Hey guys, with some testing I found, what imho might be a better way. You can't use if (!$smtp=Net::SMTP...) in the begining , it won;t accept it, but what does work is just letting the first one go, it won't crash the script if it fails. Then on the next line, test if $smtp is defined. if (!defined($smtp)) if it is defined then opening the server worked, if it is undefined, it failed and you can deal with it from there!!! thanx for your help all!

-Kevin