Trouble with Email Verification After Discourse Installation

Hello,

I’ve installed Discourse on my VPS using Docker, and everything seems to be working fine except for one crucial feature - email verification. Here’s the issue I’m encountering:

After successfully setting up Discourse on my domain (forum.askseotools.com), I proceeded to create an admin account. However, when I entered my email address for verification, I never received the verification email.

I’m running Discourse on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 64 Bit with aapanel.
please check app.yml file.

## this is the all-in-one, standalone Discourse Docker container template
##
## After making changes to this file, you MUST rebuild
## /var/discourse/launcher rebuild app
##
## BE *VERY* CAREFUL WHEN EDITING!
## YAML FILES ARE SUPER SUPER SENSITIVE TO MISTAKES IN WHITESPACE OR ALIGNMENT!
## visit http://www.yamllint.com/ to validate this file as needed

templates:
  - "templates/postgres.template.yml"
  - "templates/redis.template.yml"
  - "templates/web.template.yml"
  ## Uncomment the next line to enable the IPv6 listener
  #- "templates/web.ipv6.template.yml"
  - "templates/web.ratelimited.template.yml"
  ## Uncomment these two lines if you wish to add Lets Encrypt (https)
  #- "templates/web.ssl.template.yml"
  #- "templates/web.letsencrypt.ssl.template.yml"

## which TCP/IP ports should this container expose?
## If you want Discourse to share a port with another webserver like Apache or nginx,
## see https://meta.discourse.org/t/17247 for details
expose:
  - "3001:80"   # http
  #- "443:443" # https

params:
  db_default_text_search_config: "pg_catalog.english"

  ## Set db_shared_buffers to a max of 25% of the total memory.
  ## will be set automatically by bootstrap based on detected RAM, or you can override
  #db_shared_buffers: "256MB"

  ## can improve sorting performance, but adds memory usage per-connection
  #db_work_mem: "40MB"

  ## Which Git revision should this container use? (default: tests-passed)
  #version: tests-passed

env:
  LC_ALL: en_US.UTF-8
  LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  LANGUAGE: en_US.UTF-8
  # DISCOURSE_DEFAULT_LOCALE: en

  ## How many concurrent web requests are supported? Depends on memory and CPU cores.
  ## will be set automatically by bootstrap based on detected CPUs, or you can override
  #UNICORN_WORKERS: 3

  ## TODO: The domain name this Discourse instance will respond to
  ## Required. Discourse will not work with a bare IP number.
  DISCOURSE_HOSTNAME: 'forum.askseotools.com'

  ## Uncomment if you want the container to be started with the same
  ## hostname (-h option) as specified above (default "$hostname-$config")
  #DOCKER_USE_HOSTNAME: true

  ## TODO: List of comma delimited emails that will be made admin and developer
  ## on initial signup example 'user1@example.com,user2@example.com'
  DISCOURSE_DEVELOPER_EMAILS: 'ianasystems@gmail.com,ianasystems@gmail.com'

  ## TODO: The SMTP mail server used to validate new accounts and send notifications
  # SMTP ADDRESS, username, and password are required
  # WARNING the char '#' in SMTP password can cause problems!
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_ADDRESS: mail.askseotools.com
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_PORT: 587
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_USER_NAME: forum@askseotools.com
  DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD: 
  #DISCOURSE_SMTP_ENABLE_START_TLS: true           # (optional, default true)
  #DISCOURSE_SMTP_DOMAIN: discourse.example.com    # (required by some providers)
  #DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL: noreply@discourse.example.com    # (address to send notifications from)

  ## If you added the Lets Encrypt template, uncomment below to get a free SSL certificate
  #LETSENCRYPT_ACCOUNT_EMAIL: me@example.com

  ## The http or https CDN address for this Discourse instance (configured to pull)
  ## see https://meta.discourse.org/t/14857 for details
  #DISCOURSE_CDN_URL: https://discourse-cdn.example.com
  
  ## The maxmind geolocation IP address key for IP address lookup
  ## see https://meta.discourse.org/t/-/137387/23 for details
  #DISCOURSE_MAXMIND_LICENSE_KEY: 1234567890123456

## The Docker container is stateless; all data is stored in /shared
volumes:
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone
      guest: /shared
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone/log/var-log
      guest: /var/log

## Plugins go here
## see https://meta.discourse.org/t/19157 for details
hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - git clone https://github.com/discourse/docker_manager.git

## Any custom commands to run after building
run:
  - exec: echo "Beginning of custom commands"
  ## If you want to set the 'From' email address for your first registration, uncomment and change:
  ## After getting the first signup email, re-comment the line. It only needs to run once.
  - exec: rails r "SiteSetting.notification_email='forum@askseotools.com'"
  - exec: echo "End of custom commands"

please update.

Thanks.

This section looks grossly misconfigured to me.

There is no SMTP password, notification email or SMTP domain. You will need all three of those for emails to work and might also need to check your smtp server to confirm if it is being blacklisted by other email providers.

Self hosted smtp is the easiest way to get your emails rejected if not configured and maintained correctly.

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See Troubleshoot email on a new Discourse install

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Thank you for your prompt response. I appreciate your insights.

I’ve made adjustments to the SMTP password in my app.yml file before sharing it here for support.

I’ll address the commented-out lines for #DISCOURSE_SMTP_DOMAIN and #DISCOURSE_NOTIFICATION_EMAIL to ensure their configuration.

Regarding the SMTP setup, I’ve conducted tests with my self-hosted SMTP, and it’s functioning correctly. I’ve successfully sent and received emails from Gmail via the mail app in aapanel.

Let me know if there are any other aspects I should address or if you require further information.

Thank you again for your assistance.

Please check.

./discourse-doctor

Just like the error message you showed suggests.

Looks like the cert for your smtp server is broken.

https://ssl-tools.net/mailservers/mail.askseotools.com

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Yes,
you’re right.

How to fix? please let me know.

Thanks.

Ask the people who run the mail server to fix it.

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Thank you very much, Pfaffman, for bringing attention to the SSL certificate problem. I’ve resolved the SSL certificate issue, and now email verification is functioning properly. I’m receiving the email verifications without any problems.

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