Troubleshooting incoming and outgoing email issues

BMC Helix Platform allows you to update the configured incoming and outgoing mailboxes, and templates to send email notifications, to trigger a rule when an email is received, and so on. For information about how to configure the incoming and outgoing mailboxes, see Configuring email profiles and templates.

This section describes issues that you might encounter while updating the incoming or outgoing mailbox and describes methods to troubleshoot the incoming and outgoing email issues. The errors are captured in the arserver.log file. Following table lists the error message, its description, and the workaround to troubleshoot the errors:

 To debug email delivery failure in outgoing mailbox

The following image shows the end-to-end process to debug email delivery failure in outgoing mailboxes:

The following table gives the tasks that enable you to troubleshoot outgoing mailbox issues:

To debug incoming email issues 

The following image shows the process to debug incoming email issues:

The following table provides the tasks that enable you to troubleshoot incoming mailbox issues:

To update the whitelist HTML tags to support base64 encoded images

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.

2. Select Configure My Server > Email > Email Whitelist.

   The Allowed HTML Tags, Attributes and Protocols field displays the whitelisted HTML tags along with the attributes and protocols that are allowed within the message body.

3. In the Override/Additional HTML Tags, Attributes and Protocols field, to embed the base64 encoded image in the email message, enter the following new HTML tag: 

   img(attrib=align,alt,height,src,title,width$proto=src,http,https,cid,data)

   Note

   With this HTML tag BMC Helix Platform allows the base64 encoded image in the email message. Although the base64 encoded images might not be supported by all email clients.

4. Click Save. 

To monitor message status in the outgoing mailbox 

Monitoring of message status helps you to view status wise message count for each outgoing based on success, failure, and pending status of outgoing messages. To view the status-wise (success, failure, and pending) message count of each outgoing mailbox for a specific duration such as past 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 1 day, or 1 week, perform the following steps: 

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Configure My Server > Email > Outgoing Mailbox Status.
3. From the Time Frame list, select the time period during which the messages were sent, as shown in the following image:
   
   

Now, you can view status-wise message count for each outgoing mailbox. If there are undelivered message in a mailbox, then you need to check its configuration and test the connection of the mailbox. 

To enable logging for email service 

The administrator can enable generation of email engine logs. Thereafter, the logs can be used to debug connection failures of the mailbox. To enable logging for email service, perform the following tasks:

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Configure My Server > Centralized Configuration Settings > Centralized Tenant Configuration.
   
3. On the Centralized Tenant Configuration page, from the Component Type list, select Email.
4. Click Add Setting.

5. Enter the following values and click Save.

   Field	Action
   Setting Name	Enter Email-Debug-Mode.
   Setting Value	Enter 1. Note: 1 is for enabling the logs and 0 is for disabling logs.

   The following image shows the Add Setting pane:

   
   

Now, the logs will get generated in a tenant-specific location.

To test the connection of outgoing mailboxes

If an outgoing mailbox is unable to deliver messages, then perform the following steps to test the mailbox configuration.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Configure My Server > Email > Outgoing Mailbox. 
   A list of existing outgoing mailboxes is displayed.
   
3. Select the check box corresponding to the mailbox that you want to test, and then click Edit.
4. Click Test Connection.
   If the outgoing mailbox is correctly configured, then the following message is displayed:
   Successfully connected to the configured email server.
   If the host name or port number or credential is incorrect, then an appropriate error message is displayed.
5. Based on the error message, rectify the incorrect configuration data and test the connection again.
   To investigate the root cause for the failed connection, enable logging, retest the connection, and then analyze the error logs.
   

To test the connection of incoming mailboxes

If an incoming mailbox is unable to receive messages, then perform the following steps to test the mailbox configuration.

1. Log in to BMC Helix Innovation Studio and navigate to the Administration tab.
2. Select Configure My Server > Email > Incoming Mailbox. 
   A list of existing incoming mailboxes is displayed.
3. Select the check box corresponding to the mailbox that you want to test, and then click Edit .
4. Click Test Connection.
   • If the incoming mailbox is correctly configured, then the following message is displayed:
     Successfully connected to the configured email server.
   • If the host name or port number or credential is incorrect, then an appropriate error message is displayed.
5. Based on the error message, rectify the incorrect configuration and test the connection again.
   To investigate the root cause for the failed connection, enable logging, retest the connection, and then analyze the error logs.

Related topics

Configuring email profiles and templates

Configuring processes to send notifications to users