SMTP Server Error: Bad sequence of commands. The server response was: you must authenticate first (#5.5.1)

This error occurs due to lock down of default mail server (127.0.0.1) by web hosting companies due to SPAM or what ever other security reasons. But if you use “localhost” or default server “127.0.0.1” on your local machine it should not be an issue. But if you have a situation where you need to relay e-mail to a remote mail server that is secured you get this exception.

So you need to handle well using built in classes provided by .NET. This is take care by NetworkCredential Class. This class provides credentials for password-based authentication schemes such as basic, digest, NTLM, and Kerberos authentication.

Here is a fully working quick code sample that you can use to get started on your own SMTP-Authentication supporting e-mail code.

   1: try

   2: {

   3:     SmtpClient smtpclient = new SmtpClient();

   4:     NetworkCredential NetworkCredential = new NetworkCredential(smtpUserName, smtpPassword);

   5:     smtpclient.Credentials = NetworkCredential;

   6:     string MailServer = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SMTPServer"].ToString();

   7:     MailMessage objEmail = new MailMessage();

   8:  

   9:     string FromEmail = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ErrorReportEmailFrom"].ToString();

  10:     if (FromEmail.IndexOf(";") > 0)

  11:     {

  12:         FromEmail = FromEmail.Replace(";", ",");

  13:     }

  14:     MailAddress FromAddress = new MailAddress(FromEmail);

  15:     objEmail.From = FromAddress;

  16:  

  17:     string ToEmail = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ErrorReportEmailTo"].ToString();

  18:     if (ToEmail.IndexOf(";") > 0)

  19:     {

  20:         ToEmail = ToEmail.Replace(";", ",");

  21:     }

  22:     objEmail.To.Add(ToEmail);

  23:  

  24:     string CcEmail = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["CcEmail"].ToString();

  25:     if (CcEmail.IndexOf(";") > 0)

  26:     {

  27:         CcEmail = CcEmail.Replace(";", ",");

  28:     }

  29:     objEmail.CC.Add(CcEmail);

  30:  

  31:     string BccEmail = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["BccEmail"].ToString();

  32:     if (BccEmail.IndexOf(";") > 0)

  33:     {

  34:         BccEmail = BccEmail.Replace(";", ",");

  35:     }

  36:     objEmail.Bcc.Add(BccEmail);

  37:  

  38:     objEmail.Subject = strSubject;

  39:     try

  40:     {

  41:         objEmail.Body = strBody;

  42:         objEmail.IsBodyHtml = true;

  43:         smtpclient.Host = MailServer;

  44:         smtpclient.Send(objEmail);

  45:     }

  46:     catch (Exception ex)

  47:     {

  48:         throw ex;

  49:     }

  50:     finally

  51:     {

  52:         objEmail.Dispose();

  53:     }

  54: }

  55: catch (Exception ex)

  56: {

  57:      

  58: }

Enjoy coding!!

How to add MIME types in Web.config on hosted Servers, Go Daddy, IIS 7 etc.

Ever wanted to add a custom mime type to your Web server?  I ran into this issue the other day when I tried to serve up .otf files related to fonts on my Web server and  I got this error: 404.3 error - mime type missing!

Thankfully, adding mime types is easier than ever thanks to the all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. 

I'll show how easy it is to add mime types to your Web server.  This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.  Since the <staticContent> section is delegated by default, the configuration snippets below should 'just work' on all IIS7 Web sites. 

1. Open or edit the web.config in your site home directory.
2. Add the following section in configuration section under web server.

<system.webServer>   
    <staticContent>
      <mimeMap fileExtension=".otf" mimeType="font/otf" />
    </staticContent>
</system.webServer>

This works even on Go Daddy hosted server also. You can add as many file times you want allow in this static content section.  For example these few MIME types you can add if you want on your Web server

<mimeMap fileExtension=".m4v" mimeType="video/m4v" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".ogg" mimeType="audio/ogg" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".oga" mimeType="audio/ogg" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".ogv" mimeType="video/ogg" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".webm" mimeType="video/webm"/>
<!-- For silverlight applicaitons -->
<mimeMap fileExtension=".xaml" mimeType="application/xaml+xml" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".xap" mimeType="application/x-silverlight-app" />
<mimeMap fileExtension=".xbap" mimeType="application/x-ms-xbap" />

Hope this helps

How to: Adding Uninstall start menu item to your .NET deployment project

Its pretty simple. Follow the steps to achieve this.

Add the following code snippet  to your projects main method before InitializeComponent();

string[] arguments = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();
foreach (string argument in arguments)
{
   string[] parameters = argument.Split('=');
   if (parameters[0].ToLower() == "/u")
   {
     string productCode = parameters[1];
     string path = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System);
     Process proc = new Process();
     proc.StartInfo.FileName = string.Concat(path, "\\msiexec.exe");
     proc.StartInfo.Arguments = string.Concat(" /i ", productCode);
     proc.Start();
   }
}

• Now go to your deployment project and go to the file system editor and right click on File System on Target Machine and Add Special Folder with name User's Programs Menu.



• Add an additional shortcut to your primary output project and name it Uninstall.



• Right Click  Shortcut to Set the Arguments property to /u=[ProductCode].



• Now Build your Deployment setup project. Your are ready to go.

Deployment project will replace [ProductCode] in the Arguments property with the actual installer project's ProductCode GUID value. Your program will see the /u={Actual ProductCode} argument and pass it to msiexec.exe. If you want the product to remove only, replace the "/i " with "/x ".

How do I debug a custom action/installer class?

Here is how you can do debug custom action.  You can try using one of the following methods:

• Add a call in your code to System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch. This method opens Just-In-Time debugging and enables you to attach a new debugger to your code.
• Add a call in your code to MessageBox.Show("Debug Me"). When the message box is shown, use Visual Studio to attach to the MessageBox process. Then add breaks (for Visual C# projects) or stops (for Visual Basic projects) in the code.
• Set your debugging preferences to start %windir%\Microsoft.net\Framework\version\InstallUtil.exe as an external program on the Debug Page of the Project Designer. The name of the custom action assembly is the command line arguments. When you press F5, you hit your breakpoint. InstallUtil.exe will run your custom actions just as MSI does.

Life was difficult until i find this solution from MSDN.