Sending email with WatchDirectory - 10061 - Connection Refused by Remote Host

Most people have a firewall, spamfilter and/or virusscanner installed to protect them from the evil outside world. What some people don't realize is that these scanners also try to protect the "evil world" from you...

When you want to use WatchDirectory to send email, you need to configure its email-settings. When you press the test button an attempt is made to send an email.

This often fails..... Your firewall (spamfilter, virusscanner) detects that a program is trying to send email, ooh horror!! If it is a nice firewall, it will give you a popup window asking you to allow or deny the program (WatchDirectory) to send an email. Corporate firewalls (McAfee comes to mind) often don't ask you and just block the attempt to send email.

When WatchDirectory can not send the test-email, it asks you if you want to see the message-log. This log will typically contain something like this:

          Socket=804, RemoteIP=a0a36147, RemotePort=25
          ERROR(1038112204): SockCode=-10061 SeeCode=-36 PrevState=104
          ThisState=105 NextState=105
          Error attempting to connect. Connection refused by remote
          host.vSocket: 0 closed

The SockCode above - 10061 is the typical errorcode WatchDirectory receives when your firewall blocks the email.

How to resolve If your firewall did not prompt you to allow email access by WatchDirectory, you will need to change the firewall (spamfilter, virusscanner) settings yourself.

Some firewalls lets you configure this "per program", for others you need to completely disable "bulk email protection". Make sure to allow the following 2 programs: wdcc.exe - this is the WatchDirectory Control Center, it needs to be allowed so you can test your email settings. wdPostman.exe - this is the "System.Mail" program that sends email on behalve of all your tasks.