What can go wrong with SMTP?

Modified on Mon, 05 Feb 2024 at 09:51 AM

Configuring SMTP means that all emails (including quotes, invoices and system generated notifications) will be sent via your personal or business email address. It also means that all your email bypasses the native email system integral to Pet Sitter Plus (unless you have Only Use for Direct Emails selected.)

However, SMTP can and does fail for a variety of reasons, so it is worth checking the following:

Is your personal email account working?

If your personal email (the one you connect via SMTP) fails, for whatever reason, your quotes and invoices and system-generated emails will stop being sent. So check the account is working as expected in your email client (web email, Outlook etc.)

Does your email provider impose an email limit?

If your email service provider imposes a limit on the number of emails you can send in any given day, hour or even any given second and you hit any one (or all) of these limits, then emails will stop being sent via SMTP. See Send Limits imposed by Email Service Providers.

Is your email password correct?

If you change your personal email password and forget to update the password stored in the Custom SMTP Configuration in Pet Sitter Plus (see Connect your Email using SMTP (Part 2) then your quotes and invoices and system-generated emails will stop being sent (unless you have Only Use for Direct Emails selected.)

Are your SMTP Configuration settings correct?

If your SMTP credentials are incorrectly configured, then your emails sent via SMTP might not be received by some or all of the recipients. See Connect your Email using SMTP (Part 2).

Has your email provider made changes to their SMTP connection requirements?

Technology is continually evolving and email hosts can be very proactive with making sure your emails are secure. Has your email provider changed their requirements for a secure SMTP connection? You may have received a notice from your email provider and not realized what it meant, so you will also want to confirm that all the settings you have meet your email provider's current requirements.

Has your client marked your emails as spam or junk?

If you start using Pet Sitter Plus to send marketing communications and your client marks the emails you send as either spam or junk, then your quotes and invoices and system-generated emails will also be treated as spam or junk. You should ask your client to save your contact email as a "safe sender" or "whitelist" your email address.

Use our recommended setting "Only Use for Direct Emails"

Due to the many ways in which SMTP-related email can fail, SMTP is generally less reliable and more prone to failures when compared with the native email system integral to Pet Sitter Plus. It is for this reason that we offer the option "Only Use For Direct Emails".

If you toggle "Only Use For Direct Emails" to ON, email will be sent via two channels:

Channel 1 - Your marketing emails and general client communications (anything that does not have a quote or an invoice attached) will be sent via SMTP via your business or personal email address.

Whereas:

Channel 2 - All other communications such as quotes, invoices, account summaries and system generated notifications will be sent via the native email system integral to Pet Sitter Plus (mailer@petsoftware.net).

Tip: It is recommended that you read What does Only Use for Direct Emails mean? Using a dual channel email strategy helps to ensure that "the invoice always gets through."