Heads up folks. We got through setting up everything and it has worked. But since two days, the sign up email has not been functioning. Turned out it was disabled by Digital Ocean. Per email they sent us, Smtp for Discourse is being disabled. To use any email they recommend you sign up with SendGrid. My question is, between Sendgrid and Mailgun, which one is more integrated with Discourse? If not those, which other offers easy integration? I have gone through this Thread [image] Proposed changes to discourse-setup because Digital Ocean blocks outbound smtp Development Continuing the discussion from Digital Ocean is blocking outgoing mail!: It seems that Digital Ocean is blocking out bound SMTP traffic for at least some customers. My guess is that soon you’ll have to jump through hoops to be able to access a remote SMTP port. Simple solution: Mailgun, Sendgrid, and Sparkpost all accept TLS traffic on port 2525. I propose these changes to discourse-setup changing default SMTP port for those services to 2525. adding a test (e.g., nc -z -w5 smtp.mailgun.org 2… Thanks

Perfect !! Will check them out. Crappy for DO to allow folks to setup stuff only to inform them later that all smtp ports are blocked. Does not make sense. So I schedule a demo, only to find out what worked the day before is now blocked !!

I haven’t tried that, but from their lengthy email, looks like they disabled everything OutBound smtp on Discourse. They said they worked out some arrangement with SendGrid that they recommend Discourse users sign up with for anything smtp. Sucks, if you ask me.

Did they say they are disabling all smtp for everyone or is that just for your account? Brevo is still working for smtp sending for discourse with digital ocean, haven’t heard about that being cancelled.

My understanding per their email is that ALL accounts. (See last Line of first Paragraph) I guess existing instances may have been grand fathered for the time being. My account is barely a month old and has been working till I had about 30 or so users register to test the load. Below is their entire email ----- may be I read it wrong. We understand you have concerns regarding SMTP restrictions in place on your account. DigitalOcean is not a dedicated email host and stopping spam is a constant fight. Due to this, restrictions have been imposed on all accounts. We would also like to provide some additional background on this issue. Since IP addresses in cloud environments get used and released back to available pools very frequently, they are considered dynamic and untrustworthy. For example, you’re currently assigned an IP address and you’re a responsible mail user. You follow all best practices for mail and never send spam or unsolicited mail. Later, when you no longer need that Droplet, you destroy it and the IP address is free to be assigned to another DigitalOcean user. That user takes the opportunity to send out a large volume of spam before our Security team takes action on the offending account. Mail providers like Gmail, Microsoft, and others cannot determine if email coming from an IP is legitimate or not until it gains a poor reputation. By that time, the damage had already been done. It’s safer to just block all mail coming from platforms, like Internet Service Providers and Cloud hosting environments, where IP addresses are dynamically assigned and inherently risky. While this does reduce avenues that spammers have available to them, it also impacts legitimate users. Our Abuse Operations team is working with SBLs to get the IPs delisted. Due to this, we are restricting SMTP traffic across the DigitalOcean platform. This means that we are unable to remove the SMTP restriction that is placed on your account. We understand that your workflow may have email needs. As a solution to this restriction, we have partnered with SendGrid to offer all our customers a better solution where you would not need to worry about IP reputation and blacklisting. You can read more about this in our article here. Through SendGrid, you will be able to send 100 free emails per day and if your requirement is beyond the free tier, feel free to reach out to SendGrid support to opt for a better plan to meet your requirement. We’re always happy to help if you have additional questions, so please don’t hesitate to reach out. This is an automated response to help speed up service by getting all the information we need to help you. You must reply to this email for further assistance. DigitalOcean Support Team

Just tried 2525. That too is blocked. Think it is a “blanket” block. Wouldn’t make sense to single out my account that not even a month old with no active users or topics.

2525 seems to be blocked too… just tried it. Not working.

Exactly. Even the grand fathered accounts may eventually get caught in the crossfire. Anyone with accounts that’s working now, should start planning ahead. If an instance like mine with ZERO activity can get hit …

[image] oga: As a solution to this restriction, we have partnered with SendGrid to offer all our customers a better solution where you would not need to worry about IP reputation and blacklisting. You can read more about this in our article here. Do you have the link to this article they mention? It does say restrictions have been imposed on all accounts, but isn’t completely clear what those are. [image] oga: Since IP addresses in cloud environments get used and released back to available pools very frequently, they are considered dynamic and untrustworthy. If the I.P. you have was previously flagged as a spam sender that could cause problems.

Looks like DO is disabling Smtp in their Discourse hosting plans

Product Support Self-hosting

merefield (Robert) August 13, 2024, 9:23pm 2

I’m with Elastic Email … good guys!

(also on 2525)

Topic		Replies	Views
Proposed changes to discourse-setup because Digital Ocean blocks outbound smtp Development	28	3353	June 9, 2025
DigitalOcean blocking SMTP and forcing SendGrid usage Product Support email	11	4147	April 17, 2025
Any alternative way to connect to email service then SMTP (on Digital Ocean) Product Support email	6	553	April 18, 2025
If local logins are disabled Product Support	29	1230	July 17, 2026
Digital Ocean, SendGrid, Netlfity - Register Admin account email not coming through Self-hosting	30	3623	December 29, 2020

Looks like DO is disabling Smtp in their Discourse hosting plans

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