# Email allegedly sent without SMTP settings

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [2월 21, 2016, 9:53오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921 "2016-02-21T09:53:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![dandv](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dandv/32/169779_2.png) [@dandv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dandv)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 9:53오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/1 "2016-02-21T09:53:59Z")

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I’ve just spawned a new instance of Discourse and didn’t have valid settings for `DISCOURSE_SMTP_*`.

However, signing up the admin user allegedly worked:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/9/5932a924591be142e7cba454090886b1cc0b4f96.png)

(of course, no email had been sent)

Same problem with re-sending the activation email:

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/7/a/7a2deb856e731aaefc1743cb15a1b07ed14feb6d.png)

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### Author: ![omfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/5e9695/32.png) [@omfg](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omfg)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 11:01오전 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/2 "2016-02-21T11:01:53Z")

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Could it be because only `DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS` is checked to exist?

> <https://github.com/discourse/discourse_docker/blob/master/templates/web.template.yml#L24>

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 6:42오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/3 "2016-02-21T18:42:38Z")

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What exact settings did you have? I don’t feel this is a bug, more of GIGO.

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 9:23오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/4 "2016-02-21T21:23:00Z")

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Mail is sent in a background job, there is no simple way of alerting an end user about this kind of issue

We could probably raise the volume for admins

It is flag worthy when mail suddenly stops working

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 9:24오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/5 "2016-02-21T21:24:06Z")

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That would already be covered by logster escalating alerts for periods with lots and lots of recurring errors, the work that @tgxworld is doing.

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### Author: ![dandv](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dandv/32/169779_2.png) [@dandv](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dandv)
#### Post date: [2월 21, 2016, 9:58오후 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/email-allegedly-sent-without-smtp-settings/39921/6 "2016-02-21T21:58:13Z")

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> [@omfg](#):
>
> Could it be because only DISCOURSE\_SMTP\_ADDRESS is checked to exist?

Exactly. I had all the other SMTP settings commented out, so in theory this is WAI, but in practice most SMTP servers will require user/pass too.