Getting Mailer Errors in System Logs on Dashboard

witman

I happened to look at the Dashboard and noticed that we are receiving numerous Mailer Errors in the log. Here is our version numbers:

Here are some of the errors we are seeing.

Unable to email via Sendmail Unable to send mail: mail(): Failed to connect to mailserver at "localhost" port 25, verify your "SMTP" and "smtp_port" setting in php.ini or use ini_set()

Unable to email via SMTP: [useremail] (tls://[email server name]:587/SMTP) Cannot issue HELO to existing session

It is throwing these errors multiple times per minute. I have tested email settings and it seems to work and then I look and it these errors appear and it seems that emails stop working. I restart the server and it seems to work for a while.

KevinTheJedi

witman

First error is due to second error. When SMTP fails it attempts to use PHP mail/sendmail to send mail but that is not configured on your server so that also fails. Did you check all system emails with SMTP enabled to see if they are all working and connecting successfully?

Cheers.

KevinTheJedi

witman

Also, do you have a Cron Job/Scheduled Task running for osTicket? If so are they exiting completely after execution each time or are some connections left open? Also, if you do have one running does it have enough time to complete before the next one runs? You can run the cron/task command manually via the server's CLI to see how long it takes during normal load and compare that to the time the cron/task is set to run.

Cheers.

witman

KevinTheJedi Did you check all system emails with SMTP enabled to see if they are all working and connecting successfully?

Sorry, I am not sure what you mean. Is there a section I need to look to verify this? I have checked ticket creation, ticket replies, etc., and those are working. I also received emails when an agent wasn't able to successfully log in so I assume this was a system email?

KevinTheJedi

witman

Well you could have multiple emails configured; especially for SMTP. The place to check is Admin Panel > Emails > Emails. You would click on each system email in the list and try to Save Changes to test the connection/authentication. If the email saves successfully then it's connecting and authenticating correctly. If it fails the system will tell you the specific error that you will need to address. If you get a vague error you'll have to look it up online as each mailserver is different in their error codes and messges.

Cheers.

witman

KevinTheJedi

This looks like it could be it. I don't have some of the settings filled out. I'll get them set and see if that fixes the issue.

witman

Yes, I have a scheduled task set to run and it may not be completing in time. I have increased the time between tasks to 5 minutes to see if that helps.

Where would I see if the task is exiting completely? Do you mean in task scheduler where it shows successfully ran?

witman

Sorry, another question. As you suggested, I have more than one email address listed in Emails section. However, unless I am missing a setting somewhere, I don't think they are being used. I have looked at the Settings and it looks like the only one that is in use is the one that I have the credentials in place. Is there a way to see if the other ones are being used at all? I have the default system email set for the one with credentials and then I have the default alert email set to "Use Default System Email".

I also have the Default MTA set to the credentials that I have tested. I would set this up to send to port 25 and have my email server allow it without credentials but I think I tried setting that initially and kept getting errors so I enabled TLS on port 587.

KevinTheJedi

witman

That's all good then. The only way a system email would be used if it had Remote Mailbox and/or Outgoing (SMTP) tab information filled out. If you don't have information filled in for the others then they are not used for fetching/sending however they may be there to recognize mail sent from other sources. You'd have to consult with whomever setup your installation to see if the other addresses are being used; if not you can delete them.

And yes, always use authenticated SMTP when available.

Cheers.

witman

I just did a test ticket and the email came through but right after I did, I checked the log again and it now shows this error:

Unable to email via SMTP: [useremail] (tls://[servername]:587/SMTP) 4.4.2 Message submission rate for this client has exceeded the configured limit

witman

I must still have something wrong with email. I am only receiving email notifications on about every other ticket/email that comes into the system when a new ticket is created.

It seems like it is tied to this error in the log but I am not sure how to resolve it. It seems as if it is keeping a session open when it shouldn't.

Unable to email via SMTP: [useremail] (tls://[servername]:587/SMTP) Cannot issue HELO to existing session

I see a whole page of these mailer errors in the span of 1-2 minutes.

I also noticed that I am receiving email notifications to the "Admin" email address stating that a new ticket has been created but I and others are not receiving the email notification even though I have New Ticket Alert enabled for Department Members and the department is getting assigned when these come in.

witman

After investigating further, it looks like overall we are receiving emails but agents are not receiving emails for new tickets that are created.

I have seen this issue in other posts on here and have checked all of the settings that were recommended but don't anything that looks incorrect from those posts.

The only agent that is actually getting a notification on new ticket creation is what I believe was the first agent I created. No other agents are getting the notification. They get updates after tickets have been assigned but not the original "New Ticket" creation. Any help in resolving this would be appreciated. Thanks.

KevinTheJedi

witman

I would recommend reviewing the Alerts Guide to see if you've missed anything. The alerts can also be disabled and/or limited at the Department level:

https://docs.osticket.com/en/latest/Guides/Alerts%20Guide.html

Other than that I have a few questions:

Are the Tickets being created from Email or from the portal for the ones not sending the new ticket alerts? If via email please post the full raw headers (censor any sensitive info). There could be a header that's triggering the auto-responder filters that disable the alerts to agents.
Are the Tickets being assigned on creation or manually after creation?

Cheers.

witman

Here are my settings.
Autoresponder:

Alerts and Notices - New Ticket Alert:

New ticket options under Help Topics - Auto-Response is enabled.

Autoresponder Settings - Departments

No filters are in place that would block autoresponder.

I checked the Teams settings and none of them have have autoresponder disabled.

I did not see anywhere that the emails for New Tickets should not be sent.

I tested this from both an email generated ticket as well as one from the portal. Both did the same thing. The one agent account received the notification but none of the others did.

I looked and do not have new tickets set to auto assign on creation. They are set to "Unassigned" and are being manually assigned after.

KevinTheJedi

witman

At the Department level there is a setting for whom receives the alerts - Alerts & Notices > Recipients. Make sure this is set to “Department and extended access members”.

Cheers.

witman

The reason I had that set to Department only is because we have two departments set up and I didn't want the agents in the other department to receive notifications, just the agents who had this set as their primary.

However, I did set it "Department and extended access member" but it didn't make a difference.

I tried another test ticket from the portal and still the same thing. Only that one user got an email.

It's strange because it looks like we are getting emails for other aspects of the helpdesk, like when a reply is sent, password resets, etc. Just not for new tickets - but that is kind of a big one.

witman

I just assigned a task to myself from an existing ticket and the email came through immediately so emails for tasks for existing tickets are working.

KevinTheJedi

witman

That is strange..

You can see the method that is used to send alerts to agents here:

https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket/blob/develop/include/class.ticket.php#L1646

You can see that it would bail out if $alertstaff or $autorespond is set to false. Other than that it gets the available members for the alerts, loops through each member, checks if they are on vacation/etc., and then sends the alert.

Moving further back $alertstaff and $autorespond can be set to false in these places:

Other than that it can come from the mail headers; however since you said it's both web created tickets and email created tickets then seems near impossible for this scenario.

Cheers.

witman

I set up a rule in our email server to forward any emails sent from the email address OSTicket was using over to my personal address so I could see if there was something missing.

I did 3 tests. The first test resulted in emails being sent to 4 agents total. We have 14 agents that should have received the message.

The 2nd test resulted in the exact same agents being sent the email so 10 did not receive it.

The 3rd test resulted in 8 agents receiving the email so 6 did not receive it. I also noticed that emails seemed to come into my mailbox in the order that the agents are listed in OSTicket.

It seems to be processing a certain number of emails, then getting hung up. I still see a a bunch of email errors that are similar to what I put in the first post.

KevinTheJedi

witman

Okay, that's interesting. Then definitely seems like potentially there is rate limit or connection limit or something going on here. What mail provider do you use exactly? Do they have any logs that can help you debug this? Like maybe it's hitting a quota or limit or something and then the request hangs and as a result the request is not properly closed.

Cheers.