Help! 
After months of travail, and awaiting for a fix in either 10.4.1 or 10.4.3, I have recreated a problem I have had for a while in Mail.app:
Network:
- Linksys WRT54GS with Parental Controls Enabled (OEM from NetOpia)
Mac System:
- eMac G4 1.25Ghz with 768MB wired to above WRT54GS.
Now, the Parental Controls work excellent in all web based access, and is uniform between both my Wintel machines and the eMac. However, when it comes to eMail, there is a serious discrepancy.
In Microsoft Outlook on Windows, as well as PowerMail 5.x, GyazMail 1.3 and Thunderbird 1.0.x on Mac OS X 10.4, whenever you are NOT logged into the Parental Controls, the receipt of emails via POP3 is blocked, and returns a "-ERR Your use of this service has been blocked by Parental Controls." error in a pop-up window.
However, on Mail.app 2.0+ on Mac OS X 10.4, the client continues with the connection, and the Parental Controls, acting as it should, blocks the emails being received and deletes them from the POP3 account on the server. (This is correct functionality, as it is intercepting a connection for which a user account is not associated on the Parental Controls server, and thus is considered not authorized to receive emails from anyone (think of it as a "limited guest" account)).
This "side effect" on the Mail.app, however, is detrimental to implementing my Mac as the primary mail client at home, since my other family members may not always remember to "login" to the Parental Controls prior to opening Mail.app and/or clicking on Send/Receive, and thus all of their pending emails to be received will be ERASED.
Technical Observation:
Using the Terminal to telnet into the server on port 110, here is an example of the POP3 conversation, which is equal on both the Windows and Mac systems (username and passwords have been generalized for security purposes):
+OK <25783.1136258034@pop08.mesa2.secureserver.net>
USER me@somewhere.com
-ERR Your use of this service has been blocked by Parental Controls.
USER me@somewhere.com
+OK
PASS something
+OK
STAT
+OK 1344 79987762
QUIT
+OK Sayonara
So, as it seems, since the above is the same on both the Windows machine and the Mac machine, I can only summarize that Mail.app "retries" the authentication conversation again, and as you can see, will be authenticated by the POP3 server the second time around. Hence, it "ignores" the initial ERR response.
Can anyone in this forum report this to Apple, to see if they could sneak a "fix" into 10.4.4, or possibly 10.4.5?
Or, perhaps, does anyone know of a work around that will make Mail.app honor the initial ERR response in the POP3 conversation?
Thanks,
Clik
After months of travail, and awaiting for a fix in either 10.4.1 or 10.4.3, I have recreated a problem I have had for a while in Mail.app:
Network:
- Linksys WRT54GS with Parental Controls Enabled (OEM from NetOpia)
Mac System:
- eMac G4 1.25Ghz with 768MB wired to above WRT54GS.
Now, the Parental Controls work excellent in all web based access, and is uniform between both my Wintel machines and the eMac. However, when it comes to eMail, there is a serious discrepancy.
In Microsoft Outlook on Windows, as well as PowerMail 5.x, GyazMail 1.3 and Thunderbird 1.0.x on Mac OS X 10.4, whenever you are NOT logged into the Parental Controls, the receipt of emails via POP3 is blocked, and returns a "-ERR Your use of this service has been blocked by Parental Controls." error in a pop-up window.
However, on Mail.app 2.0+ on Mac OS X 10.4, the client continues with the connection, and the Parental Controls, acting as it should, blocks the emails being received and deletes them from the POP3 account on the server. (This is correct functionality, as it is intercepting a connection for which a user account is not associated on the Parental Controls server, and thus is considered not authorized to receive emails from anyone (think of it as a "limited guest" account)).
This "side effect" on the Mail.app, however, is detrimental to implementing my Mac as the primary mail client at home, since my other family members may not always remember to "login" to the Parental Controls prior to opening Mail.app and/or clicking on Send/Receive, and thus all of their pending emails to be received will be ERASED.
Technical Observation:
Using the Terminal to telnet into the server on port 110, here is an example of the POP3 conversation, which is equal on both the Windows and Mac systems (username and passwords have been generalized for security purposes):
+OK <25783.1136258034@pop08.mesa2.secureserver.net>
USER me@somewhere.com
-ERR Your use of this service has been blocked by Parental Controls.
USER me@somewhere.com
+OK
PASS something
+OK
STAT
+OK 1344 79987762
QUIT
+OK Sayonara
So, as it seems, since the above is the same on both the Windows machine and the Mac machine, I can only summarize that Mail.app "retries" the authentication conversation again, and as you can see, will be authenticated by the POP3 server the second time around. Hence, it "ignores" the initial ERR response.
Can anyone in this forum report this to Apple, to see if they could sneak a "fix" into 10.4.4, or possibly 10.4.5?
Or, perhaps, does anyone know of a work around that will make Mail.app honor the initial ERR response in the POP3 conversation?
Thanks,
Clik
