Issue
If an email is listed in the Outbox for an unusual amount of time (the exact amount of time varies by instance and configuration), there may be an issue with a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Sender scheduled job. SMTP Sender scheduled jobs determine when a duplicate email notification is going to be sent. Once an action or business rule is triggered, emails are placed in the Outbox. All emails remain in the State of Ready until they are processed.
Procedure
To check if the email is stuck in the Outbox:
- Navigate to System Mailboxes > Outbound > Outbox.
The Outbox should be empty or contain messages less than a few minutes old.
- Click Emails [Outbox view] and choose Refresh List.
If the same email messages are listed in the Outbox, verify that the SMTP Sender job is running.
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Verify at least one SMTP Sender job is running. See the procedure below.
To verify that the SMTP Sender scheduled job is running:
- Navigate to System Scheduler > Today's Scheduled Jobs.
- In the Go to field, select Name and search for *SMTP Sender.
- In the corresponding result set, look at the Next Action field. When email notifications function properly, the value of this field, which indicates the next time the job runs, is not more than a few minutes from the time you opened the record.
- If it is more than a few minutes, look at the State field and take the corresponding action based on these conditions:
- Error or Queued: If the State of the SMTP Sender jobs is set to either of these, select the fields and change them to Ready.
- Ready or Running: If the value of the Next action field is more than a few minutes from the time you opened the record, open an incident in Hi and include the Next action value.
- Right-click the form header and choose Refresh List.
The Next action field value should update. If the value is unchanged, open an incident ticket and include the value.
Video Tutorial
ServiceNow video tutorials are a great way to help find solutions. These video tutorials guide you, step-by-step, to a solution and provide common troubleshooting methods. This tutorial covers common issues, their causes, and the required steps to resolve them.
