PHANTOM SMTPs with HIGH SIERRA

TuckerdogAVL

TuckerdogAVL

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How do I get rid of the phantom SMTPs that are in the choices to use? I've had major issues setting up a third-party email and in the process had to remove and reinstall some of my Gmail accounts and other emails. Now I have duplicates of the SMTP for GMAIL for example. Everytime I go to send something, the APPLE MAIL chooses the wrong one of two and I get the "edit server" or try again or go away. So, I then choose the OTHER one that is named the same as the first one and the mail goes along its merry way. Doing the obvious: Going in and choosing the "negative" symbol and deleting them does nothing. They magically reappear. I attempted to go into the Keychain as someone suggested on another thread and under hidden find the "....sync" and something else, etc (don't recall what they are specifically) and found one to remove, and deleted it. That did nothing ... It's baaaaaaack. I have deleted the accounts, added them back, chosen the correct configs ... a couple times, and that is what led to the problem in the first place. SMTP phantoms.pngThis is High Sierra by the way. :)
 
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Try renaming one of the duplicates - like putting a 1 at the end of the name. When Mail bounces it back to you, you will see which server in your list needs to be removed.
 
But I can't delete in any event. I have been able to identify. But I can't delete. The drop down when it tells me the mail can't be sent because of server issues has that list. If I go into the smtps the dups are not seen, so there's no way to delete since according to the list, they aren't there. Why I called them phantoms. :)
 
There is one other place that holds your account info. System Preferences>Internet Accounts. Go there and see if you have multiple listings for your accounts (and if you can delete the old ones).
 
Only thing I get when clicking on "Details" is description (the title I gave the account associated to the email address) and the name (the name I gave it). I've deleted the actual accounts many many times. Which is how I got duplicate SMTPs.
 
Next place: Keychain Access.

You have to scroll down the list and find the smtp lines listed. Select one, then click on the 'i' that is at the bottom of the window. This is where you can see which one can be deleted.
 
Cheryl said:
Next place: Keychain Access.

You have to scroll down the list and find the smtp lines listed. Select one, then click on the 'i' that is at the bottom of the window. This is where you can see which one can be deleted.
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Can't you do this by clicking on the smtp and right clicking get info?
I'm assuming you are suggesting I do a search for SMTP first, then look at the list.
So, I did that. I searched SMTP in the keychains and took a look at the list.
I clicked on 'i's to see the info that is the same as rightclick get info.

All are correct. All are there. Once. No duplicates.

The duplicates only show up in the drop down to choose when the email doesn't send and I am then prompted to choose another smtp. The connection doctor shows all the smtp's once, and all connecting correctly. The phantoms do not show up in the choices if you have to add, delete, reset or change. They only show up when the email doesn't send. The only way I have had any success, and it's a crap shoot because it isn't consistent, is to delete the account and then set it all up again. Sometimes the "other" choice vanishes. Out of five email accounts, I've got the phantom down to two ... and they seem to be defaulting to the smtp that works now. So, as usual with tech, once I get something hobbled that seems to possibly work, time to move on. Thanks for your help.
 
You've got that right. Everything's working now and I'm not having to choose SMTPs so I'm just ignoring the dups. Thanks for your help.
 
Here it is a year and a half after this thread petered out, I am running Big Sur, and I have the exact same problem that TuckerdogAVL had in 2018.

This has been a recurring problem for several years through several versions of MacOS and of Mail.app. I have "phantom SMTPs" that I can't get rid of. I have two gmail accounts, set up identically, one works and the other is offline and I can't get it to go online. All five of my email accounts will be working fine and then for no reason one or two will go offline. In the past I have been able to mess around with settings and recover them.

Just yesterday both of my gmail accounts went offline for no apparent reason. Somehow in just trying different things I got one of them back but the other still doesn't work. That's with the iMac. The same account works fine with the iPad. The iPad is so simple to set up, and it never gives trouble. Why is the Mac so fragile?

I'm hoping someone here has found the silver bullet to make MacOS work as well as iOS and be as stable.
 
John Varela said:
Here it is a year and a half after this thread petered out, I am running Big Sur, and I have the exact same problem that TuckerdogAVL had in 2018.

This has been a recurring problem for several years through several versions of MacOS and of Mail.app. I have "phantom SMTPs" that I can't get rid of. I have two gmail accounts, set up identically, one works and the other is offline and I can't get it to go online. All five of my email accounts will be working fine and then for no reason one or two will go offline. In the past I have been able to mess around with settings and recover them.

Just yesterday both of my gmail accounts went offline for no apparent reason. Somehow in just trying different things I got one of them back but the other still doesn't work. That's with the iMac. The same account works fine with the iPad. The iPad is so simple to set up, and it never gives trouble. Why is the Mac so fragile?

I'm hoping someone here has found the silver bullet to make MacOS work as well as iOS and be as stable.
Click to expand...
I spent two hours long distance with a friend the other day, on Facetime, using Zoom, sharing screens to "just simply" figure out where his SMTP settings had gone, why there were duplicates, why some were missing... he has three email accounts, two for business and all of them are using the Charter/Spectrum vs. coming from gmail1 or gmail 2, for example, because we didn't want to delete the accounts and add them back. But that was probably the easiest thing to do. May still do that.
 
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