Configuring (having problems with) Mercury/32 and phpBB

[DigitalRain]

Hello, I am having some difficulty getting mercury mail to work with my phpBB3 forums. I will state up-front that I do not have a great understanding of the various options within the Mercury Mail program. I did get it set up to work with smtp and pop through a standard e-mail client, and that is now working without issue. However, when trying to setup phpBB to send a notification to that e-mail whenever a user signs up, I receive errors in phpBB and/or Mercury. I have tried various settings with varying errors or lack thereof, but I have not received one e-mail notification yet.

Server settings:
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

phpBB settings:
Use SMTP server for e-mail: Yes
SMTP server address: localhost
SMTP server port: 0
Authentication method for SMTP: PLAIN
SMTP username: (blank)
SMTP password: (blank)

Mercury SMTP Server: Connection Control tab settings:
127.0.0.1 - Allow Connections - Connections from this address range may relay mail through this server
Do not permit SMTP relaying of non-local mail


phpBB error log:
E-mail error
» EMAIL/SMTP
/forum/ucp.php

Could not connect to smtp host : 0 : Failed to parse address "localhost"

<b>[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice</b>: in file <b>/includes/functions_messenger.php</b> on line <b>835</b>: <b>fsockopen() [<a href='function.fsockopen'>function.fsockopen</a>]: unable to connect to localhost:0 (Failed to parse address &quot;localhost&quot;)</b><br />

Mercury errors:
Honestly, I am not sure which messages were generated as a result of the action of creating a new user on the forums, so I will leave this blank.


For the purpose of proper troubleshooting, here is my current setup. I will not change it until I receive some feedback and try what is suggested. It would be best not to make assumptions about possible other settings I have used; let's just go from here.

Thank you, in advance, for your help with this. It has been quite frustrating trying to figure this out on my own.

[DigitalRain]

Well, after not getting a response for a while, I decided to test a new configuration, by making changes only within phpBB:

phpBB settings:
Use SMTP server for e-mail: Yes
SMTP server address: 127.0.0.1
SMTP server port: 25
Authentication method for SMTP: PLAIN
SMTP username: (blank)
SMTP password: (blank)

phpBB error log:
No new entries

Mercury SMTP Server log:
Connection from 127.0.0.1, Wed Jan 30 06:50:16 2008
EHLO SERVER
MAIL FROM: <forumadmin@domain.com>
RCPT TO: <user-signing-up@email.com>
DATA - 46 lines, 1394 bytes.
QUIT
0 sec. elapsed, connection closed Wed Jan 30 06:50:16 2008
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Connection from 127.0.0.1, Wed Jan 30 06:50:16 2008
EHLO SERVER
MAIL FROM: <forumadmin@domain.com>
RCPT TO: <my-email@gmail.com>
DATA - 32 lines, 926 bytes.
QUIT
1 sec. elapsed, connection closed Wed Jan 30 06:50:17 2008

Mercury Core Process log:
06:50:21: Job MG00030A: from forumadmin@domain.com (local)
To: my-email@gmail.com (non-local) (Job MO00030B) -OK
06:50:21: Job MG000309: from forumadmin@domain.com (local)
To: user-signing-up@email.com (non-local) (Job MO00030C) -OK


From the look of these messages, I would assume that the messages sent okay. phpBB seemed to have sent the information to Mercury, and Mercury (based on my understanding of the logs) seemed to have sent the messages. However, none of the three e-mail addresses involved received an e-mail. Can anyone make a suggestion as to how I should correct this?

[Izzy]

Has your ISP blocked port 25 from sending email other than through their servers - many do these days to prevent their IP address range becoming blocked because of some mindless cretin sending spam through their servers.

You could try another port or better still find out if your ISP is blocking.

Another consideration is the receiving Mail Exchanger may not accept mail from localhost or 127.0.0.1. They usually do a reverse look up to find if you are sending from a genuine address and if not, zap!

Another method of test sending is, in phpBB configure the settings to send via your ISP's email address not through Mercury - use the settings you normally use in your email client for sending email.

phpBB settings:
Use SMTP server for e-mail: Yes
SMTP server address: smtp.yourisp.com
SMTP server port: 25
Authentication method for SMTP: PLAIN <- change these next 3 settings to same as your email client uses
SMTP username: (blank)
SMTP password: (blank)