HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT SMTP RELATED ISSUES FOR SAP BPC Applicable Versions BPC-MS 7.0/7.5
BPC utilizes e-mail/SMTP Service for Sending Administrative notifications in BPC Console, Distributing/Collecting reports and schedules, Sending Alerts in Insight, Sending auto e-mails to BPF users, in Custom DTS task and sending work status change notifications.
Once you carried out tests to rule out user-specific, client machine specific or Appserver specific (for load balanced systems) aspects of the issue, the troubleshooting can be looked at as BPC-Specific or SMTP server specific. Below are some steps to help you narrow down your troubleshooting.
POTENTIAL ISSUES WITHIN BPC:
- Ensure all users who are responsible of setting up and sending e-mails in BPC have the necessary privileges within their task profile in the Security section of the Admin Console and all Administrators and the recipient users have their e-mail address set-up in BPC.
- If the issue is only occurring with attachments, please see if a third-party software i.e. a firewall or content filtration service is blocking the delivery.
- Logon to BPC Administration Console and try to send e-mail, with no attachment, to another user using the ‘E-mail Notification’ link under the ‘Application Set Task’ section of the Action Pane.
- Ensure all the details about your Mail server were entered correctly in the ‘Application Set Parameters’ section of the Admin Console. Check that Port number and Authentication Method is correct and re-type the password (if
- If the Mail server was built only for use by BPC system, it may be possible that the port the server is listening on (typically 25) is blocked. Please check the following URL to learn how you can use the Windows NETSTAT command to list the ports that are listening http://www.mailserverblog.com/2008/11/what-ports-are-in-use-error-10048.html
- If there is a concern about the dropped packets, or multi-domain/DNS forwarding etc. type complexities, you may choose to implement a simple packet tracer such as NetworkActive
http://www.networkactiv.com/PIAFCTM.html
POTENTIAL ISSUE WITH SMTP SERVER:
- Ensure the Mail Server is up and running with SMTP Service started. Messages are not stocked at some message holding queue.
- Check if you are able to ping the Mail server by name (or IP) from the Application Server.
- Test the Mail server’s capability to receive e-mails outside of BPC by sending email using Telnet Protocol from the Windows command console (CMD at run command) of BPC Appserver as explained in the following URL
http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/smtp.html
- Isolate the e-mail server by setting up a compact, test e-mail server for BPC and verify if the issue still exists. Here is an example of such stand-alone server www.postcastserver.com