Mail problems... very strange.

wicky

wicky

play thing
I'm experiencing a very unusual problem... any help would be appreciated.

Our email has started behaving in a VERY odd manner today. We can receive mail fine on all accounts, but can't send out via ANY account - I've tried multiple accounts all on different servers and nothing seems to work (even my .mac account isn't working).

I have restarted all of the equipment, but seeing as we didn't ever lose the internet connection or the ability to receive mail, this never seemed like the issue.

We have 2 Mac's networked together (G4 & G5) connecting to the outside world via BeThere.co.uk on BT landline (UK).

Anybody got any ideas? I've never come accross this kind of problem before.
 
What exactly happens when you try and send? Any error messages? Infinite "sending" messages? Timing out? Appearing to send but doesn't really send?

What kind of accounts are they -- IMAP, POP3? Do you host your own email, or have an ISP that handles the mail accounts for you?
 
ISP's handle the mail via POP3 accounts:

MAC for .mac
WiredHub
MediaTemple

If I try sending mail from any of the accounts I get an error message as follows:

------------------------

Cannot send message using the server <server info> (ie. smtp.mac.com)

Use the pop-up menu below to try a differnet outgoing mail server. All messages will use this server until you quit Mail or change your network settings.

------------------------

This is happening on all mail accounts on both machines. It was working fine until today and none of the network settings have been altered.

I am connecting via DHCP from a router using ethernet/RJ45.
 
You may want to check with your ISP and see if they're blocking port 25 for outgoing mail outside of their own domain. Mine was, and a simple phone call to them alleviated the problems once they "opened up" port 25 for me.
 
This happens to me all the time. The work around for myself is to turn authentication off on the out going server. Go into the account preferences pane, select edit outgoing server and where it says password on the drop down list, select none.

Try that. Hope it works.
 
No joy with that.

I've had similar issues in the past with authentication, but this is a different issue I think. The fact that it's affecting ALL mail accounts on both my machine and my colleague's machine suggests that there is a bigger problem.
 
Sorry that didn't work. Do you have any routers in your home? You could try resetting them or restarting them...

Other than that I really don't know what to tell you. Sorry.
 
Yup. I have the router to the outside world bringing in the ADSL... and, due to speed issues, a second router providing a second LAN which the 2 Mac's are connected to.

One of the first things I did was restart the various boxes, but I don't think that is the problem. I haven't lost the ability to pick email's up, nor to get on to the web (currently gettin' T2+ speeds), just the ability to send email's.

It really doesn't make any sense to me. If it was a single ISP, then that would be the obvious issue. But it's several (all the ISP's that I use), so it means the issue has to be more local.

The fact that it's a local issue, but I haven't lost my connection doesn't make any sense at all. That's about as far as my knowledge goes, so any additional help would be really appreciated.

Cheers
 
Hmm, well you need to find out if the program is able to contact the server, and then is getting rejected from there, or if it is getting blocked before it gets there. I know this is possible, but I don't know how to do it myself, I had a tech do this for me the other day.

Another thing to check is the connection doctor in mail. Go Windows>Connection Doctor. This may give you more information.

Also have you tried removing one of the routers and then sending?
 
OK. I had a look at Connection Doctor and got green lights from all the incoming POP connections and red lights for all the SMTP's. I gues that outcome just echoed what was already known.... that mail has not left the building.

I opened the network utility and tried to ping the relevant SMTP mail servers. Weirdly, dotMac wasn't responding, but everything else seemed OK.

Tried taking 1 of the routers out of the mix, but nothing has changed... still got full incoming mail and fast internet, but no outgoing mail.

Not sure what to do next.
 
Ok, in the interest of completeness, and just in case somebody encounters a similar situation, here is a summary:

All of my email accounts have been using SMTP servers specific to the account (ie. smtp.mac.com for my dotMac a/c).

Reading through the small print from BeThere, my broadband provider, they say use their SMTP gateway for ALL outgoing mail (anti-spam policy). I've experienced this before at work with BT, so the concept is familiar. However, given that all my accounts have been set up with their own SMTP's and have been working fine for ages, it's not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when looking for potential issues.

"... Oh look my email has suddenly stopped working, perhaps I should go and change the configuration of each one of my accounts individually, even though they worked fine yesterday..."

BeThere must have flipped a switch somewhere to block access to external SMTP's. Obviously they didn't feel the need to let me know, because they had already said to set up using their gateway.

The moral of the story...

When it comes to flat-pack interweb connectivity, you may as well read the instructions. At least when it goes wrong you can legitimately shout at somebody.

Anybody got any ideas on how you glue hair back in?
 
I thought you knew if your local ISP blocks external SMTP port 25, then changing your SMTP logical port to 587. Apple even talks about this.
 
Hmmm

I thought you knew if your local ISP blocks external SMTP
Click to expand...

My ISP didn't (for months) block external SMTP access, and now it does (in the last couple of days).

The dotMAC email seems to work going through their SMTP with authentication switched off.

Thanks for the feedback though.
 
I also have had strange behavior with Mail since updating to 10.4.8. I cannot seem to edit draft e-mails or drag attachments to messages. The only work around that I've found is a system restart. Anyone have any suggestions as to what might be wrong?
 
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