How to Enable Plain-Text Emails for DW Spectrum® IPVMS

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Affected Roles:  Administrator, Owner

Related Digital Watchdog VMS Apps:  DW Spectrum® IPVMS

Complexity:  Medium

Software Version:  v4.1.31401 or newer

Last Edit:  July 21, 2021

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What is Plain-Text?

Plain-text is essentially data that is represented by readable alpha-numeric characters without additional graphical information added to the text such as formatting, fonts, layout, etc.  Plain-text is also used to exclude binary files that may cause data to be incorrectly interpreted by the receiving node due to character encoding.  As so, a DW Spectrum® Server can be configured to use plain-text when sending notifications through SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to avoid these type of communication issues.

This article will outline how to enable the use of plain-text emails for a DW Spectrum® Server.

 

Supported/Affected Devices:

• DW Blackjack® Server Series

 

Enabling Plain-Text Emails

To enable plain-text emails:

1. Connect with the Server’s Advanced settings menu.  There are two ways that you can access this menu:
   1. Method 1 – using the DW Spectrum® Client, right-click on the Server and select “Server Web Page”. 

A web browser will open. In the address bar, replace “/settings/server” with “/advanced” at the end of the resulting URL.

 

1. 2. Method 2 – open a web browser and use the following URL template to connect with the Server’s Advanced menu:

• • Example IP Address:  192.168.1.50
  • Example Port:  7001 (default)
  • Example URL:  http://192.168.1.50:7001/static/index.html#/advanced

 

**NOTE:  You must add “advanced” at the end of the URL to access the Advanced settings of the web client.

 

2. If you attempt to connect through the web client (Method 2), you may encounter a security warning from your web browser.  This is simply the browser’s default reaction to Servers without a registered SSL certificate and is not an issue.

To continue, click the Advanced button, then click the

 

3. The Login page for the DW Spectrum® Server’s web client will display.

Enter an Administrator User Name and Password to log in.

• Default User:  admin
• Default PW:  admin12345

 

4. Once you are logged in, scroll down and locate the setting “Send plain-text emails”.

Enable this setting, then click the Save button.

 

5. If after enabling and saving the plain-text emails setting does not immediately resolve the issue, you can restart (stop/start) the DW Spectrum® Media Server to allow the system to refresh its settings.