Dear DBA1MCC, I encountered almost the same error when the mail server went down. The "421" error code means that the <domain> Service is not available and it will be closing the transmission channel (This may be a reply to any command if the service knows it must shut down.). If you know that you don't have a permanent problem with the mail server you should increase the transfer time-out variable (vn$tx_timeout in my example) in UTL_SMTP.OPEN_CONNECTION function and after that you should check if you can proceed with the mail procedure. You should define a variable smtp$verify as UTL_SMTP.REPLY and then check if this reply code is "220" (<domain> Service is ready) smtp$verify := UTL_SMTP.OPEN_CONNECTION(vv$mail_server, vn$mail_port, smtp$conn, vn$tx_timeout). Personaly, I gave the vn$tx_timeout the value of 100 seconds. Cristian Chelemen dba1 mcc <mccdba1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: We have ORACLE 9.2.0.8 and 10.2.0.2 on Redhat servers (4.3). I tried to send mail from ORACLE (we use utl_smtp.data( conn, mesg );). We always get one time work, second time fail repeatly. Does any one know why?? =============================================== SQL> @mailbody 32 . SQL> / PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. SQL> / Declare * ERROR at line 1: ORA-29278: SMTP transient error: 421 Service not available ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 17 ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 96 ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 138 ORA-06512: at line 15 SQL> / PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. SQL> / Declare * ERROR at line 1: ORA-29278: SMTP transient error: 421 Service not available ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 17 ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 96 ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_SMTP", line 138 ORA-06512: at line 15 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l --------------------------------- Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell? Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.