Yet Another SMTP Connect Error

Hi. Could you try to send a test email from plugin’s settings page and show the debug output it provides?

When I try to send a test email, the Debug Info area displays:

SMTP ERROR: Failed to connect to server: Connection refused (111)SMTP connect() failed. https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/wiki/Troubleshooting

The debug log file has no content.

Let me ask again: Do the username and password need to belong to the GSuite Admin? We have a corporate GSuite account. I’m using my email and password (which ARE correct) and I am not the Admin. Does that matter?

Also, GoDaddy hosts our WP site, if that matters.

Hi @dkwolpert

The username and password need to belong to an account that can send email.

It doens’t have to be the admin account. You have to also set up that account to allow relaying mail, as per this page: https://support.google.com/a/answer/2956491?hl=en

Were you able to find the debug.txt file in your plugin directory, or do you just see a white page when you click on “View Log”?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by ancawonka.

Hi @dkwolpert.

Can you please show SMTP settings you’re using (obviously, without your username and password). E.g. SMTP Host, Port and Type Of Encryption.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Alexander C.. Reason: fixed typo

For context, the reason I’m trying to set up Easy is because we have online forms on our WP site built with Gravity Forms, and every email notification sent by Gravity Forms is flagged as spam by Gsuite, which we use internally for email. Specifically, Google thinks our WP host’s (GoDaddy) email servers are spam senders. GoDaddy’s only suggestion is to use an SMTP plugin. So if Easy will NOT resolve this, let me know now.

The settings I’ve tried :
SMTP Host: smtp.google.com
Encryption: SSL
Port: 465
Auth: Yes

Also tried TLS with port 587.

I’m a little confused by Google’s documentation for Step 2. Our “on-premise mail server” is really Gsuite in my case, correct? In Easy, we’d need to change the host from smtp.google.com to smtp-relay.gmail.com on port 587 using TLS, correct?

Thank you!
Dave

For context, the reason I’m trying to set up Easy is because we have online forms on our WP site built with Gravity Forms, and every email notification sent by Gravity Forms is flagged as spam by Gsuite, which we use internally for email. Specifically, Google thinks our WP host’s (GoDaddy) email servers are spam senders. GoDaddy’s only suggestion is to use an SMTP plugin. So if Easy will NOT resolve this, let me know now.

It will resolve it. This is one of the main reasons it was built for ??

Let’s try it with a simple test. Your personal Gmail account required to make it happen, I assume you do have one? Also, make sure you have the latest plugin version (which is 1.2.9 at the moment).

Now use following settings:

From Email Address: your personal gmail address
From Name: your name
Reply-To Email Address: leave it blank
SMTP Host: smtp.gmail.com
Type of Encryption: TLS
SMTP Port: 587
SMTP Authentication: Yes
SMTP username: your Gmail email (not just the part before “@”, you need to put full address in including @gmail.com)
SMTP password: your Gmail account password

Then click “Save Changes”.

Then scroll down to “Test email” section and enter your gmail address, Subject ‘test’, message ‘test’ and click “Send Test Email”.

Then have a look what is displayed in “Debug Info” box. Since version 1.2.8, it would display more detailed log than the usual one-liner, so there should be some useful information available. Then you need to copy debug info and paste it here so we could try to determine what is causing your issues.

I think I already see the reason of your issues. Your SMTP server

SMTP Host: smtp.google.com

is invalid. It should be smtp.gmail.com , not google.com

I mistyped the host–I was using smtp.gmail.com

This is the third time I’ve added this, but the ONLY thing that appears in the Debug Info box is:

SMTP ERROR: Failed to connect to server: Connection refused (111)SMTP connect() failed. https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/wiki/Troubleshooting

I’m using 1.2.9

But to clarify: our admin has not yet configured Gsuite per these instructions (https://support.google.com/a/answer/2956491?hl=en). Is that not necessary for this to work?

The above test should be carried out using your personal Gmail account, not Gsuite. We need to understand first which part is causing the issue – Gsuite or your server.

If you have did it with your personal email and got the results you posted above, then it sounds like a problem in connection between your server and gmail server.

Using my personal Gmail account results in the same error.

Then best solution would be to contact GoDaddy support and let them know your server can’t connect to Gmail’s SMTP.

Must I follow these steps for this to work?
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2956491?hl=en

Dave, this issue seems to be neither with plugin settings, nor with Gmail\Gsuite configuration. From my point of view, Google is blocking your server from connecting to its SMTP. Wild guess would be that your server’s IP (or whole subnetwork) was blocked by Google for spamming in the past (which isn’t your fault).

You should bring this up to GoDaddy support. Once this issue is resolved, everything should be working fine.

Man, this is frustrating. I called GoDaddy before installing Easy. GoDaddy said there’s nothing they can (or would) do. They of course claimed ignorance of why Google has blocked them, and said there’s nothing they can do because they don’t control Google. Their only suggestions was to install an SMTP plug-in. A Google search shows dozens of people in my same predicament. I suspect my only option is to switch to a different WP host.

Strange thing such big player as GoDaddy can’t negotiate with another big one as Google (much bigger, but still). But nothing we can do about it, unfortunately.

You can do a test on some other server (if it’s not blocked by Google as well ?? ) and see everything would be working fine there (it should).