Persits Software, Inc. Knowledge Base Articles

503 Need Rcpt command error

Problem Description

When trying to send an email message with AspEmail, the following error is generated by the Send method:

Persits.MailSender.4 (0x800A0006)
503 5.5.2 Need Rcpt command.

Other variations of this error for different SMTP implementations include:

503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)

503 must have sender and recipient first

503 Need RCPT

503 Need RCPT (recipient)

503 No recipients specified

503 No recipients: need RCPT

503 RCPT first (#5.5.1)

503 Unexpected command or sequence of commands

Solution

Most probably, this error means your script is not calling any of these methods:

AddAddress
AddCC
AddBcc

As a result, AspEmail gets no recipient addresses to send a message to. Check the logic of your code. If you are calling AddAddress/AddCC/AddBcc in a loop, make sure the body of the loop is entered at least once.

For example, if you are looping through a recordset to obtain your recipient addresses, make sure your database query returns at least one record.