problem with Actionmailer "Timeout::Error"? - ruby-on-rails

Question

im trying to send a email with action mailer and it gives me a Timeout::Error (execution expired): even though in the console it says that the e mail is sent:
it shows
Sent mail to aldeirm2#gmail.com
then displayes the e mail that was sent then it shows the following error:
Timeout::Error (execution expired):
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:60:in `open'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:551:in `do_start'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:551:in `do_start'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:525:in `start'
app/models/appointment.rb:10:in `tomorrows_appointments'
app/models/appointment.rb:8:in `each'
app/models/appointment.rb:8:in `tomorrows_appointments'
app/controllers/show_appointments_controller.rb:11:in `send_email'
-e:2:in `load'
-e:2
Rendered rescues/_trace (35.8ms)
Rendered rescues/_request_and_response (0.3ms)
Rendering rescues/layout (internal_server_error)
here is my settings:
config.cache_classes = false
config.whiny_nils = true
config.action_controller.consider_all_requests_local = true
config.action_view.debug_rjs = true
config.action_controller.perform_caching = false
config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = true
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp
config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = {
:enable_starttls_auto => true,
:address => "smtp.gmail.com",
:port => 587,
:domian => "gmail.com",
:authentication => :login,
:user_name => "username",
:password => "blablabla",
}
i also tried setting authentication to :plain and using username#gmail.com as the user_name with no hope.
any ideas

Answer 1

I saw a typo there: you wrote
:domian => "gmail.com",
instead of
:domain => "gmail.com",

Answer 2

SMTP requests seem to time out occasionally, probably depending on how long you've set for timeouts. The other problem you'll get is a delay in the web-app while the user waits for your server to communicate with Gmail's SMTP server.
I know gmail is a popular option for new rails apps, but I don't think it's a long-term solution since you have to send the mail through a particular gmail account which has daily sending limits. And even with other accounts, I have found that SMTP timeouts are a problem.
Now I am using SendGrid to send emails and have found that using sendgrid as a relayhost via postfix is the favourable option. This means the user gets a response from the web-app faster and the mail is queued through postfix and then sent via sendgrid (so no more timeouts!).
See here for sendgrid's postfix setup instructions:
http://wiki.sendgrid.com/doku.php?id=postfix
Then, in your rails environment, you just need something like the following:
config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :sendmail
config.action_mailer.sendmail_settings = {
:location => '/usr/sbin/sendmail',
:arguments => '-i -t'
}

Answer 3

In case anyone else has the same problem:
make sure that your firewall allows outgoing connections to port 587
For iptables, you can list all existing rules with:
sudo iptables -L
have a look here for the necessary rules.
If you're using an AWS instance, have a look at your security groups.