Unable to send an email using python

Question

Currently we have a server (Windows 2003 sp2) that runs python scripts overnight, and then emails us whether the scripts ran correctly, I am transferring these scripts to a new server (also Windows 2003 SP2), however when the script tries to use the smtplib module, i get the following error in the pythonwin IDE.

  File "D:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0\lib\smtplib.py", line 239, in __init__
    (code, msg) = self.connect(host, port)
  File "D:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0\lib\smtplib.py", line 296, in connect
    (code, msg) = self.getreply()
  File "D:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0\lib\smtplib.py", line 340, in getreply
    raise SMTPServerDisconnected("Connection unexpectedly closed")
SMTPServerDisconnected: Connection unexpectedly closed

Is there anything I need to do on the server to get the script to send emails?

Thanks

Your SMTP server closed the SMTP connection; perhaps there is a firewall in the way? In any case, this is not a Python problem. — Martijn Pieters, Sep 25 '12 at 09:30

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '12 at 10:22

If the python code worked on the previous server it's unlikely to be a problem with the python code itself. I would suggest troubleshooting basic email sending functionality with a telnet session to verify everything is working properly. Examples of testing SMTP functionality with telnet are available at these URLs:

The issue may be firewall related on the server the python code is running on or the email server itself. The issue may also be the configuration of the mail server itself is configured to only accept outgoing email from certain systems.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 25 '12 at 10:45

This is a connection problem and not a code problem, so your comment stating "The firewall has been turned off" does not help. Is the server up and running? Is the port it is listening on reachable from the outside? Is the client allowed to connect to the server's IP address? Is it allowed to connect to the specified port? Are there other network devices between client and server that could interfer? You really have to take every part of the network between client and server into consideration.

Unable to send an email using python

2 Answers2