I'm running a Pro6 with 4.2.19. I'm having a problem with it losing the alert email settings.I have the Pro6 configured to send email after a nightly backup completes. After a while I noticed that it stopped sending email.My email provider is Yahoo!, and my domain is 'sbcglobal.net'. As I look at the existing page in Frontview, I see:Alert Contact 1: <set to proper email@domain name>Email Provider: SBC Yahoo DSLUser: <proper email@domain name>Password: ..... (also set properly)Then I click to show advanced options...SMTP Server: 'Yahoo' (greyed out)SMTP port: 'yahoo.c' (greyed out)From: <proper email@domain name>It looks like something screwed up and when the page/program reparsed the config, it was 'off be one'. Note that it used to work. Not sure what I did or what happened to make it misread the config. Also note that rebooting the device doesn't seem to make it reparse the config properly.

Try an OS Re-install: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu

Thanks for the advice. Just to make sure... An OS re-install doesn't delete my data, right?Also curious to know if I should save and restore my configuration data? Will re-reading the configuration data save me time configuring the device? Or will it retore the configuration issue?

Data will be left intact. A bit of the configuration will be reset (admin password, some network settings) but you should manually change these back to how you want them.

Ok, I just did an OS reinstall. The email configuration was still corrupted as I described. I fixed them and we'll see how long it lasts.Is there anything other than observing a change in configuration that shows an OS reinstall happened properly?

I tried to reproduce the email config issue. I wasn't able to reproduce the config file issue, however, i am not sure this might related to data corruption due to faulty hardware.. (ie bad memory, bad hard disk.) try running memory test and see if the system memory is good..

Alert email settings lost... | NETGEAR Communities

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mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Nov 28, 2011
Try an OS Re-install: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Nov 29, 2011
Thanks for the advice. Just to make sure... An OS re-install doesn't delete my data, right?

Also curious to know if I should save and restore my configuration data? Will re-reading the configuration data save me time configuring the device? Or will it retore the configuration issue?
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Nov 29, 2011
Data will be left intact. A bit of the configuration will be reset (admin password, some network settings) but you should manually change these back to how you want them.
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Dec 01, 2011
Ok, I just did an OS reinstall. The email configuration was still corrupted as I described. I fixed them and we'll see how long it lasts.

Is there anything other than observing a change in configuration that shows an OS reinstall happened properly?
Jedi_Knight
Tutor
Dec 05, 2011
I tried to reproduce the email config issue. I wasn't able to reproduce the config file issue, however, i am not sure this might related to data corruption due to faulty hardware.. (ie bad memory, bad hard disk.) try running memory test and see if the system memory is good..
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Dec 05, 2011
Thanks for looking over my shoulder to help me out. I am a software developer and understand the need for accurate steps to reproduce in order to identify and fix a bug. I can't think of anything I did that may have caused the issue.

It seemed like it was working, and after a while it stopped. As you can see from my previous response, I did the OS reinstall on 12/1. I have been getting the nightly emails since then.

I'll try the memory tests and let you know what I find out. What do you recommend to diagnose a drive issue? Is looking at the 'SMART' data sufficient?

If you know of any other logging or diagnostic, let me know. But at this time, it seems to be working.
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Dec 11, 2011
The alerts just stopped working. I have three backup jobs and only two of the three alerts made it out. Woke up this morning to try to generate a test email via frontview. Got error message saying nas was unable to contact smtp server. Went into email settings and they were corrupted just as before.

I think there may be an issue/interaction with this:
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=58261

When I reinstalled the OS, everything worked fine. Then I tried bringing up streamin iTunes. It didn't work. Then I remembered the OS reinstall. I think it worked for one evening (e.g. three alerts) and then it stopped after two of the three alerts. I haven't done any configuration changes with Frontview since the OS reinstall.

I know that it was working for quite a while before the itunes fix was installed.
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Dec 14, 2011
I just reinstalled the OS a second time. One more data point is that whatever corrupted the alert/email config stays corrupted after the OS install. So after configuring my Yahoo!/sbcglobal account, I sent several test messages.

I'll compare to see how many days the configuration stays valid until the backup alert emails stop getting sent.
PapaBear1
Apprentice
Dec 14, 2011
I had problems for years trying to get reliable e-mail alert messages out through my Internet supplier. It was finally solved when support for G-Mail was included in the recent updates, made it real easy and reliable. I had a Gmail account which wasn't really being used, but it is now.
B52hbuff
Aspirant
Dec 15, 2011
Thanks PapaBear, but take a closer look at my issue. The problem isn't that a good configuration on the NAS isn't getting out through my ISP. The problem is that the NAS corrupts a valid/working email configuration.

So my question, is how to figure out what is corrupting a valid email configuration? My best guess now is that it has something to do with the iTunes patch. It is harder to prove a negative, but we'll see how many days it takes to get a corrupted config without the iTunes patch. So far, so good... I got my alerts from last night's backup run...

If it goes for a couple of weeks, then I'm going to load iTunes patch and see what happens. In the non-working case, I actually streamed iTunes. I'm going to see if this is a potential contributing factor by installing the patch w/o actually streaming iTunes...