AlephMail Error - Unable to connect to server / Wrong "To" address

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 19.01

Description:
We are in the process of upgrading all our pcs to Office 2007. On all pcs that have had this done, any email generated from Aleph (e.g., when a hold is returned, or just from the email button on the Global patron tab) gives an error "AlephMail Error - Unable to connect to server".
On another occasion it gave an error 'Wrong “To” Address'.

Resolution:
Problem fixed by v.20 rep_change 2572.

[Old answer:]

The "Wrong TO address" error message when sending e-mail from the Global patron tab has been found probably not to be caused by over-vigilant virus checking after all. What seems to be happening is that the TO address is being truncated, though by varying amounts. This is happening on PCs where the virus protection mass-mailing block is turned off.

We have discovered this because sometimes emails are (apparently) being sent from Aleph, but then getting rejected (and bounced back to sender) by the University email system, with a 550 Host unknown SMTP error, because the To address has been chopped off. This is somewhat different from the "Wrong TO address" error which doesn't attempt to send the message, but it's quite a coincidence if there are two different faults in "To" addresses that have suddenly appeared.

Thus we have one example where the address was cut off after 21 characters, so instead of christine.smith@ncl.ac.uk the address went in as "christine.smith@ncl.a". I saw this one being sent so I know the staff member merely clicked on the email icon in the global patron record in the usual way; the patron's full email address WAS displayed in the box.

Another one was cut off after 20 characters, at s.e.johnson@ncl.ac.u, and another after just 16 characters.

On the other hand, my 'normal' address daphne.johnshill@ncl.ac.uk (26 chars) works fine, but if I put in the official 'full' address of daphne.johnshill@newcastle.ac.uk (31 chars), I get the "Wrong TO address" error message.