Rails3: ECONNREFUSED Error in Mailer - ruby-on-rails-3

Question

I have a controller in a Rails 3 app that, after creating a new object of type WorkRequest, sends an e-mail to the requester. Works for all of my users except one. When she tries it I get the following in the server log.
Started POST "/work_requests" for 172.16.42.150 at Mon Aug 08 14:42:53 -0400 2011
Processing by WorkRequestsController#create as HTML
Parameters: {"commit"=>" Save ", "authenticity_token"=>"GhhZ6S0mBaju2zs5Fc7M+u5SoLCke5CRSdVCvLzMK1Q=", "utf8"=>"✓", "work_request"=>{"work_due_date"=>"2011-12-01", "person_id"=>"525", "status"=>"Pending", "last_request_date"=>"", "requester_id"=>"5", "pier_module_id"=>"223"}}
Rendered person_mailer/work_request_init_email.html.erb (2.4ms)
Rendered person_mailer/work_request_init_email.text.erb (1.8ms)
Sent mail to hkitzmiller#acponline.org (409ms)
Completed in 548ms
Errno::ECONNREFUSED (Connection refused - connect(2)):
app/controllers/work_requests_controller.rb:57:in `create'
app/controllers/work_requests_controller.rb:54:in `create'
It appears to have sent the e-mail (she's left for the day so I can't ask if she received it) but the line it's failing on in the controller the line that invokes the mailer, so I'm not sure.
PersonMailer.work_request_init_email(#work_request).deliver
Can't seem to find any solid info on what ECONNREFUSED means. Is the mail server refusing the connect (in which case why does it appear the mail was sent?) or is the web server refusing to connect after the mail is sent.
What might cause either server to refuse a connection with this particular user?
Any help would be much appreciated. All the other users of the app seem to be working fine.

Answer 1

This generally is an error caused by a failed connection to the SMTP server. I'd say double check your settings in your environment files (production.rb most likely) and double check the email address. You might also check to see if there's a limit set by the SMTP server.