There are times when you are setting up SMTP but email that should be going out is not being received at the destination and it is difficult to get mail logs from some SMTP providers. In that situation, the easiest way to verify the CMS is sending our emails is to do a local test.
There are a number of reasons why mail is not being sent:
- You may have the SMTP information incorrect, so verify the server, port, username and password for the relaying mail server
- Port 25 (or alternate port your relaying gmail server requires) is blocked by a firewall
- Your internet provider may have port 25 blocked
- Your outgoing email address or server may be Blacklisted
The first step is to verify that the SMTP information is correct for the relaying server and that it is reachable. To do that, you'll want to manually telnet to the destination and check that it connects and can accept mail: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995718(v=exchg.65).aspx
If you can not reach the server then contact your network administrator to make sure port 25 is not blocked.
If you can connect, the next step will to make sure the CMS is sending out the email. The easiest way to test is to install a mail server like Papercut - Papercut is a mail server emulator that works like a mail server for accepting mail to be sent out but it does not actually relay it out to the destination. After installing it, you'll update your SMTP settings to connect to it instead. Then when you send mail out, Papercut should accept it and you can view the full headers. If it shows the email, you'll know your end is setup properly and it has to be either the network ports being blocked preventing outgoing mail, or the destination server isn't setup properly to accept the mail.
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