[SOLVED] SMTP setup failing, but talking?

I really feel like an idiot today. I’ve been running PHPList on my own servers for years and now have one account that I can’t get to work at all. I’m now trying to use SMTP - which I’ve used successfully in the past - and I get dropped before for the message sends. With debug set to 4, here’s what I’m getting when I try to send a test message.

It certainly appears to be talking to my SMTP server (on Directadmin) but I cannot find any errors in any log files - just this debug outlet.

I’m ready to throw myself into the river…

Any ideas?

I’m running PHPList 3.3.3

Connection: opening to sys3.myserver.com:25, timeout=5, options=array ()
Connection: opened
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is ""
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "220 sys3.myserver.com ESMTP Exim 4.91 Fri, 25 May 2018 12:52:10 -0500"
SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 sys3.myserver.com ESMTP Exim 4.91 Fri, 25 May 2018 12:52:10 -0500
CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO myserver.com
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is ""
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-SIZE 52428800"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-8BITMIME"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800250-8BITMIME"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-PIPELINING"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800250-8BITMIME250-PIPELINING"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800250-8BITMIME250-PIPELINING250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250-STARTTLS"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is "250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800250-8BITMIME250-PIPELINING250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250-STARTTLS"
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "250 HELP"
SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-sys3.myserver.com Hello ea.a4.36a9.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com [169.54.164.234]250-SIZE 52428800250-8BITMIME250-PIPELINING250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250-STARTTLS250 HELP
CLIENT -> SERVER: STARTTLS
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is ""
SMTP -> get_lines(): $str is "220 TLS go ahead"
SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 TLS go ahead
SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host.
CLIENT -> SERVER: QUIT
SMTP -> get_lines(): $data is “”

@thewitt It looks like you are trying to connect on port 25 but phpmailer is automatically switching from non-tls to tls. Try disabling that by adding this to the config.php file
define('PHPMAILER_SECURE', false);

Brilliant! That fixed it. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend!