Failed to validate SMTP configuration: Error: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN

[ghost]

I have searched the existing issues, both open and closed, to make sure this is not a duplicate report.

• Yes

The bug

This bug prevents users from setting up email alerts by throwing a generic DNS error even when the configuration is set up as defined in the documentation here and here

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Debian 13

Version of Immich Server

v2.5.6

Version of Immich Mobile App

N/A

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Device make and model

N/A

Your docker-compose.yml content

# WARNING: To install Immich, follow our guide: https://docs.immich.app/install/docker-compose
#
# Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
     extends:
       file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
       service: nvenc # set to one of [nvenc, quicksync, rkmpp, vaapi, vaapi-wsl] for accelerated transcoding
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the media storage location on your system, edit the value of UPLOAD_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/data
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - '2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    # For hardware acceleration, add one of -[armnn, cuda, rocm, openvino, rknn] to the image tag.
    # Example tag: ${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    extends: # uncomment this section for hardware acceleration - see https://docs.immich.app/features/ml-hardware-acceleration
       file: hwaccel.ml.yml
       service: cuda # set to one of [armnn, cuda, rocm, openvino, openvino-wsl, rknn] for accelerated inference - use the `-wsl` version for WSL2 where applicable
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false
redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:9@sha256:546304417feac0874c3dd576e0952c6bb8f06bb4093ea0c9ca303c73cf458f63
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:14-vectorchord0.4.3-pgvectors0.2.0@sha256:bcf63357191b76a916ae5eb93464d65c07511da41e3bf7a8416db519b40b1c23
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
      # Uncomment the DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD' var if your database isn't stored on SSDs
      # DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD'
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the database storage location on your system, edit the value of DB_DATA_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    shm_size: 128mb
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

volumes:
  model-cache:

Your .env content

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://docs.immich.app/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=/mnt/ssd/immich/library

# The location where your database files are stored. Network shares are not supported for the database
DB_DATA_LOCATION=/mnt/ssd/immich/postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
TZ=America/Los_Angeles

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v2.1.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=v2

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=[REDACTED]

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

Reproduction steps

1. Set up vanilla instance of Immich
2. Go into settings to enable email alerts
3. Fill out information as expected

Relevant log output

[Nest] 30  - 02/23/2026, 12:01:25 PM   ERROR [Api:NotificationService~i21jnggy] Failed to validate SMTP configuration: Error: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN smtp.migadu.com
Error: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN smtp.migadu.com
    at GetAddrInfoReqWrap.onlookupall [as oncomplete] (node:dns:122:26)
[Nest] 30  - 02/23/2026, 12:01:25 PM    WARN [Api:SystemConfigService~i21jnggy] Unable to save system config due to a validation error: Error: Invalid SMTP configuration: Error: getaddrinfo EAI_AGAIN smtp.migadu.com

Additional information

Seems to be the same as #10306 but this issue was closed by the author without additional information. I can confirm my SMTP password contains no special characters.

[bo0tzz]

I'm not sure what the issue is meant to be? This is a problem with your server/network/dns.

[ghost]

Setting DNS to a WAN available DNS manually in the compose file worked. It seems that LAN dns requests is not forwarded correctly in the container.
i.e.

dns:
   - 1.1.1.1
   - 1.0.0.1