mail: cannot send message: process exited with a non-zero status

Question

I've had a cronjob working for about a fortnight without any problems. Then last night I checked I didn't get the email that I usually get. I went to the terminal to try send myself an email, I got the following error:

mail: cannot send message: process exited with a non-zero status

I haven't changed anything with my ssmtp cfg file. It just stopped working, when I check and recheck everything, the code, ssmtp, everything is perfect.

I send out my emails twice a day via cronjob. The crontab hasn't been interfered either. I really don't know why it would stop working.

The system sends out emails via gmail - I've gone into the gmail account and sent out test emails, they are sent and received without any problems.

Additionally I've checked throughout google, forums, websites I don't see any mistakes. This makes sense as everything was working fine 24 hours ago, and now it's just stopped.

Q: Is there any way of diagnosing and troubleshooting how to solve such a problem?

• webknjaz -- Слава Україні: 1) Have you tried running that cron command in your usual terminal to see the output? 2) Have you checked logs (usually in /var/log) 3) Have you checked that network ports used for mailing are not blocked on your Internet connection?
• 3kstc: Q1 Yes, I did. When I did it gave the error. Q2 Looked at the /var/log, couldn't see any problems Q3 I've tried sending mail, from home, from thethering with my cell phone, and also from work - each of them have different internet connection - and all resulted with the error in the title.
• webknjaz -- Слава Україні: What logs exactly did you check?
• 3kstc: var/log/sudo syslog - it looks fine.. seems everything is working like crock work and then it started working again, I can send emails out from the terminal now....
• webknjaz -- Слава Україні: /var/log/mail.log I guess

Answer 1

I have get the same problem in an Ubuntu 14.04 server. And I find error message in /var/log/mail.err, which said:

postfix/sendmail[27115]: fatal: open /etc/postfix/main.cf: No such file or directory

Then I just reconfigured postfix and solved this problem.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix

• Fernando: Could you tell us what reconfig option you selected?
• Bartosz Dabrowski: I selected server as "internet server" and domain as server domain all rest were first choice. This worked for me.
• bkwdesign: thanks for the hint: /var/log/mail.err - big help for newbie

Answer 2

Its mainly due to file size is very large, You can zip the file and resend them..

Answer 3

On Debian I got the error

mail: cannot send message: process exited with a non-zero status error 

and an exit code of

$ echo $?
$ 36

because the hostname in /etc/hostname and the name for 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts differed.

Answer 4

I don't know if it helps to anyone, but here is my experience. I configure ssmtp just to send emails from my Ubuntu 18.04 server.

What cause me the error was that gmail had "less secure apps off", this caused that google couldn't authenticate my server's certificate. Once enabled, I could start sending emails from the server. Hope it helps!

• Asitis: Thing to note for all future viewers; Less Secure Apps will be blocked/disabled permanently from 15 feb 2021.

Answer 5

sudo dpkg-reconfigure postfix

system mail name.

please read the log : vim /var/log/mail.err

ff@ubuntu:/var/log$ head -n 20 mail.err 
Sep 7 10:36:39 ubuntu sm-msp-queue[6302]: unable to qualify my own domain name 
(ubuntu) -- using short name
ff@ubuntu:/var/log$ 

• Jeff Schaller: Can you spell this out a bit more? It starts with roaima’s answer but I don’t understand the next three words.

Answer 6

I had the same error. I was using a gmail account to send emails. After checking my gmail I notice Google was sending to me Critical security alerts via email. I had to give permissions to unsecure apps in my Google account security section to make it works.

I'm using Docker and I have to implement the following in my Dockerfile too:

RUN echo "localhost localhost.localdomain" >> /etc/hosts

Answer 7

What caused me the error was that gmail had "less secure apps" set as "off", this caused google to be unable to authenticate my server's certificate. Once enabled, I could start sending emails from the server.

Go to your google account and search for "less secure apps" turn it on and test again! Worked like a charm from then on...

Answer 8

Sorry this is so simple, but fought this error for hours and nothing worked. But a simple uninstall and reinstall did.

I copied out my config files for reference and ran WARNING - the purge will delete your config files

sudo apt purge postfix

https://askubuntu.com/a/1371568

It reinstalled and ran without issue

• Community: As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.

Answer 9

The solution was on my Debian is run the mail command as root.

Login as root

sudo su

or send mail as root

echo "Test message" | sudo mail -s "Subject" [email protected]

• Matthew Sharp: Your second command runs echo as root, it does not send mail as root. Regardless, running something as root isn't really a solution, it just shows that you have permission issues somewhere.