Moodle New User Email Confirmation Error - Tried to send you an email but failed

Question

Whenever a new user tries to create a new account, they get this message

Tried to send you an email but failed!

• I tried setting up an email and using the smtp settings in Site Administration -> Message output -> Email and that did not work.
• I called my Host company (inmotion hosting) and they verified that my settings were correct.
• I tried just leaving the settings blank in email so that the phpmailer would send the emails, but that is not working and I still get the same message.
• I have searched all overand I cannot find any helpful information on why this is happening, but I find A LOT of people who are having this issue.

This has turned into a MAJOR show stopper and I am wondering what avenues I have to troubleshoot this. Does anyone have any information on how this is fixed?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It might be missing a "from" email - have you got a support email set up?

/admin/settings.php?section=supportcontact

Or go to Site Administration > Server -> Support contact

Answer 2

I've had a similar issue. It works fine for the first three users created (in quick succession) but then fails for a few minutes. Enabling debugging (Site Admin -> Development -> Debugging page) showed that this was due to timeouts:

Debug info: 
Error code: auth_emailnoemail
Stack trace:
line 463 of /lib/setuplib.php: moodle_exception thrown
line 106 of /auth/email/auth.php: call to print_error()
line 70 of /login/signup.php: call to auth_plugin_email->user_signup()
Output buffer: profile_field_PC<pre> SMTP -> ERROR: Failed to connect to server: Connection timed out (110)SMTP connect() failed. </pre>

This appears to be an anti-spam "feature" of the Amazon SES service we were using, which we will need to get around.

Answer 3

I know this is an old post but I will add my solution and give many thanks to Russell for that part of it. This site had been moved over to Bluehost and come to discover that client did not set up an email account for Admin User - so in addition to checking that there is an email in the Admin settings, also verify that that email address exists and is reachable!