Is there a trick to getting the email alerts to work?

I edited the settings of a currently running job to send me an alert to my phone so i could go and get some sleep…

But it doesnt seem to be doing anything.

Cant really find much on what i am supposed to specify for a smtp server

Q

Intel i7 920 with 6 gig Ram. 64 bit Win7. Max 2009 and Max 2011
Small 5 machine render farm of mixed machines.
More coffee please!  :-)

On our network, it works if I give it the IP address of the local Microsoft Exchange server, but only if the user specified in the “from” address has sufficient rights. If you don’t have a mail server on your network it might be more difficult.

Right so i just have a home office kind of set up. So no fancy mail servers.

Does anyone know if you have to have a mail server for this to work?

Q

Intel i7 920 with 6 gig Ram. 64 bit Win7. Max 2009 and Max 2011
Small 5 machine render farm of mixed machines.
More coffee please!  :-)

Yes you do have to have a mail server. However, SMTP servers are pretty simple and I’m sure you’d be able to find a freeware one you can run on whatever computer you’re using. Googling for “freeware SMTP” gives plenty of useful-looking links. The only problem might be whether your email provider will accept messages from your server.

Hmmm - interesting. I just tried by specifying the IP address of a mail server to which I have (a great deal of) access. Max certainly used the address and the to/from addresses I keyed in, problem is a) there’s no way to enter a (mail server) username an password (which are required for most smtp servers) and b) it used my PC name which of course isn’t a valid (correctly formatted) domain name.

Suitably “munged” to protect the innocent (i.e. me), the following is what was reported in the server logs.

So it really will try to use a normal smtp server, but with the lack of login details and incorrect responses to the HELO it’s never going to work.
It should work if you have a local server, though I’ve had fun trying to get similar things to work in the past. Woked if I used a proper email client, but trying to script an email (PHP) It failed.

You could try Mercury mail - http://www.pmail.com - I’ve had some success with that in that past, and it runs on windows ;)

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

so for the simple guy it might not be worth the trouble....

i have a server guy friend who hosts my mail. will see if he thinks i can use my server.

but like what you found out with no log on info..

doing the one handed typing with my boy on my lap hence my simplified answer

Q

Intel i7 920 with 6 gig Ram. 64 bit Win7. Max 2009 and Max 2011
Small 5 machine render farm of mixed machines.
More coffee please!  :-)

Yes you would think that a 2 year old could do more around the house… I mean come on…

Well i dont know the ins and outs of mail servers myself but i am currently working with my buddy who is a software developer and we are building a utility to allow the Max email alerts to work relatively easily on anyones computer.

Will see how it turns out.

So you use a third party mail server to do it? And i reading that correctly or you have your own private server?

Q

Intel i7 920 with 6 gig Ram. 64 bit Win7. Max 2009 and Max 2011
Small 5 machine render farm of mixed machines.
More coffee please!  :-)

So i think we have a working solution to let people use any server they want like their normal email server that they already have. I have tried it on my work server and now i will try it on my home email server as well.

Anyone want to donate to this cause? We might set it up as a cheap buy or a shareware type thing with donate option.

Q

Intel i7 920 with 6 gig Ram. 64 bit Win7. Max 2009 and Max 2011
Small 5 machine render farm of mixed machines.
More coffee please!  :-)

Has anyone actually tried running a simple freeware SMTP server on the same machine they’re using for 3ds Max? I’m sure I’ve had something like that running in the past and it really wasn’t difficult at all. Unfortunately I can’t try it here though.