Debugging emails sent with C#

Some time ago, I've written this post about sending parametrized emails with C#. After some time, the emails weren't arriving to their destination and I didn't know why that happened - there was no message and the program was out in production, so I didn't have an easy way to debug it.

Then, I went to the oracle that knows everything and asked "what is the easiest way to debug a C# program that sends emails in production?". The oracle answered: "go to this page and you will find the answers you are looking for". Once again, it was right.

Yes, the post pointed me to the easiest way to add debugging to your app that sends emails. There is not even the need to change the app. Just add a new clause to your app.config file and that's it. Your app will generate a log file with all the data sent and received. The clause to add is system.diagnostics and you should add the traces you want and send them to a listener:

<system.diagnostics>
  <trace autoflush="true" />
  <sources>
    <source name="System.Net" >
      <listeners>
        <add name="MyTraceFile"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
    <source name="System.Net.Sockets">
      <listeners>
        <add name="MyTraceFile"/>
      </listeners>
    </source>
  </sources>
  <sharedListeners>
    <add  name="MyTraceFile" type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener" 
          initializeData="System.Net.trace.log"   />
  </sharedListeners>
  <switches>
    <add name="System.Net" value="Verbose" />
    <add name="System.Net.Sockets" value="Verbose" />
  </switches>
</system.diagnostics>

The clause above will trace all calls to System.Net and System.Net.Sockets, with a Verbose level, to a file named System,Net.trace.log.

You can change the level of the tracing to something less verbose, but one note here: if you try to use the Info level, as stated here you will get an error. You should use the Information level. Using the number levels don't show an error, but don't generate a log either. So, you should use the named levels.

After that, I could see the logs and notice what has happened:

System.Net Error: 0 : [22720] Exception in SmtpClient#58328727::Send - The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at.
   at System.Net.Mail.MailCommand.CheckResponse(SmtpStatusCode statusCode, String response)
   at System.Net.Mail.MailCommand.Send(SmtpConnection conn, Byte[] command, MailAddress from, Boolean allowUnicode)
   at System.Net.Mail.SmtpTransport.SendMail(MailAddress sender, MailAddressCollection recipients, String deliveryNotify, Boolean allowUnicode, SmtpFailedRecipientException& exception)
   at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [22720] Entering Socket#24827179::Dispose()
System.Net Error: 0 : [22720] Exception in AppDomain#41560081::UnhandledExceptionHandler - The SMTP server requires a secure connection or the client was not authenticated. The server response was: 5.5.1 Authentication Required. Learn more at.
   at System.Net.Mail.MailCommand.CheckResponse(SmtpStatusCode statusCode, String response)
   at System.Net.Mail.MailCommand.Send(SmtpConnection conn, Byte[] command, MailAddress from, Boolean allowUnicode)
   at System.Net.Mail.SmtpTransport.SendMail(MailAddress sender, MailAddressCollection recipients, String deliveryNotify, Boolean allowUnicode, SmtpFailedRecipientException& exception)
   at System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.Send(MailMessage message)
   at HtmlEmail.Program.Main(String[] args) in D:\Documentos\Artigos\Artigos\CSharp\HtmlEmail\HtmlEmail\HtmlEmail\Program.cs:line 41

Just a change in the password!

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