Thx for the help. Looks like Amazon is a little tricky. I found a good source that led me to a plugin for aws: https://wpforms.com/how-to-set-up-wordpress-smtp-using-amazon-ses/
could you give it another try and see if it works now. I think this is the only option for Buddypress and amazon, surprised this hasn’t come up before. But I could easily be missing something…
