Frequently Asked Questions

A common cause of this error is usually due to a router or firewall preventing incoming connections (the incoming mail). If this is the case then read the next question below. To receive incoming mail, you need to ensure that your domain's MX records are configured correctly. For example, code-crafters.com is our email domain and mail.code-crafters.com is the host address of the computer which receives our incoming mail. To ensure the correct computer receives the mail, we have placed mail.code-crafters.com at the top of our MX record list and have given it the lowest value priority level (the lowest value entry is used first). It is then also important that port 25 on the computer running Ability Mail Server is open and accessible from the Internet. This can be tested by asking a friend to telnet port 25 on your computer from another computer on the Internet (they should type "Ability Mail Server" into an MS-DOS prompt or Command Console). This will cause their computer to connect directly to the incoming mail part of the software and they should see some kind of welcome message. If they do not receive any response, it is likely that your ISP is blocking port 25. Read more.

For more information on this, please view the Setting Up Your Hardware page.

Outgoing Mail is probably the most complex part of Ability Mail Server and often leads to problems. However, there are two ways provided by Ability Mail Server which help determine the source of the problem. The first option is to run the system diagnostics (available in Tools). If this doesn't turn up any results then you can look at the logs (files named 'smtp' or 'outmail'). Usually when there is a serious problem it gets listed in the log. If you are still unable to highlight the problem, you should check the settings of your mail client.

Usually the most common cause of this is that you have not correctly configured your mail client. If you have enabled SMTP Authentication on the mail server, your mail client should be set to log in to the outgoing mail server. Also, check that the host or IP address entered into the client is correct.

For more information on this, please view the Editing WebMail Templates page.

There are two methods and both should ensure your current settings, accounts and stored mails remain intact. The methods are:

1. If you have purchased a license key, you can simply select the 'Update' button on the 'Help' dialog.
2. If you have not yet purchased Ability Mail Server, then you will need to re-download and then reinstall the application. Before you perform the reinstallation, you will need to close Ability Mail Server.

Please note that updating or reinstallation will overwrite important installation files. This also includes the default WebMail and Remote Admin files. We strongly recommend making a backup of the Ability Mail Server install folder before updating.

MX records are a bit like sign posts, giving directions for incoming mails to the computer which is designated to receive them. When you send a mail from your computer, it is usually sent to an outgoing SMTP (e.g. Ability Mail Server) which is then responsible for deciding where to send the mail. It makes this decision based on the MX records for that mail’s domain (the domain is the part after the @ symbol in the email address). The MX records are stored on the domain’s DNS and come in the form of a table of hosts and their priority levels. The entry in the list with the lowest priority value is used first, and upon failure, the next entry is used (in the order of lowest value priority to the highest). All domains need at least one entry to ensure email will work correctly. This should be the host or IP address of the computer running the mail server for that domain.

The first and most important thing you need to understand is how MX records work (please view the above question). The concept of a backup mail service is that one computer is the primary receiver of incoming mail and one or more other computers are backup receivers, which on receiving an email will attempt to forward it onto the primary server. If the primary server is off-line, a backup mail server should then hold all incoming mails for a given period, during which it should keep trying to forward the mails on.

To set up Ability Mail Server to act as a backup, you will need to create a new domain, which should be configured as a backup domain. You then need to create a static route for this domain. The static route should be set to relay mode and should direct the flow of mail back to the primary server. It is also recommended that you configure the static route to hold the mail for longer periods by setting a longer queue life. This ensures that the primary server has sufficient time to get back online.

Once Ability Mail Server is configured correctly, you can then specify the host / IP address as an additional (higher value priority) entry in the MX records for that domain. This will then ensure that if the primary server goes down, the backup server will then begin receiving the mails for that domain.

This is a common problem for home DSL users who run their own mail server. Usually the reason for this is that these mail servers believe you are a SPAM threat and blocks your mail. This is usually determined by your IP address being a dynamically allocated IP and there is usually only one option for getting around it. If you have access to another SMTP (your ISP usually provides one), you can reroute all related mail via that. It is less likely that these mail servers would block your ISP and so this makes an invisible fix to the problem. Rerouting can be set up by creating a static route for these domains in the Outgoing Mail service. This static route should be configured to run in relay mode.

The easiest method of getting this information is by contacting your ISP and asking them. However, if this isn't preferred then you can attempt to extract the information from your computer.

It depends on how your network is set up at home. If you are using ICS or a proxy to share the Internet connection amongst multiple computers, and Ability Mail Server is located on another computer without direct access to the Internet, then you need to retrieve the information from the computer which is sharing the Internet connection. If Ability Mail Server is running directly on the computer with the Internet connection, then you are fine to get the information from that computer directly. To retrieve the DNS information:

1. Open a Command Console (Run: cmd).
2. Type "ipconfig/all" and hit the ENTER key.
3. Scroll up or down the list of network devices and locate your Internet network device.
4. You should be able to view the 'DNS Servers'. The IPs listed here are your Internet provider's DNS servers.

This is a common problem that some of our customers experience, what to do depends on which ports are being blocked. If ports 110 (POP3), 143 (IMAP4), 389 (LDAP) or 8000 (WebMail) are being blocked then it is a simple matter of changing the port value and informing your users to use that port instead. However, if your ISP is blocking port 25 and you intend to receive mail from the Internet, you have a much bigger problem. SMTP must have port 25 and cannot just be changed. However, a company called No-IP have a ‘port redirection’ solution to this which allows you to change the port. For more information on the No-IP service, please visit the No-IP site.

For an antivirus product to work with the Antivirus Filtering service, it needs to support command line scanning. Ability Mail Server can also scan the raw email data before scanning each of the constituent parts. Therefore, SMTP Gateway and corporate antivirus products with SMTP and MIME scanning intelligence are the most effective products to use. Please contact your antivirus vendor for more details.

The reason for this is that Ability Mail Server permits users to login into a service using just the user and the password (with no mention of the domain). If the same username and password pair existed on another domain, the mail server would have no way to know which was the correct account being logged into. However, you can configure the mail server to only allow login with the full email address, which will then allow the same username and password pairs to exist multiple times. This option can be found in the General settings under the Advanced tab.

If you are not running Ability Mail Server as an NT Service then this is very simple. It can be achieved by specifying the shared folder in the same place where you would normally specify a local directory path. However, the shared folder cannot be accessed via a mapped drive so you must use the full path name (e.g. \\pc1\shared).

If you are running the software as an NT Service then the procedure is the same as above but with an additional step. By default the NT Service runs under a default account which has no access permissions to shared folders on other computers. To gain this permission you will need to change the account which the NT Service runs under. This can be done by entering the Administrative Tools and then opening the Services option dialog. Once opened, you can adjust the properties of the 'Ability Mail Server 3' service and set a different account. For the changes to take effect you must restart the Ability Mail Server NT Service. Please note that the only problem with changing the account is that you will no longer have the system tray icon for Ability Mail Server when running the NT Service. This means that all administration must be done via the Remote Admin interface or by switching back to application mode.

The reason for this is that each Bayesian Filter will adapt to the type of SPAM which that particular mail server receives. This means that pre-training a filter is impossible as it will only result in inaccurate detection. Also, a pre-trained filter would mean that almost all installations of Ability Mail Server would be protected by the same filter, and so making it easier for spammers to adopt their mail to appear as non-SPAM.

The easiest way in which to achieve this is to import the users using the CSV format. Most mail servers or databases have facilities which enable you to export data into CSV format. If your old mail server supports this then simply export the required information (email address, password etc.) into a CSV file. Then in the tools area of the settings, you will see the option to 'Import CSV'. This tool will read the CSV file and create the required domains and users.

The most common cause of this problem is that the truncated mails are using bare LFs for line breaks. Since most SMTP systems do not permit this, offending mails usually get truncated after about 1KB (this is a line limit enforced on many SMTP systems). This problem is particularly common with web scripts which generate HTML mails. If the truncation is occurring within Ability Mail Server, then there is an SMTP option available which should prevent this. Simply access the SMTP security settings and enable the option 'Convert Bare LFs into CRLF Pairs During Mail Transfer'. If any mail should then use bare LFs, they will be converted into the more correct CRLF pairs, and so avoiding any SMTP line limits.

This can be caused by a variety of reasons and usually can be solved by adjusting the WebMail settings. The first item to check is that the session time out value isn't too low, we recommend a minimum of 30 minutes. Also, it is possible that the user's IP is changing between requests, and so triggering a session security mechanism. This is particularly common with users behind proxies (such as AOL users) whos requests can get routed via different servers.

Since Ability Mail Server only installs files onto your hard drive and the Start menu, the transfer process is best achieved by simply moving the installation folder. The following steps provide the safest approach:

1. Setup the new server computer.
2. Install Ability Mail Server on the new server computer.
3. Ensure both computers are not running Ability Mail Server.
4. Copy the installation folder (usually C:\Code Crafters\Ability Mail Server 5\) onto the new computer, overwriting the new installation just performed in step 2.
5. Run Ability Mail Server on the new computer.
6. If you were operating in NT service mode, you will need to re-enable the option in General settings

The most common cause for this is the Transaction Delays SPAM Filter which causes SMTP transaction delays in order to evade impatient SPAM clients which will often timeout after a short delay. This can be quite a harsh security measure and it is often necessary to disable or shortened this delay for busy servers. Another cause for an initial SMTP delay is that you are attempting to use the RBLs service named 'ORDB'. In January 2007, this RBL went offline and any installation which still attempts to access this database can cause new SMTP connections to delay for up to 30 seconds before responding. In version 2.58 we automatically disabled this RBL but this can also be manually achieved by simply accessing the SPAM Filtering settings and removing the ORDB entry from the list of RBLs.

Ability Mail Server supports Windows 2016, 2012, 2008, 2003, 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and XP.

Ability Mail Server WebMail supports the latest Windows versions of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Further testing is required to confirm browser compatibility on other devices.

You can uninstall Ability Mail Server by either using the Windows "Uninstall a program" feature or by executing the Ability Mail Server uninstaller located at "C:\Code Crafters\Ability Mail Server 4\unins000.exe" or whichever folder you chose to install your Ability Mail Server to. Note that this will uninstall the software but will leave some configuration and log folders in case you want to re-install again in the future. If you want to completely remove all Ability Mail Server files then please also delete the entire "C:\Code Crafters\Ability Mail Server 4" or other chosen installation folder after using the uninstaller.