if I find anything. In the mean time if you could enable Email logging and take a look at the mail log to see if there is anything obvious in there.

Regards,

Andrew

[KHarms]

Please check the email setup parameters. Another user was having problems after an upgrade and it was resolved by checking and changing some of the email setup paremeters.

[ghostt]

Please check the email setup parameters. Another user was having problems after an upgrade and it was resolved by checking and changing some of the email setup paremeters.


Greetings:

I see in the setup that the "log sent mail" option is checked, but I'm not sure where it stores that log file (there's nothing in the main HCA log viewer). Where is that sent log stored?

Also regarding e-mail settings, I have quadruple checked those settings (which I have not changed at all from version to version). I can send mails just fine *from* the mail settings page, so the settings are fine, it just doesn't work from the visual programmer e-mail element. It doesn't really make sense.

The stranger part is when I downgrade back to 9, load up my backup design, e-mail works fine, re-upgrade with that same 'backup' design file in place, and e-mail stops working again (but still works from the e-mail preferences screen where you can send a test mail).

Its definitely isolated to the visual programmer element, I just can't see how/what would cause it..

**EDIT**

OK I think I found the e-mail log file (c:\documents and settings\user\my documents\hca\logs\hcamail.txt). Wasn't updated since June 30th. I just tried sending a test message from the mail configuration area, the e-mail was sent fine, but nothing was written to the log file. When trying to send mail from a visual program, also nothing is logged to that file, and also no mail is sent.

Permissions are fine on the log file, its not read-only, hidden, or anything like that.

[ghostt]

OK I have some additional new information.

If I run HCA in standalone mode, e-mail works fine all around. If I run in client/server mode, e-mail stops working. Not sure if this helps any, but it definitely makes the difference. Unfortunately reverting to standalone mode takes away a lot of the new functionality. :(

[skippy76]

Hi,

Thanks for the follow up information. This is again helpful, especially as you say that it appears to work when in standalone mode but not in client-server mode.

I'll continue to try to recreate the issue and get back to you. Could you confirm if the mail.log file was updated when you ran in standalone mode?

[Edit]

Please note that the mail log file is called HCAMail.log and can be found in the [User document]\HCA\Temp folder. What I have found is that when you run the email test in the HCA properties window the HCA Mail is actually exectued locally to the client. Therefore the log file for the test is found on the client system. I'm not sure at present if this is expected or a bug. My belief is that it should be executing from the server.

With regards to the case where you run the program and it fails, indeed in this instance it should run on the server and again you can find the HCAMail.log in the [User document]\HCA\Temp folder. If you could check to see if this file exists and look for any obvious issues.

Thanks

Andrew

[skippy76]

Hi,

Were you able to find the maillog in the temp folder on the server?