fax to email, working anywhere?

[teldotnet]

I have been testing fax to email and everything works, except no fax is sent

log files indicate the fax application is not sending the right info to smtp server and after 10 attempts to send the fax times out. voicemail is able to be delivered no problems. this issue seems to occur on both V8 and V9 software.

Can anyone confirm they have fax to email working and if so is it with the smtp server external to the 3CX server and on a non windows (ie linux) platform?

 

[teldotnet]

so do I take it that that lack of replies means no one has it working?

 

[SY]

so do I take it that that lack of replies means no one has it working?

This situation is much simplier.
It is described in http://www.3cx.com/forums/forum-rules-read-to-get-answers-93.html long time ago...

Thanks

 

[teldotnet]

Not asking for solutions so that link is irrelevent

Asking if anyone has it working as I believe is broken and you guys dont want to look at it even though I raised a ticket and told you exactly what the problem is.

Your fax s/w works differently to vmail and causes errors to the smtp server and therefore does not work.

Can anyone prove it does?

 

[abc123]

Not asking for solutions so that link is irrelevent

Asking if anyone has it working as I believe is broken and you guys dont want to look at it even though I raised a ticket and told you exactly what the problem is.

Your fax s/w works differently to vmail and causes errors to the smtp server and therefore does not work.

Can anyone prove it does?

I have fax to email working. With an external smtp server. Though it is MS Exchange based and not linux based but that should make no difference as it is a standard smtp rfc handshake.

In fact mine works so well, yesterday i received the standard nigerian spam letter (you know, the one where if you send them your information they will send you the millions their uncle who is in jail has stashed away) via fax yesterday for the first time! And 3cx helped as the call log shows the REAL number it came in on

Have you run a wireshark and looked at what happens? can you telnet to the smtp server from the pbx machine?

 

[mhanson]

This feature works fine across the board. So this is definitely a case of something being wrong within your config rather than being a non working software feature.

If it is trying to send 10 times, maybe your SMTP settings are incorrect. What SMTP server are you using?

 

[teldotnet]

Thanks for your replys, I do however think there is something wrong with fax to email when working to external smtp server that is not windows based, no one has said yet they have this working anywhere.

As I stated in orginal post sending voicemail via email works ok, no problem, and since fax uses same settings authentication should not be an issue. We have same issue with V8 and V9 3CX software.

We are using sendmail on linux box, we have 5 such servers with over 2000 users (various email programes and systems) and none of them have any issues sending through these servers.

The smtp mail server says this

"did not issue did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA"

as the error message when fax tries to send, but has no such error messages when vmail tries to send, so obviously fax is doing something different to vmail

Still looking for someone using non windows smtp that has fax to email working, anyone??

 

[abc123]

I have come across a case once where the smtp authentication settings in the 3cx were incorrect but voicemails still went through and faxes did not. So double check the settings.

If they are correct then do a wireshark capture of a fax being emailed and see what is being sent - it appears it isnt getting past the initial handshake according to your error message but this can be a red herring.

 

[teldotnet]

Hi, thanks for your reply, but settings are correct and same thing is happening on 2 different 3CX servers (1 running V9 and 1 running V8).

Our smtp server log shows correct handshake for vmail to send email but not fax.

If happening on 2 differrent 3Cx servers which are going to 2 different pop boxes and vmail works on both, surely this indicates somethnig wrong with fax?

Still looking for someone with fax to email working on external linux server, no one has said so far that they have this working.

 

[abc123]

Can you tell me which email server you are using? Zimbra?

If I get time over the next day or so I will set up a linux email server on an external server and try a test fax to it

I still say the quickest way to find the problem is to run a wireshark capture so we can see what is being sent.

 

[teldotnet]

Ok thanks for your help

we are using Sendmail on linux

 

[teldotnet]

Still looking for someone using non windows smtp that has fax to email working, anyone??

 

[abc123]

I havent had the time to set up a linux server yet as am working on an openvpn issue.

However by chance i was working on a new customers pbx and found a fax email issue which may be your problem. I have raised a ticket with 3cx and sent the logs and waiting on an answer.

I found the fax emailer is a different function to the other and it does not read the config correctly.

This customer is on Verizon dsl while they wait for their T1 to come in. Verizon blocks port 25 so we set up the email to use 2525. We can send a welcome email but the faxes were not coming through by email.

If you go into the logs on 3cx (not activity logs but the log file itself for faxes) we saw that it could not connect to the server on port 25. So it is not reading the config correctly for faxing. This may not be your problem but it does mean that they are not using a common function to send the emails and so a mistake has been made in programming.

 

[teldotnet]

Mark,

thanks for that, yes I have been saying the same thing for a while that the functions are different and behave differently, hopefully they will investigate your issue rather than ignore mine.

thanks

BS

 

[abc123]

Our issues may be different though.

We are a .net development shop also and 3cx is built on .net. There is a System.Net.Mail namespace with an SMTP class in it for sending mail. You only need to specify the host ip, port and credentials (along with ssl/tls) and then create a .net mail message and send it.

From my guesswork it looks like they forget to pick up the port when they configure this in the fax email.

But your Linux message was saying that the system was not sending the correct protocol information. That is out of the hands of 3cx and is built into the .net SMTP class. So it may be down to Microsoft.

If you raised a support ticket and have a support contract then I suspect they are working on looking into the problem - especially if you sent the logs and wireshark capture they request - we have never had a problem with 3cx support, quite the opposite - they were remoted into our server a few weeks back to look at a problem on a saturday night their time.

And if you dont get a response in a few days, just send a quick update request - you never know their workload and your ticket priority.

In the meantime I would suggest you find a free smtp windows email account that uses port 25 and it will work for the time being. I know it works with that as we use it all of the time to send faxes.

 

[teldotnet]

Mark, took your advice and setup a windows based email account to test to and it works as it should, but no matter what I do I cant get it going to a non-windows smtp account.

So anyone out there ever tried or get fax to email working on non windows smtp server or am I the only one to ever try?

 

[teldotnet]

still interested in anyone has fax to email woring with a linux server running sendmail as although works ok with windows server I could not get it working at all with non-windows.

anyone have it woeking??