Meaning of the errors that occur when creating Redmine issues by email, and what to do

Created on 2012-06-04 • MAEDA Go

When an error occurs in the feature that creates an issue from an email sent to a specific address, the error is returned by email.

The following is an example of the email. The error message returned by Redmine is inserted in the error email.

This is the mail system at host redmine.example.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to
one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own
text from the attached returned message.

                   The mail system

<redmine@redmine.example.com>: permission denied. Command
    output: Request was denied by your Redmine server. Possible reasons:
email
    is sent from an invalid email address or is missing some information.

Error messages and possible causes

Request was denied by your Redmine server. Make sure that 'WS for incoming emails' is enabled in application settings and that you provided the correct API key.

The setting "Enable WS for incoming emails" is not enabled, or the API key is wrong.

Open the "Incoming emails" tab on the "Administration" → "Settings" page and check that "Enable WS for incoming emails" is enabled.
Check that the API key used in the settings for creating issues by email is the same as the API key registered on the "Incoming emails" tab.

Request was denied by your Redmine server. Possible reasons: email is sent from an invalid email address or is missing some information.

The email tried to create an issue from an email address that Redmine cannot accept, or the information required to create an issue is missing.

Check that the From email address is not one of the following.
- An email address that is not registered in Redmine
- The email address of a locked user
- The email address of a user who has no permission to create issues in the specified project
- The email address set in "Administration" → "Settings" → "Email notifications" → "Emission email address" of Redmine
Check that the keywords required to create an issue are not missing in the body of the email.
- Is the project keyword missing? (when you do not specify the --project option of rdm-mailhandler.rb)
- Are the standard fields and custom fields that are set as required missing?
- Is the name of a custom field wrong?

If you check logs/production.log in the Redmine installation directory, the cause of the error may be recorded as follows.

MailHandler: Validation failed: Assignee cannot be blank, Category cannot be blank, Due date cannot be blank

Reference

Keywords that you can use when creating Redmine issues by email

Request was denied by your Redmine server (4xx).

A problem other than the above occurred. This error message appears when rdm-mailhandler.rb accessed the Redmine URL specified with the --url option and an HTTP error code in the 400 range was returned (access was denied).

Please check logs/production.log in the Redmine installation directory.

Failed to contact your Redmine server (5xx).

An error occurred inside Redmine during processing. This error message appears when rdm-mailhandler.rb accessed the Redmine URL specified with the --url option and an HTTP error code in the 500 range was returned (an internal error occurred). Redmine may not be working correctly.

Please check logs/production.log in the Redmine installation directory.