Problem with activation on new cloud server

Question asked by Chris Bertelli - 1/15/2025 at 3:09 PM

Unanswered

I was trying to migrate Smartermail to an AWS EC2 server, so I can retire my old physical rack-mounted server once and for all. This seems possible based on documentation, but I hit a snag at the activation step, where it fails and says to contact the sales department. Self diagnostic yields the following ominous results:

Internet Connectivity
Passed	resolve yahoo.com
Passed	http to yahoo.com
Passed	resolve google.com
Passed	http to google.com
Failed	https to activation page
Failed	http to activation page

Product Checks
Passed	Connection to SmarterMail Service
Failed	Product Activated?

I have an older version, 11.x, but it works fine for my very modest needs. It activated easily and always worked well on my physical server. I read a note in documentation about how older versions can't activate lately because they don't support TLS 1.2, but wasn't sure if that was the problem since http (non-encrypted) connection to the activation page also fails. If that was the problem, is there a work-around?

I also checked the obvious stuff: FIPS is disabled. Windows firewall has default settings allowing outbound connections not explicitly forbidden. AWS has its own sort of firewall utility by the name of "security groups", and all the security groups on my server have a default outbound rule allowing all traffic, all protocols, from all ports to anywhere, so that wouldn't seem to be the problem. And smartermail seems to be able to connect to yahoo and google OK.

I would appreciate any advice on how to troubleshoot or what to try next.

5 Replies

Reply to Thread

Tony Scholz Replied

1/16/2025 at 7:15 AM

Employee Post

Hello Chris,

There is a "Licensing" log that you can review to get more details. The entry should look like the example below with a stack trace or other error.

[2025.01.16] 00:03:41.985 Daily activation check started.
[2025.01.16] 00:31:33.293 License operation 'ActivationQuery' occured.
[2025.01.16] Result=Success
[2025.01.16] AuthEmail=xxxxxx@xxxxxx.com
[2025.01.16] AuthPassword=****HIDDEN****
[2025.01.16] LicenseKey=**********************5F4E5-A4CF7B
[2025.01.16] MasterProductName=SMARTERMAIL
[2025.01.16] ProductVersion=100.0.9124
[2025.01.16] MachineName=SUP-ATESTLZ
[2025.01.16] IsReactivation=True

This is located with the other logs by going to Manage -> Troubleshooting -> View Logs and adjusting the log type to be Licensing.

You can also do a test to make sure you can reach our activation servers

Thank you

~Tony

Tony Scholz System/Network Administrator SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Chris Bertelli Replied

1/31/2025 at 9:23 PM

I checked that log, and strangely, when I attempt to activate the product, it leaves no trace in the log. Every day the log on the cloud server looks something like:

00:22:46 License operation 'UpdateLicenseStats' occured.
Result=Exception
The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.

00:22:46 License operation 'UpdateLicenseStats' occured.
Result=Exception
The request failed with an empty response.

This seems to be a routine daily thing. Essentially the same lines appear in the log for my physical server (which I want to retire), where Smartermail has been working fine for years. On the physical server -- not sure that it matters at all -- the following also appears multiple times every day with the same timestamp, about 20 minutes after the UpdateLicenseStats operation:

00:33:41 License operation 'ActivationQuery' occured.
Result=Exception
AuthToken=xxxxx
AuthEmail=xxxxx
AuthPassword=****HIDDEN****
LicenseKey=xxxxx
MasterProductName=SMARTERMAIL
ProductVersion=10.7.4842
MachineName=xxxxx
DatabaseServer=
DatabaseCatalog=
DatabasePrefix=
IsReactivation=True

(xxxxx replaces sensitive information)

From the cloud server, I can connect to the activation servers using MS Edge (web browser). It gives back a simple message, "API Status Running"

David Fisher Replied

2/1/2025 at 10:31 AM

Hi,

This is due to the disabling of TLS 1.0 & 1.1 :

SmarterTools and TLS: What the Changes Mean

https://www.smartertools.com/blog/2024/02/smartertools-tls-changes

You can still activate a legacy SmarterTools product, you will just need to contact our sales or support department first – you will not be able to automatically activate.

Chris Bertelli Replied

4/2/2025 at 11:39 AM

I contacted the sales department, and a representative replied promptly with a clear and easy method to manually activate the legacy version -- she supplied values for <activation> (4536-character string) and <activationSignature> (172-character string) keys of the mailConfig.xml file, to be pasted in while the service was stopped.

Alas, it didn't seem to work. The self-diagnostic still says failed for Product Activated. The procedure was clear and easy, so I don't think it's a problem with following the instructions given. The sales rep has limited technical resources, so no real way to figure out why it's not working. I am still stuck and perhaps need to give up. It seems that legacy version 11.x can't actually be activated now, even with the help of the sales department.

David Fisher Replied

4/3/2025 at 1:55 PM

Hi Chris,

As long as you gave sales the correct hostname for your server and the proper key you are using, I would think it should work fine...

Please contact sales@smartertools.com to request steps for a manual activation. A manual activation requires the server's hostname, which can be found by entering 'hostname' into the server's command prompt.

Here are the steps I believe.

1) Stop SmarterMail (MailService.exe), be sure it isn't running using Task Manager.

2) Use notepad or another editor to edit mailConfig.xml file

3) At the top edit the activation & activationsiginature lines, example follows :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<activation>(4536-character string)</activation>

<activationSignature>(172-character string)</activationSignature>

4) You might want to be sure SmarterMail v11 is using m2015 and sha512, maybe the two lines for activationstringmethod & activationsignaturemethod need to be set to something different, this is what SmarterMail v15 is using.

5) Start SmarterMail (MailService.exe)

*NOTE* Be sure there are no spaces in activation string section part.

Hope you can get this going!

-dave

Back to Community Threads

Please leave this box unchecked

Reply to Thread

Enter the verification text

5 Replies

Reply to Thread

Tags

Related Knowledge Base Articles