Introduction
Use this document to troubleshoot common issues related to email and SMTP.
During the infoRouter setup process you are prompted to make choices regarding which SMTP server to use and information related to the selected SMTP server. This information is then stored in a configuration file called web.config.
If you did not choose to enter this information during the setup/installation of infoRouter or if this information has changed, you must manually make these changes.
The web.config file is stored under the “/infoRouter/site” directory and must only be edited with a tool such as Notepad.exe.
Remember, when this file is edited infoRouter will restart so try not to edit this file during the normal operation hours.
A separate document explaining each entry in the web.config file can be found here:
InfoRouter Web Config Settings
Email specific settings are also covered in this document.
Settings
Settings in the Web.config file <appsettings > section
System Email Address
The email address specified here will be used to send out infoRouter notifications.
This does not have to be a valid (existing) e-mail account. It is simply a label that will appear in the “From” section of email notifications. However, if you intend to use the infoRouter “Send To” feature to send emails out to third parties their POP servers may perform reverse DNS lookups and decide that the email is junk. So the best practice is to create a valid account that is verifiable by other POP servers.
Sample
< add key="SystemEmailAddress" value="no_reply@acme.com" />
Smtp Server Connection Parameters
The following settings are used to connect to an SMTP Server to send out infoRouter notification emails.
<add key="smtpserver" value="smtp.acme.com" /> <add key="smtpserverport" value="25" /> <add key="smtpconnectiontimeout" value="10" /> value is in seconds <add key="smtpsendusername" value="infoRouter" /> <add key="smtpsendpassword" value="xyza384" /> <add key="smtpSSL" value="true" /> ‘Set value to “true” for secure SMTP
Where do infoRouter e-mails go? How do I know if infoRouter e-mails are being generated?
When an e-mail is generated via the “Send To” or any other notification feature, the email file is created and placed in a special location on the file system. The location by default is a subfolder called EMAILROOT under the application install directory (C:\inforouter by default).
All pending e-mails are then processed by a special service. This special service is triggered by a background service called IRMaintenance. More on this service later in this document.
The image below demonstrates how a folder was created for an email account called infoRouter@acme.com.
The actual e-mail will be placed into a sub-folder called the “DropBox”. When this email is processed by the infoRouter email service, it will be passed over to the SMTP server defined in the web.config file. If successful, the email will be removed from this folder (DropBox), otherwise the email will be moved under the “Exceptions” sub-folder.
In addition to the two sub-folders created under the email account folder, you will also see a profile.ini file that contains information replicated from the web.config file. The profile.ini file must NOT be edited. If this information is incorrect, the changes must be made in the web.config file.
The image below demonstrates the kind of information stored in the profile.ini file.
E-mails to be sent out are pooled under a series of folders named uniquely as indicated by the image below. Each uniquely named folder contains a single email to be sent out. The email to be sent out is stored in a file called mail.xml. If the email contains any attachments, these are stored as additional files that begin with the “att.” prefix.
The e-mail service is triggered by the IRMaintenance Service. This service checks the DropBox folder to see if there are emails to be sent. The pending e-mails are sent to the related target e-mail addresses by using the SMTP information provided by the web.config file.
If the “IRMaintenance” service is not running e-mail services as well as other critical tasks such as garbage collection and session management cannot be performed. Please check to see that this service is running.
If the service appears to be running but the emails are still in the “DropBox” folder, more than likely the IRMaintenance service is pointing to the wrong location.
If the IRMaintenance service does not appear to be installed, then you must install this service. More on this in the “Common SMTP Issues” section.
Note:
infoRouter version 7.5 followed a different path in processing emails. When the conditions to send an email were met, the email would be generated and passed on to the SMTP server to be sent out immediately. If an error occurred, the email would essentially be lost and no record of it would exist on the infoRouter side.
Version 8 handles such cases by placing the email in a local directory. Emails that cannot be sent are moved to the Exceptions folder allowing infoRouter the administrator to troubleshoot the problem from within infoRouter.
The screenshot below demonstrates how one such failed email is logged.
If the errors are occurring due to problems in authentication or relay, changes must be done to fix these issues. All emails in the exceptions folder can then be manually moved to the Drop Box folder to be re-processed.
Common SMTP Issues
1. If you are using an SMTP server hosted by an ISP, you may not have the required access to make changes. By default, the port to be used is 25, however, most ISPs are switching to other ports. Find out from your ISP what these configuration values are so you can make the required changes in the web.config file.
2. If you are using a local/internal SMTP server or local software such as MS Exchange, contact your administrator to make sure you are using the correct email account information.
3. If you do not wish to use an email account provide by your ISP or do not wish to use a local MS Exchange account, you may setup an SMTP server on a machine you control locally. Please consult the related documentation on how you can setup or create an SMTP server.
4. If the IRMaintenance service is running but all the emails are still in the drop box folder. Edit the irmaintenance.config file located in the infoRouter application folder under a sub-folder called IRMAINTENANCE . The irmaintenance.config file contains a web service URL.
Take the entire URL and paste it into a browser and see if the service page appears correctly.
If you have trouble displaying the page, then there is something wrong with the URL and the IRMaintenance service is having trouble reaching the infoRouter web service URL using this URL.
If you implemented SSL security, the IRMaintenance.config URL must be updated so that it points to the correct https URL.
5. If the IRMaintenance service does not appear to be installed, then you must install this service. To install this service, perform the following:
- Navigate to the folder called IRMaintenance in the infoRouter application directory.
- Edit the file called IRMaintenance.config using Notepad.exe
- Enter the appropriate web service URL in the config file.
Make sure that the infoRouter web service URL is correct. To be sure, type this value into a browser and make sure that you get the infoRouter web service page.
- Using the command line tool, navigate to the same file system path.
- Type in the following command
- Irmaintenance.exe – i
- This will install the IRMaintenance service
Once this service is installed, the emails should be processed.
Email and SMTP Configuration Settings
Login to infoRouter as the Sysadmin and navigate to the infoRouter control panel.
Click on the Email and Notification Settings link to display the following window.
This window allows you to control how email functions work. Notice that the first section of the windows refers to information that can only be modified by editing the web.config file.
The window below demonstrates how users can specify their own email preferences.
The “Notification Type” combo box allows users to specify the frequency of emails sent to them by infoRouter. The choices are None, Instant and Daily Reports.
The user can also specify the format of the emails they prefer to receive (HTML or Text)
If the system settings allow it, user can check or uncheck the attachment option. If this checkbox is not checked, users will receive a link to the document instead of the document attachment.
The system administrator should consider dis-allowing email attachments. This might be a good idea in slow or crowded networks and help save bandwidth.
This can be done in the “Email and Notifications” section of the infoRouter Control Panel.
Specifying an attachment size limit is also oa good idea in cases where documents can be quite large.
Note: When the document attachment size limit is exceede a link to the document is supplied instead of the document attachment.
Email Templates
InfoRouter uses email templates when sending emails. These templates can be found under the following path “c:\inforouter\email templates”.
Notice that these email templates are grouped according to the available language settings.
Note:
Do not edit these templates as they will be replaced with their originals when Live Update is run.
If you would like to edit these templates of to personalize them to fit your needs, please create a copy and rename the template with the “custom.” prefix.
Example: The “ON_READ.txt” email template can be personalized by creating a copy and renaming the copy as “custom.ON_READ.txt”. The personalized copy must be left in the same directory as the original template.
Email Logs
infoRouter email logs are kept in a folder called “Notifications” under the “Logs” folder of the application directory. Each email is logged in a separate log that is kept daily.
The image below demonstrates that each line in the log file denotes an email sent by infoRouter on that day.
Once the email is passed on to the SMTP server to be mailed, infoRouter can no longer keep track.