Re: Problems with new smtpmail

["Óscar Fuentes" <ofv@wanadoo.es>]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

[snip]

>> but sending mail fails with this:
>>
>> smtpmail-send-it: Sending failed: Server supports STARTTLS, but Emacs
>> does not have support for it
>>
>> Emacs worked fine for sending mail through that smtp server for
>> years. Now it seems that something is missing. What's the problem?
>
> So your server announces that it supports STARTTLS, but doesn't require
> it? 

Dunno. In any case, if the server announces that it supports STARTTLS,
it is no reason for bailing out. Support for STARTTLS does not mean that
other authentication methods are unsupported. At least this server works
fine with user/pass auth.

And STARTTLS is not supported by Emacs (generic) or there was something
missing at configure time that makes *my* Emacs to lack STARTTLS? From
reading NEWS again, it may seem that STARTTLS is supported but not
properly configured on my setup (missing smtpmail-starttls-credentials,
perhaps?) If that's the case, the error message is misleading. Saying
something like "STARTTLS is not properly configured, see
smtpmail-starttls-credentials variable" would be more helpful.

BTW, smtpmail-starttls-credentials is not recognized by C-h v.

>> In any case, I find the information about the smtpmail change in NEWS
>> very sparse. Please note that most people is not an expert on mail
>> protocols and configured Emacs following recipes, possibly long time
>> ago. It is desirable to provide thorough documentation for updating the
>> most usual configurations to the new requirements.
>
> You shouldn't need to know anything about SMTP, or edit any files, or
> set any variables by hand.  smtpmail.el is meant to handle all that by
> querying you for the stuff that it wants to know.

That's fine if you start from a clean setup, but my short experience
demonstrates that if you have previous settings, one ends confused.

Maybe NEWS should suggest to remove all smtpmail settings from the
configuration files and let the package DTRT?