ELK-M1XEP Resets after trying Test Email

[nishalp]

Have a odd problem. I have my M1 Gold setup and all is good. I can connect to the M1XEP interface. I setup the Email server with SMTP. Before my settings were the following:

1. Static address - 192.168.2.12
2. SMTP Server - Same server setup in my outlook with same login credentials.
3. Gateway set to 192.168.2.1 which is my router. Verified from my PC using IPConfig.
4. DNS is set to 192.168.2.1 which also matches my PC.

When I try to send a test email, the M1XEP reboots and I get a message unable to communicate, retry? from the interface.

I have the latest Firmware and boot loader. Any ideas why it resets when sending a test email?

I tried hard shutdown and reboot, same problem...

 

[mustangcoupe]

this may be a stupid question but have you saved the settings to the XEP? and they are not just locally in the software

 

[nishalp]

this may be a stupid question but have you saved the settings to the XEP? and they are not just locally in the software

Beleive it or not, that was not a stupid question lol.. First time setting up this system. Took me awhile to figure out that it needed to be uploaded lol. But yes, I did hit the "Send" button.

 

[nishalp]

Found the problem. Port needed to be changed to 587 for email server... Still the thing should not just reset like that when the values are invalid. I am sure they will fix that soon but my email is working fine now.. ^^

 

[electron]

You're right, something simple like that shouldn't be able to trigger a full reset. Hopefully the ELK people will see this message and take a closer look at it.

 

[Spanky]

Thanks for the insight.

There is a new software upgrade coming out for the M1XEP. It is in Beta test now.

 

[Xpendable]

Thanks for the insight.

There is a new software upgrade coming out for the M1XEP. It is in Beta test now.

When is the new update for the M1XEP projected to be released? Does it support SSL for email? I'm on Comcast and I can't get it to send any email because the current firmware doesn't support M1XEP. I'm unwilling to use something like stunnel to "hack" it to work because that adds to potentially reliability problems since it depends on another computer. I'm also not interested in paying a yearly subscription to a dynamic DNS service just for the ability to forward mail. Thanks.

 

[Xpendable]

Wow... the email capabilities (or lack thereof) of the M1XEP totally SUCK. They should warn you about that. I have a SMTP server through the hosting company that runs my website that has an alternative port non-SSL SMTP to get around Comcast blocking port 25. I can send mail to that through Outlook just fine, but the M1XEP can't do squat. I am really quite disappointed. Everything else on my M1G is working great. Honestly, one of the main reasons I bought the M1XEP was for the email capability. Fortunately the phone dialer thing works since the email thing obviously doesn't.

 

[gatchel]

Funny. My email notifications work fine within the technical specs of the device when I purchased it.

While it does have some limitations as far as unlimited reporting options it does work if you use an email entry for each type of problem you may need to report (16 possible).

When I wanted a system a few years ago, I evaluated all of the options of the elk and its competitors and the elk won, hands down.

As post 6 from Spanky stated above, there is a new release coming. Maybe some of the limitations will be addressed. Maybe this release is a stepping stone to a second release that will have all of the functions we all desire. Who knows?

If I get more than what I paid for, great. If not it works fine for now.

 

[Xpendable]

Funny. My email notifications work fine within the technical specs of the device when I purchased it.
...
If I get more than what I paid for, great. If not it works fine for now.

Funny. The product information for this unit on Smarthome says the following:

By installing the M1 Ethernet Port Expander/Interface, you'll also be adding an event notification system to your security. Upon a breach of your home's security, the M1 Gold can be configured to send an email to up to 16 different email addresses.

As it stands, the unit does not work as advertised. The technical specifications do not say that the email will not work under many circumstances. They do not say that it will not work with SSL. They do not say it will not work with Comcast. The description above should say, "...the M1 Gold can be configured to send an email to up to 16 different email addresses IF you do not have Comcast and IF your email server is not SSL."

That's wonderful that it works great for you. For many others, it doesn't. I really hope the coming firmware update will fix this. So I'll ask again... Does anybody know when this firmware will be available and what exactly will be changed?

 

[Steve]

I think your anger may be a little misdirected. While I don't disagree the email capabilities of the XEP could be more robust, it does work satisfactorily for a large majority of people. It's not Elk's fault that your ISP blocks ports 25, blame the spammers for that. What is your issue with your hosts SMTP? Mine was setup that way too, went through my web host on port 587 and worked fine.You may want to take a closer look at your settings as there is not much reason it wouldn't work through your host. I have seen before where one wrong setting stops it from working and people get really frustrated. It even took me a while at one point while I was fighting a FW bug that made it intermittent but that should be cleared up now.

 

[TurboSam]

Xpendable, I spend the better part of a day (using some choice words) configuring the M1EXP, but I finally got it to work.

I access my Comcast email (multiple accounts) through Microsoft Outlook so I don't know if what worked for me will work for you, but here are some random things I learned.

First, the Email Setup Tips on the Elk site did not work for me. I'm not sure, but it seemed to me the problem revolved around Elk trying to find the Comcast DNS servers and the setup process described in the Tip just cased the XEP to disconnect. So instead, I set up my rounter to assign a static IP address to the XEP based on its MAC address, but then I told the XEP to use DHCP on the TCP/IP config page. The XEP then, of course, "found" the static address the router had been told to assign to it.

What was critical (or so it seemed to me) was to zero out the DNS server settings (0.0.0.0) while in the static setting so that when I chose "Assign an IP address via DHCE" on the TCP/IP config page in the XEP the 0.0.0.0's were still there (but greyed out). My Outlook setup specifies that the outgoing SMTP server requries authentication (the same as used by the incoming mail server), so (contrary to what the Elk setup tip said to do) I added my user name (without the "@comast.net") and my password on the email setup page. In Oultook, the configuration specifies that my incoming POP3 server (995) requires SSL, but I use TLS for the outgoing SMTP server (on 25). I think that may be critical as well because I believe the the XEP does not support SSL (but I have not the faintest idea what that means). Those settings did the trick for me.

I took a quick look at the "native" Comcast email page, and it was not clear to me how much configuration control you had over these items unless you are using Oulook. I assume they are available for configuration somewhere, but I could not find them. So if you run Outlook, you might try setting up your account in it, or making sure whatever is in the XEP's TCP/P and emails settings matches what Comcast has for you.

Good luck, and I hope this helps.

 

[Xpendable]

I finally got it to work by setting up the M1XEP to use DHCP and configuring a specific IP address to be assigned to the M1XEP's MAC address in my router. For whatever reason, using the "static IP" in the M1XEP would not allow email to work even though everything else worked fine. As TurboSam said, I had to temporarily set to static IP and zero out the DNS settings before switching it back to DHCP. If you don't do this, it just plain won't work. Assigning the IP addresses for my DNS servers for Comcast did not work either. Go figure. Note that I am not able to use Comcast email, as SSL is definitely not supported on the M1XEP. But I did get the email to work with my hosting company's smtp service.

An interesting observation... The emails sent by the M1XEP do not contain ANY date/time stamp. I did not even know it was possible to send an email without a date/time stamp, but apparently it is. There is no date/time in the email header at all. I'm surprised by that. Hopefully that's something that will be added in the new firmware whenever it is finally available. On my web hosting, I set up an email alias that I have the M1XEP send email to. I let my email server automatically forward that to a list of emails, including the email accounts of our cell phones. This seems to work fine. (Although no date/time is present from these forwarded emails, either).

 

[TurboSam]

Nice to know that you got it working. I had not noticed the absence of a date/time stamp since Oultook logs the time of receipt. Weird.

 

[urbanloft]

Thank you TurboSam, your tip solved my problem.

I had to setup a reserved IP address in my router for the M1XEP and then setup the M1XEP to use DHCP.