Not able to integrate with sendgrid

Installation
1

Hi,

I’m trying to use Sendgrid email service and keep getting this error in the logs

Job exception: 535 Authentication failed: Bad username / password

I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, here’s how my configuration looks like

 DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: smtp.sendgrid.net
 DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
 DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: apiKey
 DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: 'SG.xxxx.xxxxxx.xxxx'

I’ve also tried to use port 2525 on the suggestion of Fresh install. Works. Sendgrid not sending emails , but that didn’t work either.

I’m able to establish a connection using telnet.

Can someone please help? Any idea what I could be doing wrong?

2

From the same server that your Discourse is on?

Apologies if this is a silly question but is your SendGrid username actually: apiKey

:thinking:

I only ask, as it’s an unusual choice of account name…

3

Yes

No, I don’t think there’s a concept of username in sendgrid, I just followed the documentation here discourse/docs/INSTALL-email.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub

I might be wrong also, but I don’t see any username info in my sendgrid account.

4

They use different terminology but you’re still connecting to what is essentially a standard SMTP server, which will require authentication.

Go to the Teammates section - https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/teammates

In there you will see the account details that are able to send email:

image
image879×634 46 KB

The value in the “Username” column is what you need to enter in the Discourse setting DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME

So if the “Username” was SK2019 then you’d have something like:

DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: smtp.sendgrid.net
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: SK2019
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: 'xxxx.xxxxxx.xxxx'
3 Likes
5

I tried that but didn’t work. The Sendgrid docs mention to use apiKey as username, but that doesn’t seem to be working.

Maybe I should reach out to the sendgrid team and seek their help.

6

Did you use apiKey when using telnet?

7

Yes, I followed instructions at How to Send an SMTP Email | SendGrid Documentation and they worked! Not sure what am I missing in discourse configuration.

8

Do the four lines in your config file look like mine (above)?

With the correct DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME that matches the one displayed in your Teammates page on SendGrid?

9

Yes, the username is the one displayed in the the Teammates page, the password is the key I generated (telnet works using this key), and other two fields are exactly the same.

May I know what version of discourse are you using, I’m using beta, I suspect that could be the issue.

Anyways, I’m planning to switching to mailgun, I tried it today, and it works seamlessly (though it’s expensive, but have no other options atm)

2 Likes
10

FWIW @Satwik_Kansal our Sendgrid API username is “apikey” – not “apiKey”. working great.

11

Having the same problem. What is the tldr here? Use “apikey” (not working) or add a team mate (it’s empty)?

12

For the record, the docs make this pretty confusing and this is not the first time I have found myself googling this exact issue trying to find the solution.

Docs currently have:

SendGrid — 40k emails on a 30 day trial

SMTP server address? smtp.sendgrid.net
SMTP user name?      apikey
SMTP password?       [SendGrid API Key]

EDIT: What I think is confusing people is that they (like me) think apikey means put your apikey here but infact it should be left alone!

4 Likes
13

Crazy, right?

I would imagine this has thrown 99% of people trying it :confused:

(myself included at the time)

1 Like