Email Notification - If You Can't Get It Right, Why Put It There?

Yes, I have seen the other threads about email notification.

• Don't enter a username or password
  
  
• Make sure you use Port 25
  
  
• Don't use Gmail or Yahoo - only a paid ISP email address

What is the point of this so-called "feature" if it cannot be used? At least by many ATI users.


My ISP requires authentication, so my username and password are required. And why have the fields there if it only works without those fields completed?

And I must use Port 587 - Port 25 is no longer supported by my ISP, as is the case with many ISPs, due to spamming. Yet if you use any port other than 25 ATI throws an error dialog saying that it is "configured incorrectly".

Noo..., this feature is DESIGNED incorrectly!

Get it right, or get it out, IMO.

 

I think a better job could have been done with some aspects of this feature.

However, the user interface clearly states SMTP. Users who are not using SMTP servers (e.g. proprietary Web based mail protocols) will naturally have problems. The port number can be modified in the user interface, but this still needs to be an SMTP port. Port 587 should work if the server is configured and enabled as an SMTP port.

F.

 

SMTP is exactly what I am using, and it is not working. What makes you think that I am not using SMTP?

Is it working for you? Every post I have found here finds the user either not able to use the feature because their ISP requires authentication, or they can use it because no authentication is required. When SMTP is used it can have authentication or not. Many ISPs are starting to require that a different port than 25 be used because almost all spam engines seek that port. Many users will find their ISP requiring authentication.

My problem is with the fact that Acronis does not mention the weird parameters that they have built in to this email notification setting. Nowhere does it mention that you cannot use the most popular web-based email addresses for notification, nor that you should leave out the username and password -- that is the single most advised "fix" I found in the forum posts here.

Actually the inability to use email notification will not affect me that much. It would have been "nice to have", but it certainly isn't a requirement. However whenever I come across features that are extraordinarily good, or the opposite -- ones that are about as poorly designed as imaginable, I try to take the time and comment on it in their forum. ........... This one definitely falls into the latter category!

 

BTW, Foggy, after re-reading your post I am guessing you mean that the web-based email programs are not SMTP. The only one that I use is Gmail, though it is not my primary email client. However I do access it via Google's SMTP and POP servers, so I am not sure that it does not fall into the "SMTP" requirement you mentioned above.

But my primary email address is the one with my ISP, and that requires authentication and uses port 587. Yet it causes Acronis to throw an error message each time I try to set it up.

Plus I just think that it is an extremely poor implementation of an email notification feature. Much lesser heralded, small utility apps I have use it much more effectively.

 

As I said - I think they could have done a much better job with this one.

When I mentioned use of Web server protocols I did not mean to suggest this was what you were doing, I was describing one of the common pitfalls caused by the way this feature has been released and documented.

SMTP does not use authentication, however this is a slightly technical distinction as ESMTP does - and it is this protocol which uses port 587.

Therefore unless Acronis have done anything unusual , I would apply the following rules:

- Connecting to SMTP server (usually port 25) : no authentication details not needed.
- Connecting to ESMTP server (usually port 587) : authentication details are needed.
- Email addresses should be enclosed within "<" ">" as per the RFC
2821 standard, even though there is no reason why TI could not quietly add these or even throw a validation warning if they were not added.
- Connecting to servers which do not provide SMTP or ESMTP is not supported.

Note that I have not verfified that Acronis' implementation for ESMTP (port 587) works OK. The above still stands though I believe.
F.

 

Hi,

Stupid question, but why dont u install an STMP server/service just near ur computer?
That way it will work just fine...

ciao,

Jaycee

 

I use this feature on all of my clients. They connect to an SMTP server I have running just for this purpose. Standard port number, username and password are required. Never had any issues.