SMTP relay works with Thunderbird but not with Javamail

Question

Hi all,
I'm really clueless now and decided to ask for help here in this forum.
I'm trying to send a mail via an SMTP server which needs a login.
I keep getting the error message
"javax.mail.SendFailedException: 554 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied"
I read many postings in this forum which say that the smtp server's config is responsible.
But that cannot be because I'm able to send mails via the smtp-server when I use the mail client Mozilla-Thunderbird.
Thunderbird runs on the same computer as my java mail program does.
Does anyone know how this can be?
My first guess was that it must be an authentication problem.
But the following lines work well.
Transport transport = session.getTransport("smtp");
transport.connect(host, user, pwd);Maybe I should use the other way of authentication.
But unfortunately the following code leads to an authentication failure (DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 535 Error: authentication failed).
Properties props = System.getProperties();
props.put("mail.MailTransport.protocol", "smtp");
props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);
props.put("mail.smtp.auth","true");
SmtpAuthenticator auth = new SmtpAuthenticator(user, pwd);
Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, auth);          with
     private class SmtpAuthenticator extends Authenticator {
          private String user = null;
          private String pwd  = null;
          public SmtpAuthenticator(String user, String pwd) {
               this.user = user;
               this.pwd = pwd;
          protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
               return new PasswordAuthentication(this.user, this.pwd);
     }Any hints are greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Stefan

Answer 1

Hi,
I think it's a good idea to share a most complete view of what I'm doing.
The smtp server the problem is all about is called h8233.serverkompetenz.net.
I successfully sent a message to myself using Thunderbird via this server.
Here's an excerpt from my Thunderbird Inbox file showing that message including all headers.
From - Wed Jul 28 10:07:16 2004
X-UIDL: b125a9357a0e8f614916a3ab1a6f9af5
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
X-Flags: 0000
Delivered-To: GMX delivery to [email protected]
Received: (qmail 2762 invoked by uid 65534); 28 Jul 2004 08:06:56 -0000
Received: from unknown (EHLO h8233.serverkompetenz.net) (81.169.187.39)
  by mx0.gmx.net (mx050) with SMTP; 28 Jul 2004 10:06:56 +0200
Received: from [192.168.0.5] (a81-14-157-170.net-htp.de [81.14.157.170])
     by h8233.serverkompetenz.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97D1455C035
     for <[email protected]>; Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:08:01 +0200 (CEST)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:07:09 +0200
From: Stefan Prange <[email protected]>
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.2 (Windows/20040707)
X-Accept-Language: de-at, en-us
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: [email protected]
Subject: This is the test mail's subject.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-GMX-Antivirus: 0 (no virus found)
X-GMX-Antispam: 0 (Sender is in whitelist: [email protected])
This is the test mail's content.And here's the java program I wrote to make JavaMail do excactly the same as Thunderbird does.
          try {
               String user = "secret";
               String pwd = "secret";
               String host = "h8233.serverkompetenz.net";
               //Prepare session
               Properties props = System.getProperties();
               props.put("mail.MailTransport.protocol", "smtp");
               props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);
               props.put("mail.smtp.user", user);
               Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
               session.setDebug(true);
               //Prepare message
               Address from = new InternetAddress("[email protected]", "Stefan Prange");
               Address to = new InternetAddress("[email protected]");
               MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
               message.setFrom(from);
               message.setReplyTo(new Address[]{from});
               message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, to);
               message.setSentDate(new Date());
               message.setSubject("This is the test mail's subject.");
               message.setText("This is the test mail's content.");
               message.saveChanges();
               //Send message
               Transport transport = session.getTransport("smtp");
               transport.connect(host, user, pwd);
               if (transport.isConnected()) {
                    System.out.println("SUCCESSFULLY CONNECTED to SMTP SERVER");
                    System.out.println();
               } else {
                    System.out.println("FAILED TO CONNECT to SMTP SERVER");
                    return;
               transport.sendMessage(message, message.getAllRecipients());
               transport.close();
          } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
               return;
          } catch (NoSuchProviderException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
               return;
          } catch (MessagingException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
               return;
     }As you already know the java program fails.
Here's its console output.
DEBUG: getProvider() returning javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc]
DEBUG SMTP: useEhlo true, useAuth false
DEBUG: SMTPTransport trying to connect to host "h8233.serverkompetenz.net", port 25
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 220 h8233.serverkompetenz.net ESMTP Postfix
DEBUG: SMTPTransport connected to host "h8233.serverkompetenz.net", port: 25
DEBUG SMTP SENT: EHLO spnotebook
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250-h8233.serverkompetenz.net
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
250 8BITMIME
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "PIPELINING", arg ""
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "SIZE", arg "10240000"
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "VRFY", arg ""
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "ETRN", arg ""
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "AUTH", arg "PLAIN LOGIN"
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "AUTH=PLAIN", arg "LOGIN"
DEBUG SMTP Found extension "8BITMIME", arg ""
DEBUG SMTP SENT: NOOP
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 Ok
SUCCESSFULLY CONNECTED to SMTP SERVER
DEBUG SMTP: use8bit false
DEBUG SMTP SENT: MAIL FROM:<[email protected]>
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 Ok
DEBUG SMTP SENT: RCPT TO:<[email protected]>
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 554 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied
Invalid Addresses
  [email protected]
DEBUG SMTPTransport: Sending failed because of invalid destination addresses
DEBUG SMTP SENT: RSET
DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 Ok
javax.mail.SendFailedException: Invalid Addresses;
  nested exception is:
     javax.mail.SendFailedException: 554 <[email protected]>: Relay access denied
     at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.rcptTo(SMTPTransport.java:804)
     at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendMessage(SMTPTransport.java:320)
     at de.zorro.util.test.MailTest.main(MailTest.java:62)I hope I gave a sufficient picture of my problem.
Does anybody know what's wrong in my java program?
Stefan