Catching SMTP exceptions in Python, on Amazon AWS

Question

I am using Python and smtplib to send email via Amazon SES. How do I catch specific sending errors?

For example, Amazon SES may tell me "this address is blacklisted" or "you've exceeded your rate" or "you've exceeded your volume quota", and I want to act on those messages.

I have a snippet which catches blacklisting (I think), as follows. I don't really know how to debug these things, since the exceptions will only show up in heavy-duty environments, and if I trigger the exceptions then I'm worried Amazon will ding my quota.

try: msg = EmailMultiAlternatives(subject, plain, from_address, [to_address]) msg.attach_alternative(html, "text/html") msg.send() except smtplib.SMTPResponseException as e: error_code,error_msg = e.smtp_code, e.smtp_error if error_code==554 and error_msg=='Message rejected: Address blacklisted.': # do appropriate action for blacklisting else: # do appropriate action for throttling else: # log any other SMTP exceptions

Not yet. I'm one of those "Docs first, code later" kind of programmers. — DamonJW
– DamonJW, Commented Nov 14, 2012 at 15:48

Rohan Deshpande · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-14 20:04:43Z

You can use the Amazon SES Mailbox Simulator to generate a blacklist error.

Send an email to [email protected] to verify if your application handles the resulting error properly. Your bounce statistics will not be impacted if you use Mailbox Simulator addresses. You can run these tests whether your Amazon SES account is in Sandbox or Production mode.

The Mailbox Simulator does not currently let you test for throttling or quota exceptions. However, your exception handling code should be sufficient to handle those exceptions. I recommend you check for the exception string using find() in order to accommodate any additions to the error message.

if error_code == 554 and error_msg.find('Address blacklisted') >= 0: # handle blacklisting else: ...

For reference, here are some of the SMTP responses that you can check for:

Blacklisting is "554 Message rejected: Address blacklisted"
Unverified Address is "554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified."
Exceeded Send Rate is "454 Throttling failure: Maximum sending rate exceeded."
Exceeded Quota is "454 Throttling failure: Daily message quota exceeded."

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Catching SMTP exceptions in Python, on Amazon AWS

1 Answer 1

Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Related