Emails are not sending (Desktop)
When emails are not being sent, there are a few simple steps you can take to troubleshoot the issue. Various factors can cause email disruptions, but don't worry—everything is explained clearly and is easy to follow in this article. If you still encounter issues after following the steps, you can always contact support for assistance.
1. Chilkat has stopped working
Chilkat is a Windows service that Visual Matrix uses to send email and text messages.
Please note that emails are not sent from a central server but from each individual computer. This means that email functionality may vary from one computer to another. Therefore, the following troubleshooting steps may need to be performed on every computer used to send VM emails at the hotel.
From the Windows search tool, Open Services.
Search for Chilkat SMTPQ.
- If it is not running, click Start in the left column.
- If it is running, click Restart in the left column.
Check the email queue seen above, it should either be empty or getting empty.
2. Check how many emails are stuck and when the issue started
Open File Explorer and copy and paste this path: C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\SmtpQ\queue
This will show you the folder from which emails are being sent.
Once you followed the next steps, the folder should empty, although it might take a couple of minutes if there are a lot of emails stuck.
3. You may need to empty the email queue
If there are too many emails pending in the queue to be sent, Chilkatt may not restart being overloaded.
You can always delete some old emails if the engine has not been running for a long time (days, weeks, months), you may not want to send an email that has been stuck for 2 weeks.
Sometimes, emails still in the folder may stay stuck. You can also delete everything and do a new test email.
Select all the files and right click. Click on Delete.
Then go back to the Services and try again to restart Chilkatt (see previous step).
If emails are still not sent, open a ticket with our Client Experience Team at help.visualmatrix.com .
4. Check if the email settings are saving... or not
Go to Management > Admin > Email/Fax > Email Setup and click Save.
If you encounter an error message, then there is an issue with your email settings (password, security). Make sure you respect any security protocol from your email provider (like Gmail) and from Visual Matrix.
If it is saving, then lets continue to the next step.
Please note that free email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, and others are not officially supported by Visual Matrix. Use of these services is at your own risk. Visual Matrix technicians will not troubleshoot or setup your email provider settings. We do advise you to work with your email provider technical support (Gmail, Outlook/Microsoft/Azure, ...) for that matter.
5. Did you change the password of your email?
If you changed the password to your email via your email account portal, you will need to update it in Visual Matrix.
Go to Management > Admin > Email/Fax > Email Setup.
Update your password and click Save.
If it is not saving, something else may have changed with your email provider.
Some email providers have security settings that need to be disabled, enabled, or bypassed by specific passwords generated by them.
Usernames and passwords are stored along with sent emails. If a user was experiencing an authentication issue and you resolved it, the emails that were queued during the problem will still not be sent. Since they were attempted with the wrong password, they are undeliverable. You will need to empty the queue. Check steps #2 and #3 above for more information.
6. Make sure the email used in the settings is set up in your hotel's General Information
The email you are using to send from Visual Matrix has to be saved in the general settings.
Got to Management > Setup > Property > General > General Information.
7. Finally, a last step is to check the "Registry"
The Windows Registry is a database that stores low-level settings for the operating system and applications.
In the registry, we will focus on the SMTPQ settings, which are directories used to queue outgoing emails for sending via the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
From the windows search bar, type "regedit" and open the registry editor.
- Go to the following file path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Chillkat Software, Inc.\SmtpQ
- Look at the registry key for "LogDir", "QueueDir", "SentDir", and "UndelivDir". Make sure the URLs entered are as shows below (check for double slashes "\\"):
- LogDir: C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\SmtpQ\log
- QueueDir: C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\SmtpQ\queue
- SentDir: C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\SmtpQ\sent
- UndelivDir: C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\SmtpQ\undeliverable
For example: "C:\ImageTech\VisualMatrix\\SmtpQ\log". Remove one of the slashes: "C:\ImageTech\Visualmatrix\SmtpQ\log".Once updated, make sure you restart the service as shown in step #1.
You can also check the following...
Check the Language setting on the reservation for which the user is trying to print a confirmation letter. If the language is set to anything other than English, ensure that a corresponding letter is set up in Management -> Setup -> Letters.
Verify the Confirmation Delivery setting. Is it set to mail (prints the letter) or email? If the user is attempting to email a registration card/confirmation letter to a guest who is already checked out and the letter was originally set to "mail" or "walk-in" (printed card), the setting cannot be retroactively changed to "email." Changing a "mail" setting for a checked-out guest to "email" will not work; the system will continue to print the letter.
Require assistance with that article?
- One pc or all pcs are having this problem?
- Only one specific reservation or all reservations?
- All form types or only confirmation letters?
- Do you know if your email settings have been verified and save in your system?
- Do you get an error?
- When you test an email, does the sent email show in your Email Account’s Sent folder?
Providing responses to the following questions in your ticket could expedite your resolution.
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