Sending emails on Heroku using external SMTP - ruby-on-rails

Question

I want to send emails from my rails application on Heroku.
As Heroku doesn't support SMTP, I use external SMTP server.
config/environments/production.rb has the following lines.
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
:address => 'mydomain.com',
:port => 587,
:user_name => "myusername",
:password => "password",
:authentication => :plain,
:enable_starttls_auto => true,
:openssl_verify_mode => 'none'
}
When I send an email from "heroku run console", it works fine. But it doesn't send email from the website. Strangely, "heroku logs --tail" shows "Sent mail to ...". Actually the email is not delivered.
Does anyone have any idea about this issue?
Thanks.
Sam Kong

Answer 1

Have you tried this in config/enviornment.rb
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
:address => 'mydomain.com',
:port => 587,
:user_name => "myusername",
:password => "password",
:authentication => :plain,
:enable_starttls_auto => true,
:openssl_verify_mode => 'none'
}

Answer 2

Your configuration is correct. But you have to put it in the correct environment file. In case of Heroku deployment, it should be 'production'. Console works because it uses 'development' as the environment. So put the following code in config/environment/production.rb
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
:address => 'mydomain.com',
:port => 587,
:user_name => "myusername",
:password => "password",
:authentication => :plain,
:enable_starttls_auto => true,
:openssl_verify_mode => 'none'
}
Hope it solves your problem.

Answer 3

If it shows as mail as being sent that I would suggest that it's a config issue at your mail server perhaps preventing relay from the Heroku IP range - it's most odd though if it works through the heroku console and not through your application.
Have you thought of trying the SendGrid Heroku addon just to alleviate any issues with your own mailer server?