Question

I’m trying to do java mail and im getting an error “Cant send command to SMTP host”. Any help would be appreciated. And any future problems’ solutions if possible.
The exact Exception is

javax.mail.MessagingException: Can't send command to SMTP host;
  nested exception is:
    java.net.SocketException: Connection closed by remote host
    at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendCommand(SMTPTransport.java:2106)
    at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendCommand(SMTPTransport.java:2093)
    at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.close(SMTPTransport.java:1184)
    at javax.mail.Transport.send0(Transport.java:197)
    at javax.mail.Transport.send(Transport.java:124)
    at TestEmail.main(TestEmail.java:45)
    at __SHELL17.run(__SHELL17.java:6)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at bluej.runtime.ExecServer$3.run(ExecServer.java:774)
Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Connection closed by remote host
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.checkWrite(SSLSocketImpl.java:1186)
    at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.AppOutputStream.write(AppOutputStream.java:43)
    at com.sun.mail.util.TraceOutputStream.write(TraceOutputStream.java:114)
    at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flushBuffer(BufferedOutputStream.java:65)
    at java.io.BufferedOutputStream.flush(BufferedOutputStream.java:123)
    at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendCommand(SMTPTransport.java:2104)
    ... 11 more

My code is as follows

import java.util.*;
import javax.mail.*;
import javax.mail.internet.*;
import javax.activation.*;

// Send a simple, single part, text/plain e-mail
public class TestEmail {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        // SUBSTITUTE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES HERE!!!
        String to = "my gmail account whose name i removed for publicity";
        String from = "my hotmail account whose name i removed for publicity";
        // SUBSTITUTE YOUR ISP'S MAIL SERVER HERE!!!
        String host = "smtp.live.com";

        // Create properties, get Session
        Properties props = new Properties();

        // If using static Transport.send(),
        // need to specify which host to send it to
        props.put("mail.smtp.host", host);
        props.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
        // To see what is going on behind the scene
        props.put("mail.debug", "true");
        Session session = Session.getInstance(props);

        try {
            // Instantiatee a message
            Message msg = new MimeMessage(session);

            //Set message attributes
            msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
            InternetAddress[] address = {new InternetAddress(to)};
            msg.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, address);
            msg.setSubject("Test E-Mail through Java");
            msg.setSentDate(new Date());

            // Set message content
            msg.setText("This is a test of sending a " +
                        "plain text e-mail through Java.\n" +
                        "Here is line 2.");

            //Send the message
            Transport.send(msg);
        }
        catch (MessagingException mex) {
            // Prints all nested (chained) exceptions as well
            mex.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

The server requires STARTTLS. Here’s what I get if I do a manual SMTP session with telnet:

220 BLU0-SMTP122.phx.gbl Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.4675 ready at  Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:08:14 -0700
HELO jhmg.net
250 BLU0-SMTP122.phx.gbl Hello [70.123.155.64]
MAIL FROM:<[e-mail]>
530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first

This server does not accept unencrypted connections