You can download a Support Bundle to troubleshoot email problems with your GitHub Enterprise appliance.

If you encounter any SMTP errors sending a test email while configuring your email settings—such as an immediate delivery failure or an outgoing mail configuration error—you will see them on the Test email settings dialog box.

A failed test

If you cannot determine what is wrong from the displayed error message, you can download a Support Bundle containing the entire SMTP conversation between your mail server and GitHub Enterprise. Once you've downloaded and extracted the bundle, check the entries in enterprise-manage-logs/unicorn.log for the entire SMTP conversation log and any related errors.

The unicorn log should show a transaction similar to the following:

This is a test email generated from https://10.0.0.68/setup/settings
Connection opened: smtp.yourdomain.com:587
-> "220 smtp.yourdomain.com ESMTP nt3sm2942435pbc.14\r\n"
 "250-smtp.yourdomain.com at your service, [1.2.3.4]\r\n"
-> "250-SIZE 35882577\r\n"
-> "250-8BITMIME\r\n"
-> "250-STARTTLS\r\n"
-> "250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES\r\n"
-> "250 PIPELINING\r\n"
 "220 2.0.0 Ready to start TLS\r\n"
TLS connection started
 "250-smtp.yourdomain.com at your service, [1.2.3.4]\r\n"
-> "250-SIZE 35882577\r\n"
-> "250-8BITMIME\r\n"
-> "250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN XOAUTH\r\n"
-> "250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES\r\n"
-> "250 PIPELINING\r\n"
 "334 VXNlcm5hbWU6\r\n"
 "334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6\r\n"
 "535-5.7.1 Username and Password not accepted. Learn more at\r\n"
-> "535 5.7.1 http://support.yourdomain.com/smtp/auth-not-accepted nt3sm2942435pbc.14\r\n"

This log shows that the appliance:

  • Opened a connection with the SMTP server (Connection opened: smtp.yourdomain.com:587).
  • Successfully made a connection and chose to use TLS (TLS connection started).
  • The login authentication type was performed (<- "AUTH LOGIN\r\n").
  • The SMTP Server rejected the authentication as invalid (-> "535-5.7.1 Username and Password not accepted.).

If you're still unable to resolve the problem, contact support to ask for help. Please attach the output file from http(s)://[hostname]/setup/diagnostics to your email to help us troubleshoot your problem.