Mail Notification Fails

[jroyale]

About a month ago I stopped receiving notifications for completed downloads. I went into the settings and tested the email and it says failed to authenticate server. I haven't changed any settings. I was using an outlook address and I thought maybe it was due to their recent security changes that were made. So I created a yahoo mail account, for that one it said no suitable authentication method. So then I used a gmail account, it too can't authenticate. My passwords and usernames are correct and SMTP settings are smtp-mail.outlook, smtp.mail.yahoo, and smtp.gmail (all 3 have a dot com but I can't post links). I've also tried a variation on all 3 with an :587 for the port. The only other thing I've tried for google is to enable POP. I have no antivirus or firewall other than whatever is loaded with win 11.

Has anyone else run into this issue? Seems odd that it just stopped working and no other email server will work either.

Thanks.

[safihre]

Maybe your outgoing (Windows?) firewall?

[jroyale]

Could be. Odd it would just stop working after it's work for years. Any suggestions as to what settings I can change?

[sander]

> I thought maybe it was due to their recent security changes that were made.

Indeed. The Big Mail Providers take all kinds of measures against (possible) spam. So mailing via them with your own client (like SABnzbd) is more and more difficult.

You could try to debug it, but easier: send mail via your ISP's smart mail host (SMTP server). Your ISP knows you (your login) and your IP address, so is less strict. Start with your own ISP provided mail address both as Email Recipient and Email Sender.

I just tried with my ISPs smart host, and SAB's mail notification even works without authentication. Handy!

Ignore this (very technical):

From the header in the mail

Received: from [127.0.1.1] (unknown [100.64.193.167]) by mail.blabla.net (Postfix) with ESMTP for

... nice: my own unique CGNAT IP address. So my ISP knows already who I am based on IP, so no need for difficult autentication.

[jcfp]

Odd it would just stop working after it's work for years.

What you are seeing is the result of several very large corporations (most notably google and microsoft) denying the use of well-established email standards, to force people deeper into their own software and cloud ecosystems. They're selling this as "moving forward" from "outdated standards" to what their marketing dept. calls "modern authentication", all under the guise of improving security. The day they started enforcing this, is the day your perfectly fine setup stopped working. It wasn't you or sabnzbd's program code doing something wrong.

As Sander mentioned, the easiest way out of that mess is to route notification mails through some service (like your own ISP's) that allows relaying outgoing mail based on your IP address (often with no authentication needed at all) or continues to accept username/password auth (pretty much everyone except "big tech"). Depending on where you send these notifications, you may have to adjust the sender address to prevent email getting rejected over that.

[sander]

@jroyale ... solved?

[jroyale]

Yes, and apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I thought I had notifications set to send me emails on new replies. I tried sander's suggestion and it worked. I'm a little embarrassed I hadn't thought of it but I've never used my ISP's email nor did I even think about having one it's been so long. Thanks so much gang...it was driving me a little nuts.

[wayne1]

THis happened to me with Gmail about a week ago. Tried the suggested ISP mail server but the emails that are being sent out get spammed by Gmail for an invalid email header. Has any of the SABNZBD developers got any thought about updating its email protocols.

[sander]

> but the emails that are being sent out get spammed by Gmail for an invalid email header.

Mark them as "Not Spam", and Gmail will learn from that.
Or talk to your ISP to solve that.

> Has any of the SABNZBD developers got any thought about updating its email protocols.

Sounds like a cunning plan. Which email protocols exactly, and where and how?

[peetleouf]

Sorry to hijack this post but i have a problem with mail notification. since one month, i got mail but subjects are empty, before that, i had a succes message with the name of the file downloaded.

Any ideas ?

[safihre]

What verison of Sab are you using and what email provider?
Which language do you use Sab in?

[peetleouf]

Hello,
I've just tried it in English and it works!
I use Sab 4.5.1 on Ubuntu 22.04 and in French. I use mailjet to send mail.
If it works in English, it's OK for me, thanks.

[safihre]

Probably a mistake was made in the French template.
Will investigate.

[sander]

FWIW: I switched SABnzbd to French, did a download, and I receive a nice mail, with subject "SABnzbd Succès du téléchargement test_download_1000MB".

So French is working for me.