We have a lot of customers that email us saying "I tried using MAILTOOL and I got a message saying the email was sent, but I never received it" or "I received an error when trying to send an email using MAILTOOL."

In order to make sure we can provide support, please follow these instructions to provide as much detail as possible.

If you're using just the base MAILTOOL product (you are if the SENDWITH parameter is *IBMSMTP) then you need to make sure the IBM SMTP server is set up and working.  You can see some information on how to set it up in the MAILTOOL FAQ under the heading "Where can I find information on setting up my AS/400 as a mail server so that I can use the MAILTOOL command?".

If you use MAILTOOL Plus (which you are if you are specifying SENDWITH(*MAILTOOL) ), which is recommended and totally bypasses the IBM SMTP server, you need to make sure to specify the following parameters:

SENDWITH(*MAILTOOL)
MAILRTR(xx.xx.xx.xx)
USERTR(*ONLY)

Replace "xx.xx.xx.xx" with your mail router for your organization.  This should be a host name that resolves to the IP address of your mail router.  Yes, you can use an IP address, but it's preferred to use a host name.  See this article for more information on this topic.If this still fails and you are up to date on versions, a trace file, debug file and other items will automatically be created in the IFS. 

If an error occurs, a trace file in the IFS named /tmp/mailtoolsmtp_xxxxx.txt where xxxx is a sequential and unique email ID.  (Note: if you are up to date on versions this file will be created automatically.) 

If you are behind in versions and don't see the trace file, then run the command again using MAILTOOL Plus and add the following parameter:

DEBUG(*YES)

Email this trace file to bvstone@bvstools.com along with the job log in text or PDF format including the MAILTOOL command that was run, and I'll be happy to help out from there.

You can also see this article for information on providing effective information for support.