Database Mail - Mail configuration information could not be read from the database - No Exception

I've been trying for hours to get Database Mail working on SQL Server 2008 R2 and have reached what seems like a dead end.

I have completed the Database Mail Configuration tool, made sure that SQL Brower is turned on and followed all the steps in the Troubleshooting Database Mail Books Online.

When I run SELECT * FROM sysmail_event_log, all I get in the description column is

Mail configuration information could not be read from the database.

I've tried Googling this, but most of the matches are from people who have the luxury of an exception stack. I don't get any exception to work with.

Any clues?

After playing around for far too long I had the inspiration to run SQL Profiler, capturing all errors (don't know why I didn't think of that earlier!).

During the Send Test Mail process it revealed that

The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object 'sysmail_help_configure_sp', database 'msdb', schema 'dbo'. against System\NT AUTHORITY

So I added a bunch of permissions to that user, and suddenly everything works!

My NT AUTHORITY user now has following permissions in the msdb database:

• Member of the DatabaseMailUserRole

EXECUTE permission for the following:

• dbo.sp_ProcessResponse
• dbo.sp_readrequest
• dbo.sysmail_configure_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_account_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_admin_account_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_configure_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_configure_value_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_principalprofile_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_profile_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_profileaccount_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_profileaccount_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_profileaccount_sp
• dbo.sysmail_help_profileaccount_sp