Wow, I can’t belive how long its been since I’ve last blogged. Time has just flown by.

Well, I’ve been putting off Part 3, which deals with specifically working with System.Web.Mail, but I finally got around to it. Every time I started on this part, I kept saying this is way too large, and felt it needed its own website, in the form of a FAQ. So I built one. You can see it here: System.Web.Mail, OH MY! at http://www.SystemWebMail.com If I’ve missed anything, feel free to let me know.

Just as an outline, here are some of the FAQs I cover.

Cheers!
Dave

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 What is System.Web.Mail?
  • 1.2 What is the .NET Framework ?
  • 1.3 What do I need to send email in .NET?
  • 1.4 What is a relay server?
  • 1.5 Is System.Web.Mail really a wrapper around the COM CDONTS and CDOSYS?
  • 1.6 What is the IIS SMTP Service?
  • 1.7 Can System.Web.Mail read email?
• 2 Quickstart Programming Samples
  • 2.1 How do I send a simple email?
  • 2.2 How do I send a simple Html email?
  • 2.3 How do I send an email with attachments?
  • 2.4 How do I change the FROM address to a friendly name?
  • 2.5 How do I change the TO address to a friendly name?
  • 2.6 How do I specify multiple recipients?
  • 2.7 How do I add the Reply-To header to the MailMessage?
  • 2.8 How do I add custom headers to the MailMessage?
• 3 Advanced Programming Samples
  • 3.1 How do I send non US-ASCII emails?
  • 3.2 How do I send a web page?
  • 3.3 How do I embed images in an email?
  • 3.4 How do I email a website exception
  • 3.5 How do I encrypt messages using s/mime or pgp?
  • 3.6 How do I send multipart/related emails?
  • 3.7 How do I send multipart/alternative emails?
  • 3.8 How do I authenticate to send an email?
• 4 Troubleshooting System.Web.Mail
  • 4.1 A Word About Exceptions (READ THIS FIRST)
  • 4.2 Namespace/COM/DLL Related Exceptions
    • 4.2.1 Error loading type library/DLL.
    • 4.2.2 The "SendUsing" configuration value is invalid.
    • 4.2.3 The scary "Could not access 'CDO.Message' object"
  • 4.3 SMTP Protocol/Network Related Exceptions
    • 4.3.1 The server specified in the SmtpServer property is not valid or not available
    • 4.3.10 550 x.x.x Unable to relay for xxxxx.
    • 4.3.2 [COMException (0x8004020f): The server rejected one or more recipient addresses."]
    • 4.3.3 Some of emails are rejected by some clients, but not all.
    • 4.3.4 My mail server requires authentication. (503 This mail server requires authentication)
    • 4.3.5 Not a gateway or local host.
    • 4.3.6 The specified protocol is unknown.
    • 4.3.7 The server response was 452 Filesystem error - message not accepted.
    • 4.3.8 The transport failed to connect to the server.
    • 4.3.9 Can send locally but not externally.
  • 4.4 Other Problems/Exceptions
    • 4.4.1 How can I stream attachments into the MailMessage?
    • 4.4.2 How can I create an attachment from a string?
    • 4.4.3 Why does System.Web.Mail work in development and not in production?
    • 4.4.4 I keep getting question marks (?'s) in my email, where characters should be.
    • 4.4.5 System.Web.Mail is truncating the message body.
    • 4.4.6 Attachments added to the MailMessge are corrupt.
    • 4.4.7 All of my emails are ending up in the /badmail directory.
• 5 Additional Resources
  • 5.1 My Email Components
    • 5.1.1 aspNetEmail SMTP Component
    • 5.1.2 aspNetMime Mime Parsing Component
    • 5.1.3 aspNetPOP3 POP3 Component
    • 5.1.4 ListNanny NDR/Bounced Email Parsing Component
  • 5.2 Community Help
    • 5.2.1 Yahoo .NET Email List
    • 5.2.2 Aspadvice ASP.NET Lists
    • 5.2.3 Microsoft Newsgroups
  • 5.3 Other Helpful Links
    • 5.3.1 Email tutorials on www.123aspx.com
    • 5.3.10 HOWTO: Send E-mail Programmatically with System.Web.Mail and Visual C# .NET
    • 5.3.11 Periods at the Beginning of a Line Are Removed When Placed into the SMTP Pickup Directory
    • 5.3.2 SMTP server and email FAQ at the ASP.NET Forums
    • 5.3.3 System.Web.Mail Namespace
    • 5.3.4 Manage Your Company's E-mail with the Windows 2000 SMTP Service
    • 5.3.5 XCON: Cannot Send E-Mail Messages to a Growing List of Domains
    • 5.3.6 Read Access to the Everyone Group Is Removed After You Install Exchange 2000 SP3
    • 5.3.7 HOWTO: Use CDO (1.x) to Set Up Reply to Alternate Recipient
    • 5.3.8 INFO: Process and Request Identity in ASP.NET
    • 5.3.9 PRB: Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT, Collaboration Data Objects for
      Windows 2000, and Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange 2000 Require Outlook Express
• 6 RFCs for sending, receiving, and parsing email.
  • 6.1 Send (SMTP) Email RFCs
    • 6.1.1 RFC 2821 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
    • 6.1.10 RFC 2852 Deliver By SMTP Service Extension
    • 6.1.11 RFC 2034 SMTP Service Extension for Returning Enhanced Error Codes
    • 6.1.12 RFC 3463 Enhanced Mail System Status Codes
    • 6.1.13 RFC 3461 SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications
    • 6.1.14 RFC 3462 Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of Mail System Administrative Messages
    • 6.1.15 RFC 2554 SMTP Service Extension for Authentication
    • 6.1.16 RFC 2505 Anti-Spam Recommendations for SMTP MTAs
    • 6.1.17 RFC 2442 Batch SMTP Media Type
    • 6.1.18 RFC 1047 Duplicate messages and SMTP
    • 6.1.2 RFC 974 Mail routing and the domain system (MX records)
    • 6.1.3 RFC 1869 SMTP Service Extensions
    • 6.1.4 RFC 1870 SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
    • 6.1.5 RFC 1652 SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport
    • 6.1.6 RFC 3030 SMTP Service Extensions for Transmission of Large and Binary MIME Messages
    • 6.1.7 RFC 1846 SMTP 521 Reply Code
    • 6.1.8 RFC 1985 SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting (ETRN)
    • 6.1.9 RFC 2645 On-Demand Mail Relay (ODMR) SMTP with Dynamic IP Addresses
  • 6.2 Receiving (POP3/IMAP) Email RFCs
    • 6.2.1 RFC 2298 Extensible Message Format for Message Disposition Notifications (MDNs)
    • 6.2.10 RFC 1731 IMAP4 Authentication Mechanisms
    • 6.2.11 RFC 2342 IMAP4 Namespace
    • 6.2.12 RFC 2359 IMAP4 UIDPLUS extension
    • 6.2.13 RFC 3348 IMAP4 Child Mailbox Extension
    • 6.2.14 RFC 2683 IMAP4 Implementation Recommendations
    • 6.2.15 RFC 2971 IMAP4 ID extension
    • 6.2.16 RFC 3502 IMAP MULTIAPPEND Extension
    • 6.2.17 RFC 3503 Message Disposition Notification (MDN) profile for IMAP
    • 6.2.18 RFC 3516 IMAP4 Binary Content Extension
    • 6.2.19 RFC 2476 Message Submission
    • 6.2.2 RFC 1939 Post Office Protocol - Version 3 (POP3)
    • 6.2.20 RFC 2244 ACAP -- Application Configuration Access Protocol
    • 6.2.21 RFC 1056 PCMAIL: A distributed mail system for personal computers
    • 6.2.22 RFC 1204 Message Posting Protocol (MPP)
    • 6.2.23 RFC 1339 Remote Mail Checking Protocol
    • 6.2.3 RFC 1734 - POP3 AUTHentication command
    • 6.2.4 RFC 1957 Some Observations on Implementations of POP3
    • 6.2.5 RFC 2384 POP URL Scheme
    • 6.2.6 RFC 2449 POP3 Extension Mechanism
    • 6.2.7 RFC 3206 SYS and AUTH POP Response Codes
    • 6.2.8 RFC 2195 IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response
    • 6.2.9 RFC 3501 Internet Message Access Protocol - version 4rev1(IMAP4)
  • 6.3 Parsing (MIME/Multipart Messages) Email RFCs
    • 6.3.1 RFC 2822 Internet Message Format
    • 6.3.10 RFC 2049 MIME Part 5: Conformance Criteria and Examples
    • 6.3.11 RFC 2183 Communicating Presentation Information in Internet Messages: The Content-Disposition Header
    • 6.3.12 RFC 2557 MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate Documents, such as HTML (MHTML)
    • 6.3.13 RFC 2854 text/html Media Type
    • 6.3.14 RFC 2392 Content-ID and Message-ID Uniform Resource Locators
    • 6.3.15 RFC 2646 Text/Plain Format Parameter
    • 6.3.16 RFC 2387 MIME Multipart/Related Content-type
    • 6.3.17 RFC 3066 Tags for the Identification of Languages
    • 6.3.18 RFC 2231 MIME Parameter Value and Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and Continuations
    • 6.3.19 RFC 2017 Definition of the URL MIME External-Body Access-Type
    • 6.3.2 RFC 2076 Common Internet Message Headers
    • 6.3.20 RFC 2388 Returning Values from Forms: multipart/form-data
    • 6.3.21 RFC 2376 XML Media Types
    • 6.3.22 RFC 1556 Handling of Bi-directional Texts in MIME
    • 6.3.23 RFC 1524 User Agent Configuration Mechanism For Multimedia Mail Format Information
    • 6.3.24 RFC 1896 MIME text/enriched content-type
    • 6.3.25 RFC 1428 Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8bit-SMTP/MIME
    • 6.3.26 RFC 1740 MIME Encapsulation of Macintosh Files (MacMIME)
    • 6.3.27 RFC 1741 MIME Content Type for BinHex Encoded Files
    • 6.3.28 RFC 1767 MIME Encapsulation of EDI Objects
    • 6.3.29 RFC 1844 Multimedia E-mail (MIME) User Agent Checklist
    • 6.3.3 RFC 1153 Digest message format
    • 6.3.30 RFC 1864 Content-MD5 Header Field
    • 6.3.31 RFC 2077 The Model Primary Content Type for MIME
    • 6.3.32 RFC 3023 XML Media Types
    • 6.3.4 RFC 1505 Encoding Header Field for Internet Messages
    • 6.3.5 RFC 1049 Content-type header field for Internet messages
    • 6.3.6 RFC 2045 MIME Part 1: Format of Internet Message Bodies
    • 6.3.7 RFC 2046 MIME Part 2: Media Types
    • 6.3.8 RFC 2047 MIME Part 3: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text
    • 6.3.9 RFC 2048 MIME Part 4: Registration Procedures