Cannot Send Email after SUPEE-6285

[jkossoff]

Hello all,

I am running Magento 1.9.1.1, and have updated my installation with the SUPEE-6285 v2 patch.  Since the SUPEE-6285 v1 patch last week, our customers have been notifying us that they are not receiving their order receipts.

Inspection of the Magento exception.log shows the following errors, repeated every minute (as is should be, by the cron setup):

2015-07-14T16:23:02+00:00 ERR (3):
exception 'Zend_Mail_Transport_Exception' with message 'Unable to send mail. ' in .../lib/Zend/Mail/Transport/Sendmail.php:137
Stack trace:
#0 .../lib/Zend/Mail/Transport/Abstract.php(348): Zend_Mail_Transport_Sendmail->_sendMail()
#1 .../lib/Zend/Mail.php(1194): Zend_Mail_Transport_Abstract->send(Object(Zend_Mail))
#2 .../app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Queue.php(241): Zend_Mail->send()
#3 [internal function]: Mage_Core_Model_Email_Queue->send(Object(Mage_Cron_Model_Schedule))
#4 .../app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php(325): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#5 .../app/code/core/Mage/Cron/Model/Observer.php(72): Mage_Cron_Model_Observer->_processJob(Object(Mage_Cron_Model_Schedule), Object(Mage_Core_Model_Config_Element))
#6 .../app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/App.php(1338): Mage_Cron_Model_Observer->dispatch(Object(Varien_Event_Observer))
#7 .../app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/App.php(1317): Mage_Core_Model_App->_callObserverMethod(Object(Mage_Cron_Model_Observer), 'dispatch', Object(Varien_Event_Observer))
#8 .../app/Mage.php(448): Mage_Core_Model_App->dispatchEvent('default', Array)
#9 .../cron.php(76): Mage::dispatchEvent('default')
#10 {main}

Searching the internet, every result seems to blame a bad postfix/dovecot setup.  However, we were not having this issue before last week, and our email configuration has not changed in that time.  Additionally, the server's maillog file has a corresponding error:

Jul 14 16:24:01 air postfix/sendmail[7043]: fatal: root(0): No recipient addresses found in message header
Jul 14 16:24:01 air postfix/postdrop[7044]: warning: stdin: unexpected EOF in data, record type 78 length 200
Jul 14 16:24:01 air postfix/postdrop[7044]: fatal: uid=0: malformed input

This seems to further support the theory that it is not the email setup that is incorrect, but something that has changed in Magento.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, or can offer me advice on where to go from here?  Thank you!

[jkossoff · Accepted solution]

So this turned out to be coincidental with the release of the SUPEE-6285 patch.  They were not related.

At some point, an email was recorded in Magento's queue table without a recipient email address.  A quick search of the customers to find the address and inserting it into the blank field allowed the system to start sending out emails again.

[Jonathon Harris]

We're running into the same error / issue you noted - I was hoping to ask how you scanned for a possible missing email address? I can see the new order emails in the databse stuck in the queue starting mid-July. I've looked through the Magento orders in the admin for order numbers before and after that date, and all seem to have email addresses entered.

Thanks for your help.

[jkossoff]

The blank email address was found in the core_email_queue_recipients table.  Good luck!

[Jonathon Harris]

Thanks for getting back to me - I checked that table and all email addresses are accounted for and look like they're formatted correctly.

Magento is like the mystery meat of the ecommerce world sometimes...