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Smartermail 16.x Future.
Question asked by Robert G. - December 15, 2017 at 1:40 PM
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What are the goals and plans moving forward? Every release seems to have bugs. Not just small bugs but major issues. See release notes from Version 16.3.6558  ---> "greylisting does not work.” 
 
How can this be possible? It takes 30 seconds to test things like this. What is your QA team doing? Do you test anything before release?
 
Look at Smartermail 15 release notes: https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/release-notes/15
 
Smartertools used to be trustworthy for releases... Not anymore. Our company has been with Smartertools since 2003 and we've never encountered so many issues. For the first time in 14 years, we are being forced to look for new email solutions.
Bleak comes to mind. I've been using SM since v4 and I was happy until about 3 years ago when they started bluntly ignoring their customers. A example was removing the "Show Password" It was decreed by Tim that it will be gone by Ver 17. Suggestions by customers were ignored on this issue. I've watched the problems reported on Ver 16 and fixes being rolled out every week and decided to stay on Ver 15. I'll watch and see how it plays out, but I'm thinking it may be time to move on. Matthew Leyda December 15, 2017 at 2:32 PM
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I would not update to Version 16 until 15 is EOL. I ignored the complaints due to smarter tools track record.... Big mistake. Robert G. December 15, 2017 at 2:37 PM
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What do you mean QA team? We are the QA team :) echoDreamz December 15, 2017 at 3:35 PM
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To be fair though, as a company that develops software and payment gateways etc. Sometimes, shit happens. We've hit bugs like "What!?! How the heck did that happen!?". We are hoomans :) We make mistakes.

We were hit hard with the greylisting bug, we were one of the ones that opened a ticket for it. As well as SPF checks be ran on friendly names instead of the email address, SMTP sessions not properly closing after a high SMTP score etc.

It's been a rough roller coaster of a past ~5/6 months. Hopefully getting better!!! echoDreamz December 15, 2017 at 3:48 PM
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Mistakes happen, I understand that. Ignoring customers and Dictating what we want is what I take issue with. First they destroyed the old board and we had to start over with requests/bug report. Then they would mark requests with high votes as "Under Consideration" then ignored them. Then they put all the effort into a mobile interface. Now it looks like they have started to lose enough customers that they have to do the first ever special pricing. I wonder what it will be next year. Matthew Leyda December 15, 2017 at 4:43 PM
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4 Replies

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Just to note, greylisting is still not fully fixed in 6558.

Christopher
Are you noticing odd behavior or is it flat not working? Also I'm curious if you are using the grey list threshold? I just checked our server here and its working for us and we are using a threshold of 1. Matt Petty December 16, 2017 at 11:38 AM
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Christopher, good catch, glad you're on the QA Team. :)
And Matt, working Saturday, nice! You deserve a raise. :) kevind December 16, 2017 at 11:52 AM
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Matt, I updated my ticket.

Basically we have greylisting at 10 and SMTP at 30. The issue that we are seeing is that anything that scores 30+ is being 554 rejected AND 451 greylisted at the same time... echoDreamz December 16, 2017 at 12:03 PM
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Coincidentally, I was just looking at that greylist threshold feature this morning. We don't have it enabled, but it looks like it could be really useful.

If set to 1, then messages scoring 0 or less are accepted with no greylist. If it scores >0 (because it's on a RBL), then it will be greylisted. That's a nice feature! Will have to try it out. kevind December 16, 2017 at 12:09 PM
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Yes we do that. We use some other RBLs to give lower scores and some of the bigger more accurate RBLs like Barracuda, Spamhaus etc. to reject on.

Score of 10 for greylisting and 30 for SMTP. It has worked well. Keeps emails that are not on RBLs like google, ebay etc. from being slowed down, but keeps "suspicious" servers at bay. echoDreamz December 16, 2017 at 12:17 PM
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Right, we do the same thing with RBLs. So this could be really useful as sometimes important emails (like 2FA) get delayed. Thanks so much for confirming that it works. We'll give it a try. kevind December 16, 2017 at 12:33 PM
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Matt, here is a sample... The connection scored a 150, which is well over our 30 limit, it should have just been SMTP rejected with the 554 response (which is what used to happen). It was 554 response and 451 response. Seems like SmarterMail is seeing the score is above both the SMTP and greylisting thresholds, so it does both actions.
 
We are also still seeing "rejected" emails hanging around in spool as receiving.
 
[2017.12.15] 22:58:26 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 220 REMOVED is ready and awaiting your commands! Glad to meet you 182.61.47.31! How can I help you? The time now is Sat, 16 Dec 2017 05:58:26 +0000 (UTC),
[2017.12.15] 22:58:26 [182.61.47.31][30833461] connected at 12/15/2017 10:58:26 PM
[2017.12.15] 22:58:26 [182.61.47.31][30833461] cmd: EHLO minggwx.mobi
[2017.12.15] 22:58:26 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 250-REMOVED Hello [182.61.47.31]250-SIZE 2147483647250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5250-STARTTLS250-8BITMIME250 OK
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] cmd: MAIL FROM:<aoib@minggwx.mobi>
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] senderEmail(1): aoib@minggwx.mobi parsed using: <aoib@minggwx.mobi>
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 250 OK <aoib@minggwx.mobi> Sender ok
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] cmd: RCPT TO:<CUSTOMER@DOMAIN>
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 250 OK <CUSTOMER@DOMAIN> Recipient ok
[2017.12.15] 22:58:27 [182.61.47.31][30833461] cmd: DATA
[2017.12.15] 22:58:28 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
[2017.12.15] 22:58:29 [182.61.47.31][30833461] senderEmail(2): aoib@minggwx.mobi parsed using: =?utf-8?B?5qiK55uy5Ye5?= <aoib@minggwx.mobi>
[2017.12.15] 22:58:32 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 554 Sending address not accepted due to spam filter
[2017.12.15] 22:58:32 [182.61.47.31][30833461] Mail rejected due to SMTP Spam Blocking: _REVERSEDNSLOOKUP, CBL, DNSRBL, PBL, SENDERSCORE_10, SENDERSCORE-BL, SPAMCOP, SPAMHAUS-XBL, SPAMRATS-NOPTR, V4BL, WPBL
[2017.12.15] 22:58:32 [182.61.47.31][30833461] rsp: 451 Greylisted, please try again in 180 seconds
[2017.12.15] 22:58:45 [182.61.47.31][30833461] data transfer failed. 
[2017.12.15] 22:58:45 [182.61.47.31][30833461] disconnected at 12/15/2017 10:58:45 PM
 

Christopher
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Another one.. Scored a 30, which meets our SMTP reject score, it was rejected and greylisted.
 
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 220 REMOVED is ready and awaiting your commands! Glad to meet you 198.23.212.57! How can I help you? The time now is Sat, 16 Dec 2017 19:11:10 +0000 (UTC),
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] connected at 12/16/2017 12:11:10 PM
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] cmd: EHLO transfer.scbjz.win
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 250-mail.anaxanet.com Hello [198.23.212.57]250-SIZE 2147483647250-AUTH LOGIN CRAM-MD5250-STARTTLS250-8BITMIME250 OK
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] cmd: MAIL FROM:<adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win> BODY=7BIT
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] senderEmail(1): adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win parsed using: <adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win>
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 250 OK <adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win> Sender ok
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] cmd: RCPT TO:<CUSTOMER@DOMAIN>
[2017.12.16] 12:11:10 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 250 OK <CUSTOMER@DOMAIN> Recipient ok
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] cmd: DATA
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 354 Start mail input; end with <CRLF>.<CRLF>
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] senderEmail(2): adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win parsed using: Easy Holiday Funds <adara.collier@transfer.scbjz.win>
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 554 Sending address not accepted due to spam filter
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] Mail rejected due to SMTP Spam Blocking: SPAMHAUS-CSS
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] rsp: 451 Greylisted, please try again in 180 seconds
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] data transfer failed. 
[2017.12.16] 12:11:11 [198.23.212.57][53325492] disconnected at 12/16/2017 12:11:11 PM
 

Christopher
1
See ya later Robert G.
 
Our company, on the other hand, has had very positive experiences with SmarterTools making fixes and working hard to address our support requests.  We have also been using SmarterMail since 2003.  We also use SmarterTrack and SmarterStats.
 
Really smart guys like Rod Lasky and Derek Curtis have always been there when we need them.  I have never met them in-person, but I know they have our back.  This holds a tremendous amount of weight for our team.
 
Yes, there have been bugs that have delayed progress a few times.  But for the most part, I believe that SmarterMail 16 is at a very good point right now.
 
Ron
Hi Ron,
I am not going to flame this... much, but I am curious - you say you have had a good experience with version 16...

To the point, what percentage of your customer-base utilizes the webmail system vs. client-based?

We have had all the same issues reported by others in the November-December, but the continued and ongoing interface issues in webmail are frankly burning down the house, and not in a good way.

We have witnessed our SM usage via webmail drop by over 80% since moving to v16 in late September. We have had over 1000% increase in tickets including a lot of complaints by our user-base, which is nowhere as large as many who are reporting issues. And do you know what? There has not been one, not one single user who opened a ticket to report an issue or complain who likes the SM16 interface approach. I for one use SM16 via webmail every single day for the sole purpose to inflict as much pain and punishment on myself as possible for authorizing the decision to upgrade to v.16.

Smartermail 14-15 was considered by nearly 99% of our customers to be the best webmail experience available.

I am not saying that v16 does not have some good ideas, just that there are too many broken and incomplete parts that make it an irrational decision for serious email functionality.

As for the SM team, time will tell us how this SM16 debacle will ultimately be decided.

Let me know your webmail vs client usage - because my suspicion is that webmail-centric providers are being slammed the most.

- Matt Matthew Sine December 19, 2017 at 7:03 PM
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Hello Matt,

Could you detail out some of the interface things you/your users do not like? You have a strong opinion about it, however, I've noticed your requests and posts are generally backend/feature related. I tried zipping through your posts to see if you mentioned anything interface related. It's easy to say its bad, but it would be nice to see what you think specifically is bad. We do definitely take input and make improvements, like with our recent changes to the top bar icons, https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a88934/sm16-ui-move-settings-gear-icon-to-right.aspx.
We'd definitely like to hear from you about what you (or your users) specifically think about the interface and maybe we kind find some middle ground or some new ideas. Matt Petty December 20, 2017 at 7:37 AM
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Hey Matt, I see you're looking for UI improvements and referred to one of my posts.

Here's another one that would be really nice:
https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a89001/sm16-ui-clicking-on-category-should-show-contacts.aspx kevind December 20, 2017 at 10:53 AM
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