Scheduler: Setting up email alerts

[James Morse]

Hey folks,

Be gentle, I am an ACP beginner, just getting started in remote observing from NMSkies. I have everything set up and working properly, including working through my first Scheduler multi-night project, so all that is great (as is the software). Only thing I have not been able to get to work is email alerts. I am trying to run this through my gmail account. I have set it up as follows:

From Address: jkmorse57@gmail.com,ACP Scheduler [jkmorse57@gmail.com is my normal email address]
To Address: jkmorse@jimmorse-astronomy.com [my back-up email through my website which dumps into my gmail account]
SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com:465
SMTP User Name: jkmorse57@gmail.com
SMTP Password: [my gmail account password]

I have tried doing this with and without 2 step authentication. However each time i try to send a test email, I get the following notice:

Email failed: Failure sending mail
Unable to read data from the
transport connection:
net_io_connection closed

I tested this with techsupport at NMSkies and they report the problem is not on their end and that others are successfully using email alerts without NMSkies needing to do anything. So clearly this is user error, but I don't know enough to begin to figure out where I went wrong.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim Morse

[Bob Denny]

I don't see a license for you, are you using this on trial? If so, WELCOME! I have moved this to the Pre-Sales section.

Since you are using Google's two-factor authentication, you must set up an "app-specific password" for Scheduler and use that instead of your account password. Scheduler doesn't have support for the "Authenticator" magic number (the second "factor"). I don't expect people to read all of the docs, I post this sort of thing as a way of avoiding re-typing what I have already written:

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[James Morse]

Bob,

Thanks for that. I knew I had to be doing something wrong. I will retest. And yes, I am new. We have talked briefly. I am just getting started in remote observing and will be definitiely getting the full expert package when my trial period expires.

Best,

Jim

[Bob Denny]

I answered an email from you earlier this morning. Sorry for the delay on that...

[James Morse]

Bob,

Thanks for the suggestion. Did as you recommended but still getting the same message. Not critical because I am checking the system regularly anyway. Just some bust either on the NMSkies end or in my setting things up.

Best,

Jim

[Bob Denny]

This is for the email alerts? OK, here is my setup here, with the app-specific password changed to one that won't work for me, but the format (16 characters lower case) is still the same.

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[James Morse]

Yep, mine looks the same. Only difference is that I had SSL listed, not TLS. Could that be it?

[Colin Haig]

Gmail typically needs TLS for SMTP (outgoing email).

[James Morse]

Tried it but failed again. Googled the error and it seems to be typical. Here was one explanation of the issue, does it make sense:

What this error means is that System.net.mail was unable to find the smtp server.
The answer will vary depending on whether you have a fixed IP or a dynamic IP but, basically, you need to assign a valid IP to your smtp server.
With fixed IP's this is relatively straightforward. With dynamic IP's it takes a bit of tweaking.
Open the IIS Manager and check the properties for the smtp server.
In the Default SMTP Virtual Server's properties, in the "Access" tab, in the Connection Control and Relay dialogs, make sure that your local IP is assigned. ( In my case, it's 10.0.0.2... )
You may also need to modify your hosts file, to point 127.0.0.1 to your machine name. ( \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts )
Then, in your code, assign your machine name to the smtp client :

Dim client AsNewSmtpClient("yourmachinename") client.Send(mail)

[James Morse]

Here was another:

The most simple way to test is to try using port 587 and not 465. While some SMTP servers support TLS on 465 (and sometimes even 25), only port 587 is required to support TLS. In addition to that, use of port 465 has been deprecated since 1998 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTPS), although in practice many servers have it enabled for legacy clients.

NMSkies is running some tests on my rig but after that I will try switching to 587 to see if that works and will report back.