Problem using Mail with multiple accounts from the same ISP

[Mr Tea]

Please can somebody tell me how to do this!

I'm trying to migrate the bulk of my email handling from Entourage to Mail (no comments please). I have a an account with UK provider NTL which allows me multiple addresses with the format 'here@ntlworld.com', 'there@ntlworld.com', 'every.where@ntlworld.com', etc. I can collect mail for each of these separately using Entourage, but when I set up accounts for these addresses in mail, they don't collect (or deliver). And they don't work if I put all the addresses in the address field of one account, separated by commas as indicated in Mail help.

Whatever I try, Mail will only collect from/deliver to the master address associated with NTL, and not with any of the additional addresses I have set up. Any bright ideas, or is this a recognised problem with Mail?

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Lyra]

Mr Tea - I also switched some time ago from Entourage to Mail, and I use ntl too. I have two ntl email accounts and my .mac email that I collect from and send to without problems (that is, without problems from Mail, but let's not go there).

All it took was setting up an account for each address in Mail preferences, but I have a vague memory of not being sure whether to use 'mail.ntlworld.com' or 'pop,' for outgoing mail. (It's 'pop.', btw.) What have you got in the fields for incoming and outgoing mail? That's the only reason I can think you would be having problems, assuming that it's not a coincidental problem with your ntl account - are you able to collect and send mail directly from the site OK?

Actually, I quite like Mail now, though I didn't at first, but I'm looking forward to Panther ...

 

[Mr Tea]

Thanks for the feedback, Lyra. No help though, I'm afraid. I've checked and re-checked the settings in mail, and they're identical to those in Entourage. Except that they don't work. Although one rogue message apparently got through for one of the affected accounts today, which just muddies the waters further, really.

BTW - The name 'Lyra' has a lot of resonance for me at the moment. She's the heroine of Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' trilogy of novels - I've been immersed in these, reading them to my kids for the past several weeks, now halfway through volume 3. Heady stuff.

 

[Lyra]

... which is exactly why I chose 'Lyra' (I thought adding Silvertongue or Belaqa would be too much of a giveaway, although I've done it on other boards). Wonderful, intelligent, thought-provoking books - Harry Potter, feh!

I'm stumped as to why you can't get your mail with Mail, if one message has got through - do you have the activity window open to see what's going on? If you do, what's it telling you when you try to send? And what system are you using - when I first switched I had problems but since 10.2.6 it's been fine.

 

[Mr Tea]

Strange to say, those inaccessible accounts seem to be finding their feet in Mail, now. One possible cause of the problem might have been my switching to and fro between Mail and Entourage. With both set to store my passwords on the keychain, I think they were having some sort of spat, with each in turn petulantly asking for permission to decrypt keychain items when I moved from one to the other. My fingers are crossed.

I'm delighted to learn that you and the alethiometrist Lyra are one and the same. All manner of wonderful contemporary 'childrens' books have come to my attention over the past few years, and I cannot conclude this discussion without mentioning 'The War of Jenkins' Ear' by Michael Morpurgo. Brief, hard-edged, utterly different to Pullman's trilogy, but just as compelling, and just as er... robust in its treatment of religious themes. Mr Tea recommends it!

 

[Lyra]

Glad it's sorted, although I always find it frustrating not knowing what caused the problem. I wouldn't discount the possibility of an ntl mail problem - they do manifest themselves in strange ways. (BTW, are we the only two people in these forums with ntl accounts?)

Before the thread gets shut down for turning into a book club, thanks for the Michael Morpurgo recommendation - I've read of it, but not read it. In a spirit of reciprocity, you might want to try, if you haven't already, Ursula le Guin's Earthsea quartet, which I imagine would read out loud very well, and similarly raises issues of the nature of good and evil and their coexistence, although not in an 'organised religion' context.