Jira outgoing mail queue blocked due to "Got bad greeting from SMTP host" error
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Summary
Jira administrators see many emails stuck in mail queue:
Some emails ended in the Error queue and some are queued to be sent and eventually, they end up in the error queue as well.
Environment
Jira 9.x
Diagnosis
Looking in the atlassian-jira-outgoing-mail.log file, we see this specific error filing the logs - response code 554, error "Got bad greeting from SMTP host:
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2024-05-24 16:12:31,583+0200 ERROR [] Sending mailitem PostprocessingMailQueueItem{delegate=To='admin@test.com' Subject='Updates for TEST-1234: Test Execution' From='null' FromName='Test user' Cc='null' Bcc='null' ReplyTo='null' InReplyTo='<JIRA.1769964.0239238890@Atlassian.JIRA>' MimeType='text/html' Encoding='UTF-8' Multipart='javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart@2442e4a6' MessageId='null' ExcludeSubjectPrefix=false'} anonymous Mail Queue Service [c.a.mail.queue.MailQueueImpl] Error occurred in sending e-mail: PostprocessingMailQueueItem{delegate=To='admin@test.com' Subject='Updates for TEST-1234: Test Execution' From='null' FromName='Test user' Cc='null' Bcc='null' ReplyTo='null' InReplyTo='<JIRA.1769964.0239238890@Atlassian.JIRA>' MimeType='text/html' Encoding='UTF-8' Multipart='javax.mail.internet.MimeMultipart@2442e4a6' MessageId='null' ExcludeSubjectPrefix=false'}
com.atlassian.mail.MailException: javax.mail.MessagingException: Got bad greeting from SMTP host: jira.maileserver.test, port: 25, response: 554 jira.mailserver.testCause
The error means the SMTP host did receive message request from Jira, but refuses to take over and send the message. Usually, this means Jira application is not whitelisted on the mail server end and it is not authorized to hand over messages to the mail server.
Solution
Reach out to your mail server admin and show them the logged error. They will need to whitelist the Jira application or take any other appropriate measures to make sure Jira can properly communicate to and hand over messages to the mail server.
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