480241 - Each mail account can not have a separate SMTP (outgoing) e-mail server

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, defect)

Description

[Christine]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.19) Gecko/20081204 SeaMonkey/1.1.14
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.19) Gecko/20081204 SeaMonkey/1.1.14

My customer's ISP has turned on security (i.e., "Use Secure Authentication" on the "Server Settings" tab) for both inbound (POP) and outbound (SMTP) e-mail on their exchange server (YUCH!) This REQUIRES that each e-mail account has it's own USERNAME, even though all e-mail accounts go through the same mail server. For example, If I have e-mail addresses "[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]", I *must* log in as "bob" to send mail as Bob and "info" to send mail as Info, even though they are on the same server! After looking through the  available online documentation, I found that there is supposed to be an "Add" button on the "Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings" window to allow the addition of additional outbound (SMTP) server. This button is missing; however, that is not the bug I am reporting. (I *do* seem to recall the outbound server settings changed VERY noticeably several versions back, but I just can't remember HOW far back!) So, I looked around, and I found the controls in the "about:config" page, and limited the list of names to those containing "smtp". I then found some documentation that explained how the entries I was interested in work.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. I changed the about:config as follows:
CHANGED:
mail.identity.id2.smtpServer        smtp2
mail.smtpservers                    smtp1,smtp2,smtp3

ADDED:
mail.smtpserver.smtp2.hostname      mail.domain2.com
mail.smtpserver.smtp2.username      bob
mail.smtpserver.smtp3.hostname      mail.domain3.com
mail.smtpserver.smtp3.username      info

2. I went into "Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings" and looked at what changed.

Actual Results:  
What happened was that the "Outgoing server" for the second mail account went blank, but no other accounts were affected. Also, the list of available servers did not change.


Expected Results:  
From what I could tell from the instructions I found online, this should have caused the second e-mail account's SMTP server to become "mail.domain2.com" with the accompanying username "bob", and caused the list of available servers for "Outgoing Servers" on all the mail accounts to show all 3 servers (plus "default") as options. (I presumed that the username associated with each server would be used.)


So, either I did not find the correct info on line, or there is a problem with making multiple SMTP servers available. If this is a misunderstanding on my part, please accept my apologies. If this is a bug, then it is obliquely related to Bug #170520 and #422814, but since I have minimized user-interface issues by directly modifying the configuration, this is much more specific than either one of them, and deals ONLY with the issue of SMTP servers. I feel that this is a relatively high-priority "Normal" bug, since people can not send e-mail from any account other than their first e-mail account, when secure authentication is used.

Comment 1

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Read following MozillaZine Knowledge Base articles first, please.
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_concepts
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_concepts#SMTP_servers
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Multiple_SMTP_servers_-_Thunderbird
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Multiple_identities_per_e-mail_account

SMTP server choice via "Manage Identies" currently won't work for main identity. It's already known bug. So SMTP server choice for main identity should be executed at main panel of "Server Settings".

> If I have e-mail addresses "[e-mail]" and "[e-mail]",
> I *must* log in as "bob" to send mail as Bob and "info" to send mail as Info,
>(snip)

Really?
Many SMTP servers don't reject "From: address" other than mail-addr assigned to login user(including other ISP's mail-addr), if user correctly sets up SMTP AUTH settings. In this case, "Use Default Server" in each identity's setting is sufficient.

Note: There are some exceptions:
  - Yahoo's SMTP server probably rejects other mail-addr.
  - Gmail's SMTP server replaces From: of mail by mail-addr for the login user,
    unless user registers the specified From: mail-addr to Gmail.
  Reject-or-accept depends on mail service company's spam policy.

Comment 2

[Philip Chee]

Hello Christine,

First go to Edit->Mail & Newsgroup Account settings. At the bottom of the list of accounts in the left pane (you may have to scroll down until the end) there is an item "Outgoing Server (SMTP)". Select that item.

You can add more entries there. Create additional entries for your SMTP server with different usernames but with the same server. Remember to use different descriptions so that you can distinguish them later. For example "bob@domain server" and "info@domain outgoing".

Go back to your bob@domain account settings. In the main pane at the bottom of the "Default Identity" section is a dropdown list for "Outgoing Server (SMTP)". Pick the server name you created earlier for "bob". Go to your info@domain account settings and do the same with the "info" server you defined earlier.

And Bob's your uncle.

Comment 3

[Philip Chee]

No reply from the reporter. Closing as WORKSFORME