Notifications emails are not sent due to invalid From

[strk]

Noticing I was not receiving email notifications I checked the logs and found:

gomail: could not send email 1: gomail: invalid address "\"bjornharrtell\" <>": mail: invalid string

As the user bjornharrtell has a valid email registered (checked via web UI and on the database), I went looking at code and found this in modules/log/smtp.go:

    mailmsg := []byte("To: " + strings.Join(s.RecipientAddresses, ";") + "\r\nFrom: " + s.Username + "<" + s.Username +
        ">\r\nSubject: " + s.Subject + "\r\n" + content_type + "\r\n\r\n" + fmt.Sprintf(".%s", time.Now().Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05")) + msg)

    return smtp.SendMail(                                                       
        s.Host,                                                                 
        auth,                                                                   
        s.Username,                                                             
        s.RecipientAddresses,                                                   
        mailmsg,                                                                
    )             

Note how s.Username is used for the From field both in the mail header and in the smtp.SendMail 3rd parameter.

I suspect smtp.SendMail just refuses such From address (lacking an @ character) and fails to send anything.

I believe things did work as of 0.9.68, while are failing as of 0.9.99

[strk]

I guess the From value should be set to the FROM parameter under mailer config section ?

[strk]

Ok I changed analisys, now I think the problem is with composeIssueMessage in models/mail.go:

func composeIssueMessage(issue *Issue, doer *User, tplName base.TplName, tos []string, info string) *mailer.Message {
    subject := issue.MailSubject()                                              
    body := string(markdown.RenderSpecialLink([]byte(issue.Content), issue.Repo.HTMLURL(), issue.Repo.ComposeMetas()))
    data := composeTplData(subject, body, issue.HTMLURL())                      
    data["Doer"] = doer                                                         
    content, err := mailRender.HTMLString(string(tplName), data)                
    if err != nil {                                                             
        log.Error(3, "HTMLString (%s): %v", tplName, err)                       
    }                                                                           
    msg := mailer.NewMessageFrom(tos, fmt.Sprintf(`"%s" <%s>`, doer.DisplayName(), setting.MailService.User), subject, content)
    msg.Info = fmt.Sprintf("Subject: %s, %s", subject, info)                    
    return msg                                                                  
}       

The NewMessageFrom method second parameter sets the From line, and the code is using setting.MailService.User rather than setting.MailService.From. The former should be used for SMTP authentication, when needed, while the latter is the actual From. In my deploy there's no User as no authentication is needed.

[strk]

Confirmed, setting a USER variable in the configuration is an effective workaround.
I will file a pull request with a fix to the bug.

[DblK]

From my point of view, the SmtpWriter, need to have also the Username instead of using the field Username as UserEmail.

After adding this information, the from String needs to be changed according to the new field in the structure.

That way, according to the source, it will be From: Example <example@gmail.com> which is better than From: example@gmail.com <example@gmail.com>.

[strk]

You meant need to have also the UserEmail I guess ? If I read the code correctly SmtpWriter has a From configured only once, so it should be settings.MailService.From, producing From: User Name <system@from.dns>. Or are you saing that the s.Username value is really an email ?

Anyway, this ticket was for issue notifications, which are fixed by PR #3616, if you can see a bug due to SmtpWriter please file a separate ticket, with instructions to reproduce. Thanks

[DblK]

According to the comments, Username is an UserEmail and if it's not the email could not be sent.
I will fill another issue form that specific.

[unknwon]

Merge this thread to #3856.