.NET Best Method to Send Email (System.Net.Mail has issues)

Question

This seems to be pretty straight forward. I need to send email from some ASP.NET applications. I need to do this consistently without strange errors and without CPU utilizat

Answer 1

I've always used Quiksoft's EasyMail .NET components with no issues at all.

Product home page: http://www.quiksoft.com/emdotnet/

They also have a free version of the component if you only need to send out e-mails:

http://www.quiksoft.com/freesmtp/

Answer 2

I've used Quicksoft in the past and have no complaints. Another thing you can try is switching the SMTP configuration to use a pickup folder instead of sending using the network which should get around the "it doesn't send QUIT" issue.

Answer 3

I faced the same CPU utilization problem with the settings described. I ended up opening a ticket with Microsoft to determine the cause of the problem. The CPU utilization problem lies in the ServicePoint class. Internally in the ServicePoint class, there is a timer that runs every (MaxIdleTime/2) milliseconds. See the problem? By changing the MaxIdleTime value to 2, the CPU utilization will drop down to normal levels.

Answer 4

We have used hMailserver with great success. The configuration can take a while to get used to but it has been a great -- and free -- mail server product.

If you want to roll your own (which I did years ago when I was having a bear of a time with CDONTS), you can start with the code below and customize to your heart's content. It uses the TcpClient to create a TCP connection directly to the mailserver. Not that I'd recommend this when there are so many established and debugged solutions, but I found this very useful for debugging and determining where the problem was with the prefab MS mail components.

    private void Send_Email() 
    {
        #region Email Sending Function
        string strMail = "";

        try 
        {
            // See RFC821 http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html for more specs
            // TcpClient is an abstraction of a TCP Socket connection
            TcpClient myTCP = new TcpClient();

            // Connect to the mail server's port 25
            myTCP.Connect(mailserver, 25);

            // Open a network stream which sends data to/from the TcpClient's socket
            System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream ns = myTCP.GetStream();

            // The data to send to the mail server, basically a raw SMTP mail message
            strMail = "HELO\n";
            strMail += "MAIL FROM:from@address.com\n";
            strMail += "RCPT TO:" + recipient + "\n";
            strMail += "DATA\n";
            strMail += "Subject: mySubject\n";
            strMail += "To:" + recipient + "\n";
            strMail += "From: \"From Real Name\" <from@address.com>\n";
            strMail += "\n";
            strMail += " ---------------------------------------\n";
            strMail += "Name:     " + txtName.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "Address1: " + txtAddress1.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "Address2: " + txtAddress2.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "City:     " + txtCity.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "State:    " + txtState.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "Zip:      " + txtZip.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "Email:    " + txtEmail.Text + "\n";
            strMail += "Dealer:   " + txtDealer.Text + "\n";
            strMail += " ---------------------------------------\n";
            strMail += "THIS IS AN AUTOMATED EMAIL SYSTEM. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS ADDRESS.\n";
            strMail += "\n.\n";

            // Defines encoding of string into Bytes (network stream needs
            // an array of bytes to send -- can't send strings)
            ASCIIEncoding AE = new ASCIIEncoding();
            byte[] ByteArray = AE.GetBytes(strMail);

            // send the byte-encoded string to the networkstream -> mail server:25
            ns.Write(ByteArray, 0, ByteArray.Length);

            //ns.Read(ByteArray, 0, ByteArray.Length);
            //lblStatus.Text = ByteArray.ToString();

            // close the network stream
            ns.Close();

            // close the TCP connection
            myTCP.Close();
        }
        catch(Exception ex) 
        {
            throw new Exception("Couldn't send email: <p>" + ex.Message);
        }

        #endregion

    }

Answer 5

I send most of my mail using a Sproc. I can even attach a file.

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[sendMail_With_CDOMessage]  
    @to VARCHAR(64), 
    @CC VARCHAR(1024)='',
    @BCC VARCHAR(1024)='',
    @subject VARCHAR(500)='', 
    @body VARCHAR(8000)='' ,
    @from VARCHAR(64),
    @filename VARCHAR(255)='',
    @priority INT = 0
AS  
BEGIN  
    SET NOCOUNT ON  

    DECLARE  
        @handle INT,  
        @return INT,  
        @s VARCHAR(64),  
        @sc VARCHAR(1024),  
        @up CHAR(27),   
        @server VARCHAR(255)  

    SET @s = '"http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/'  

    SELECT  
        @s = 'Configuration.Fields(' + @s,  
        @up = 'Configuration.Fields.Update',
        @server = 'smtp.yourdomain.com' 



    EXEC @return = sp_OACreate 'CDO.Message', @handle OUT  
    SET @sc = @s + 'sendusing").Value'  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, @sc, '2'  
    SET @sc = @s + 'smtpserver").Value'  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, @sc, @server  
    EXEC @return = sp_OAMethod @handle, @up, NULL  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'To', @to  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'CC', @CC 
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'BCC', @BCC 
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'From', @from  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'Subject', @subject  
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'HTMLBody', @body    
    EXEC @return = sp_OASetProperty @handle, 'Priority', 'cdoHigh'  

    IF @filename IS NOT NULL  
        EXEC @return = sp_OAMethod @handle, 'AddAttachment', NULL, @filename  

    EXEC @return = sp_OAMethod @handle, 'Send', NULL  
    IF @return  0  
    BEGIN  
        PRINT 'Mail failed.'  
        IF @from IS NULL  
            PRINT 'From address undefined.'  
        ELSE  
            PRINT 'Check that server is valid.' 
    END 
    ELSE  
        PRINT 'Mail sent.'  

    EXEC @return = sp_OADestroy @handle  
END  

Answer 6

While I haven't had any specific problems with System.Net.Mail so far, you can always use the older System.Web.Mail API which is a wrapper for CDOSYS.