xp_sendmail hangs

xp_sendmail has started hanging. When I hit the 'test' button on SQL Mail or issue an xp_sendmail it just hangs until I cancel it.

It's not the security path that I read about on the Internet and I've restart the SQL Service and still the same problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

what is your sql server version? e.g Service Pack?

if you can, use smtp-mail.

Check outhttp://www.sqldev.net/xp/xpsmtp.htm

Unfortunately, there are not any errors in the log. Some information I found on the Internet says that Outlook will wait for a response to message. We will not see this message because it happens on the virtual server. They said the solution is to stop and restart the sql service. I did that and it did not work.

This suddenly started happening. It was working fine.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

quote:Originally posted by LuisMartin

What about errors in log and event viewer?

Luis Martin
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I just check the version and it's Enterprise Edition RTM.

Isn't RTM the original version without any service packs?????

Thanks.

quote:Originally posted by satya

Such issues are cleared in service pack and hotfix releases, so check the levels of SP as referred above.

Satya SKJ
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Contributing Editor & Forums Moderator
http://www.SQL-Server-Performance.Com
This posting is provided �AS IS� with no rights for the sake of knowledge sharing.

It turns out that when there is a communication failure Outlook sticks waiting for a response from a user. Unfortunately this happens on the virtual server so a human would never see it therefore SQL Mail hangs waiting for Outlook.

What solved this was stopping and restarting the service for Outlook. Once I did that, it started working again.

quote:Originally posted by satya

Oh yes it is a basic edition and I hope you are talking about SQL 2000 and not 2005?

Satya SKJ
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Contributing Editor & Forums Moderator
http://www.SQL-Server-Performance.Com
This posting is provided �AS IS� with no rights for the sake of knowledge sharing.

Restarting Outlook or restarting the SQL Server service will temporarily resolve the problem, however don't be surprised if it occurs again. In our environment, which is primarily SQL Server 2000 SE with SP3a, the problem occurs too frequently. It's never happened on a 2000 EE server, only SQL 7 and 2000 SE. For us the SQL job executing xp_sendmail will hang. I've noticed the problem occurs when either a Domain Controller or an Exchange server is rebooted. It's occured on Windows 2000 and 2003 servers along with Outlook 2000 and 2003.

Good luck,

Dave

DBADave, that's what happened here as well. We had a DNS failure and problems with Exchange.

This specific server is SQL Server 2000 EE on a Win Server 2003. This is the first time this has happened. This is the monitoring server and the only one using SQL Mail so I haven't had it happened on any of the other servers which are a collection of SQL Server 2000 EE, SE and Developer editions.

quote:Originally posted by DBADave

Restarting Outlook or restarting the SQL Server service will temporarily resolve the problem, however don't be surprised if it occurs again. In our environment, which is primarily SQL Server 2000 SE with SP3a, the problem occurs too frequently. It's never happened on a 2000 EE server, only SQL 7 and 2000 SE. For us the SQL job executing xp_sendmail will hang. I've noticed the problem occurs when either a Domain Controller or an Exchange server is rebooted. It's occured on Windows 2000 and 2003 servers along with Outlook 2000 and 2003.

Good luck,

Dave