Can't get e-mail reminders to work, testmail works

Support
1

I’ve installed Vikunja on my Synology NAS using Portainer.

This is my configuration file (anonymized):

services:
  db:
    image: postgres:17
    container_name: Vikunja-DB
    hostname: vikunja-db
    mem_limit: 1gb
    cpu_shares: 1024
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "pg_isready", "-q", "-d", "vikunja", "-U", "vikunjauser"]
      timeout: 45s
      interval: 10s
      retries: 10
    volumes:
      - /volume1/docker/vikunja/db:/var/lib/postgresql/data:rw
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: vikunja
      POSTGRES_USER: vikunjauser
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: vikunjapass
    restart: on-failure:5
    
  vikunja:
    image: vikunja/vikunja:latest
    container_name: Vikunja
    hostname: vikunja
    mem_limit: 8g
    cpu_shares: 2048
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    user: 1026:100
    ports:
      - 3456:3456
    environment:
      VIKUNJA_SERVICE_ENABLEEMAILREMINDERS: true
      VIKUNJA_DEFAULTSETTINGS_EMAIL_REMINDERS_ENABLED: true
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_ENABLED: true
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_FORCESSL: false
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_AUTHTYPE: plain
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_HOST: smtp.gmail.com
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_PORT: 587
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_SKIPTLSVERIFY: false
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_USERNAME: user@gmail.com
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_PASSWORD: 16charpw
      VIKUNJA_MAILER_FROMEMAIL: user@gmail.com
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_HOST: vikunja-db
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_PASSWORD: vikunjapass
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_TYPE: postgres
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_USER: vikunjauser
      VIKUNJA_DATABASE_DATABASE: vikunja
      VIKUNJA_SERVICE_JWTSECRET: "secretphrase"
      VIKUNJA_SERVICE_TIMEZONE: Europe/Berlin
      VIKUNJA_SERVICE_PUBLICURL: https://vikunja.domain.com/
      VIKUNJA_SERVICE_ENABLEREGISTRATION: false
    volumes:
      - /volume1/docker/vikunja/data:/app/vikunja/files:rw
    restart: on-failure:5
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy

Whatever I do, I cannot get the reminder mail sent. The testmail however works fine:

image
image724×296 17.7 KB

I did notice something odd, while I’m in western Europe (tried different notations for same timezone eg: Europe/Berlin, Europe/Amsterdam without luck), the timestamp of the log runs two hours behind.

It’s 20:17 here, but the log says:
2025-04-27T18:17:45Z: WEB :play_button: 192.168.1.1 GET 200 /api/v1/notifications?page=1 751.662µs - xxxx

I thought that may have been the issue, so I set the reminder two hours earlier, but that didn’t work either.

I tried setting reminders on assigned tasks, and unassigned tasks, neither works.

Also, in the log, I don’t see any evidence of Vikunja trying to send an e-mail either…

I must be overlooking something, but I just can’t figure it out. Any help would be appreciated.

2

Ok, I figured it out.

Apparently the settings in the WebUI overrule the settings in the config file

image
image903×594 38.7 KB

By checking “Send me reminders for tasks via email”, I started receiving reminders.
Hopefully this will help others running into the same conundrum.