FME Flow Troubleshooting: Email

Full Guide: FME Flow Troubleshooting Guide

Are you encountering issues with Email in FME Flow (formerly FME Server) automations? Please read below for some common troubleshooting tips, questions, and resources.

In 2023, FME Server underwent a name change and is now known as FME Flow. Since this article discusses features present in previous versions of FME, it will refer to both names interchangeably, using the appropriate product name based on the year the feature was introduced. For more information on the rebranding, see our website. 
 

Content Overview

• Initial Troubleshooting
• Common Issues
  • “My automation's 'Email - SMTP (received)' trigger doesn't fire, because the email isn't received”
  • “My automation is not being triggered when an email is received”
  • “I’m trying to receive/send email, but when I try and validate my configuration I get an invalid credentials error”
  • “My Automation successfully sends an email, but the body is undefined”
  • “From the Run Workspace page, when I set an email in the ‘Email Results to’ parameter, I do not receive an email”
  • “I receive a ‘Path not found’ error when trying to send multiple email attachments using the external email action”
  • "IMAP Trigger in automation is intermittently failing on Azure"
• Are you still experiencing issues?
• Have ideas on how to improve this?

Initial Troubleshooting

• When you click ‘Validate’ on the email configuration, is an error returned?
• Verify that both incoming and outgoing ports are open for the specified email service. Note that these are not always the default ports. If you are unsure what port should be used you should check with your IT department. 
• For SMTP, many providers block port 25 as it is a port used by spammers. Follow these instructions to configure FME Flow to use a different port. The network firewall should also be checked by your IT department.
• View the Automation > Menu > View Log File and look for any warnings and errors. 
• Additional information may be found in the core log files found under Resources > logs > core > current | old
  • Check logs in the publisher folder for incoming email issues
    • IMAP: \publishers\imap.log
    • SMTP: \publishers\email.log
  • Check logs in the subscribers folder for outgoing email issues
    • \subscribers\email.log
• Try to ping the machine hosting the email server from the FME Flow machine - do you get a response?
• Ask your IT department to monitor network traffic for errors while your automation is being triggered to send or receive email.

Common Issues

“My automation's 'Email - SMTP (received)' trigger doesn't fire, because the email isn't received”

In order for an external mail server to be able to send emails to FME Flow’s built-in mail server, the FME Flow hostname and domain must resolve to a publicly accessible IP or DNS.
If you are still experiencing issues make sure you have correctly configured the email address <username>@<FQDN or IP address>. For example, if you access FME Flow through https://fmeflow.mydomain.net the email address would be user@mydomain.net

“My automation is not being triggered when an email is received”

If the automation is running and you have confirmed that your FME Flow can communicate with the Email Server, then check if other processes/automations/FME Flow environments are polling the same inbox and picking up the emails first.

“I’m trying to receive/send email, but when I try and validate my configuration I get an invalid credentials error”

Some email providers do not support the use of basic authentication in third-party apps:

• To use Google you must generate an app password. 
• To use Microsoft you must use modern authentication. 

Please see this article for more information. 

“My Automation successfully sends an email, but the body is undefined”

If you are referencing an Automation Attribute (formerly Key) in your email body, this value is dynamically set based on the information passed from upstream triggers/actions. If the email body shows _undefined this is an indication that the attribute referenced did not have a value set. Review upstream actions to identify why this value was missing. 

“From the Run Workspace page, when I set an email in the ‘Email Results to’ parameter, I do not receive an email”

This parameter is currently tied to Notifications functionality. Therefore to receive an email when the 'Email Results To' parameter is populated, the following FME Flow email subscribers must be properly configured: DataDownload_Email_JobFailure, DataDownload_Email_JobSucess, JobSubmitter_Email_JobFailure, JobSubmitter_Email_JobSuccess (Documentation reference).
This parameter is not tied to System Email under Admin > System Configuration > Network & Email.

“I receive a ‘Path not found’ error when trying to send multiple email attachments using the external email action”

If the paths to the attachments are provided via output attributes, use the text editor to select the attributes and make sure you have a space between them. Note: if FME Flow inserts a space between every character, close and reopen the Email Action, clear all attachments, and try again. This is a known issue in FME Server 2022.1+.

“IMAP Trigger in automation is intermittently failing on Azure”

If FME Flow is configured for HTTPS or is using a fully qualified domain name, the Email Received automation trigger may intermittently fail. Based on Azure documentation, the client needs to use the firewall IP as the DNS. Setting a more general rule in the VM to allow traffic over the required ports can also help Azure resolve the email domains.
 

Are you still experiencing issues?

Please consider posting to the FME Community Q&A if you are still experiencing issues that are not addressed in this article. There are also different support channels available.

Have ideas on how to improve this?

You can add ideas or product suggestions to our Ideas Exchange.