AWS SES SMTP connection timeouts

Question

Project id: b855592c-9156-4020-9543-d41a4e939fde

I've been getting consistent connection timeouts when sending email via AWS SES SMTP port 25, but only on my DEV environment. My PRODUCTION environment sends consistently well.

I've confirmed the AMAZON_SES_USER and AMAZON_SES_PASSWORD environment vars for both PROD and DEV are identical

One successful send on May 22, then before that it succeeded on October 13, 2025. All other attempts failed

Pretty basic NodeEmailer code:

let transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
    pool: true,
    host: "email-smtp.us-west-1.amazonaws.com",
    port: 25,
    secure: false, // true for 465, false for other ports
    auth: {
        user: process.env.AMAZON_SES_USER,
        pass: process.env.AMAZON_SES_PASSWORD,
    },
},
    {
        from: emailFrom, // sender address
    }
);