Sending Email Exception: Illegal whitespace in address

[Siphiwe Madi]

Hi Guyz,

I'm having problems when trying to send an email through JavaMail API. an AddressException is thrown saying:

Illegal whitespace in address

My code looks like this:

         //TODO: add server details to constants


      Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);

      Message msg = new MimeMessage(session);

      try {
         msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));

         InternetAddress[] addressTo = new InternetAddress[recipients.length];

         int idx = 0;
         for (String recip : recipients) {
            addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip);
         }

         msg.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, addressTo);
         msg.setSubject(subject);
         msg.setContent(message, "text/plain");
         Transport.send(msg);

      } catch (AddressException e) {
         logger.error("SendMail.sendToManyRecipients(String, String[], String, String) : An error occured while trying to set the recipient addresses. \n" + e.getMessage());

      } catch (MessagingException e) {
         logger.error("SendMail.sendToManyRecipients(String, String[], String, String) : An error occured while trying to set the recipient addresses. \n" + e.getMessage());
      }

      logger.info("SendMail.sendToManyRecipients(String, String[], String, String): END");
   } 

Any assistance would be great.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Seeing the exact address -character for character- that causes this issue sure would help.

[Siphiwe Madi]

The address is passed as a String array as below:

    
new String[]{"[e-mail]""}

[David Newton]

Are you sure it's the "to" address causing the problem?

It's easier if you are more precise with the problem from the beginning--otherwise we have to duplicate work you may have already done. Please see Tell The Details--if you get an exception, tell us when where it's happening. Show all the relevant data, like the "from" and "to" addresses. Give us as much information as seems reasonable--don't make us work more than we have to; we're lazy ;)

[Siphiwe Madi]

I do think it is the "to" address because basically i'm sending the same address for the from and to, the other test data i'm passing from my Main method are as follows (main method snippet)

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		System.out.println("SendEmailUtil.main(): START");

		String[] destAddr = null;

		if (args != null && args.length>0)
		{
			System.out.println("To addresses not null. setting from args list");
			destAddr = args;

			int cnt = 0;
			for(String email: args) {
				System.out.println("mail [" + (cnt++) + "]: " + email );
			}

		} else {
			System.out.println("using default email address(s)");
			destAddr = new String[]{"[e-mail]"};
		}

		SendEmailUtil mailer = new SendEmailUtil();
		mailer.sendToManyRecipients("[e-mail]", destAddr, "Subject is this.2", "Message is this.2");

		
		System.out.println("SendEmailUtil.main(): END");
	}

main method is calling this method

	public static void sendToManyRecipients(String from, String[] recipients, String subject, String message) {
		System.out.println("SendMail.sendToManyRecipients(String, String[], String, String): START");
	
	  //TODO: add server details to constants
	  Properties props = new Properties();
	  props.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.domain.XX");
	
	  Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
	
	  Message msg = new MimeMessage(session);
	
	  try {
	     msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
	
	     InternetAddress[] addressTo = new InternetAddress[recipients.length];
	
	     int idx = 0;
	     for (String recip : recipients) {
	        addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip, false);
	     }
	
	     msg.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, addressTo);
	    

		 try {
			msg.setSubject(subject + "IP [" + InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostAddress() + "]");
		} catch (UnknownHostException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
			
			msg.setSubject(subject);
		}

	     msg.setContent(message, "text/plain");
	     
	     System.out.println("Before send();");
	     Transport.send(msg);
	
	     System.out.println("After send();");
	  } catch (AddressException e) {
	     System.out.println("SendMail.AddressException : An error occured while trying to set the recipient addresses. \n" + e.getMessage());
		 e.printStackTrace();
	
	  } catch (MessagingException e) {
	     System.out.println("SendMail.MessagingException caught An error occured while trying to set the recipient addresses. \n" + e.getMessage());
			e.printStackTrace();
	  }
	
	  System.out.println("SendMail.sendToManyRecipients(String, String[], String, String): END");
	   }

[Rob Spoor]

Although Ulf had requested for the full email addresses, this made them available for spammers who search the 'Net for email addresses. I've changed them slightly to make it at least a bit more difficult.

Now, where does the exception occur? At setting the form address at

msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));

or at the to addresses at

addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip); 

If it is the latter, you can find out exactly which one it is by using a simple print statement:

for (String recip : recipients) {
    System.out.println(new InternetAddress(recip));
    addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip);   
} 

The last printed email address will be the one causing the problems.

[Paul Clapham]

A simple print statement, yes; but watch out for leading and trailing blanks which you might not notice if you used an excessively simple print statement.

[Rob Spoor]

Correct. Maybe System.out.println("|" + new InternetAddress(recip) + "|") is a better idea - the vertical bars then quickly show where the string actually starts and where it ends.

Come to think of it, that should be System.out.println("|" + recip + "|"). The InternetAddress constructor is throwing the exception, so you would just move the exception one statement up...

[Siphiwe Madi]

Rob Prime wrote:Although Ulf had requested for the full email addresses, this made them available for spammers who search the 'Net for email addresses. I've changed them slightly to make it at least a bit more difficult.

Now, where does the exception occur? At setting the form address at

msg.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));

or at the to addresses at

addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip); 

If it is the latter, you can find out exactly which one it is by using a simple print statement:

for (String recip : recipients) {
    System.out.println(new InternetAddress(recip));
    addressTo[idx++] = new InternetAddress(recip);   
} 

The last printed email address will be the one causing the problems.

Hi,

The error was occuring on at the to addresses. This is working now

I think passing the strict boolean value as false to the constructor (as below) has sorted this.

new InternetAddress(recip, false)

Thanks for the assistance.