topic No email this morning 10 November in Email

No email this morning 10 November

Hazel74 — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 08:24:58 GMT

Morning,

Just wondering if any other users are having the same experience as me this morning. I have tried to send an email both from my laptop and mobile phone via email clients and neither works. My email address is @plus.com

Has there been a change in settings again that I need to update?

Thanks

Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:12:55 GMT

Hi Everyone,

I have used Thunderbird email for a few years but since having a new hard drive I am having problems with the Plusnet Outgoing Settings. My incoming mail works well.

Three technicians have tried to help with this and none of them succeeded which doesn't give me much confidence.

When I try to set up the Outgoing mail in the Thunderbird Accounts I am not sure whether I am entering the correct words - especially for "Description" I tried 25 and 587 in PORT but neither would work - though it may be because I have entered other areas wrong.

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

MisterW — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:22:45 GMT

@LizMac42 the 'Description' field dosnt matter, you can put anything you like there.

As to the other settings

Server - relay.plus.net

Authentication - None

Port - 587

Connection security - STARTTLS

If its a mobile device and you wish to be able to send when away from home

then

Authentication - Normal password

Username - <your plusnet accountname>

Password - <your account password> ( the one you use to login to the member centre)

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:21:31 GMT

The printscreen I tried to post would not work for some reason - so will list the Questions in the SMPT box below with the answers I was told to enter - are they correct? especially Description

DESCRIPTION: SMPT Server

SERVER NAME: relay.plus.net

PORT: 587 or 25

CONNECTION SECURITY: None

AUTHENTICATION: None

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:22:48 GMT

Thanks MisterW - will try again and let you know

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:27:38 GMT

No it still wont work - got message

Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) .plusnetliz.plus.com failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again.

Its a desktop computer running Windows 10

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:31:07 GMT

@LizMac42 Your outgoing server should be 'relay. plus.net' - not as you have it.

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 16:31:31 GMT

@LizMac42 You may (or may not) find this Mozilla help article useful: Manual Account Configuration | Thunderbird Help

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 20:55:10 GMT

Thanks Jab1 but there is no option for manual configuration given on the Thunderbird Account Set up page - I have tried every which way and nothing works - grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 06:54:41 GMT

Assuming you have installed the latest version of TB, the manual set-up option is there. I can't tell you exactly where, but if you follow the link I gave you, it is there somewhere.

If you can't find it, there is the option to manually change the SMTP server if you click 'Server settings' under 'Tools>Account Settings>Outgoing Server (SMTP).

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

MisterW — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 08:20:55 GMT

@jab1 I think the manual setup is only available on the initial email account setup

@LizMac42 use the method John has just posted above to change the SMTP server settings ( you may have more than one if you have multiple email accounts )

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:09:53 GMT

@MisterW You are correct re: manual setup, but I was wondering if @LizMac42 might be in a position to uninstall the current program and re-install from scratch?

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

MisterW — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:17:59 GMT

Its simpler just to correct the SMTP server settings as you described

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 14:12:33 GMT

Might try that but am worried about losing my incoming mail but maybe worth a go as I am rapidly giving up on Thunderbird and even Plusnest Technical Help Line can't sort it out ..three of them have tried!

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 14:20:22 GMT

@LizMac42 'That' being my suggestion of making sure the server is correct, then make sure it looks EXACTLY like this:

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

MisterW — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 14:20:44 GMT

@LizMac42 going into the Outgoing server settings using @jab1 s instructions wont go anywhere near your incoming mail settings

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

LizMac42 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 20:11:27 GMT

Thought you meant the whole account - however I have gone so many times and tried every which way to edit the SMPT server - but as said before nothing works.

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

jab1 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 20:17:15 GMT

@LizMac42 There is something fundamentally wrong in your settings somewhere if changing that SMTP server setting to that shown in my picture does not work.

Is it possible to totally remove TB and start from scratch? Or show all your settings - obscuring your email address, obviously?

Re: Using Thunderbird and Cant SEND mail

Townman — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 13:36:51 GMT

@LizMac42

For the avoidance of doubt...

Are you connecting via a Plusnet ADSL or Fibre connection or some other provider (for example 3/4G)?
Is this on an active established account?

When everything else looks OK, these then become the likely culprits...

If you are connecting off network (another ISP or 3/4G)...

You MUST use authentication - supply the user name and password for the mailbox - if it is the primary mailbox the it is your accountname and the account password, if it is a secondary mailbox then it is accountname+mailboxname and its password
If (1) is covered and you are NOT connecting direct to Plusnet's network, you could be encountering a third-party black listed IP address issue

If you are a brand new user, but your broadband account has not gone live, then you cannot access the SMTP server until it does.

I am somewhat presuming that when you attempt to send, you are receiving a user name / password error? If yes, there are a number of issues, which are NOT related to username and password, which email clients report as user name / password errors. To find out exactly what is happening, you would need to run some diagnostics ... as below. It is more a bit of a fiddle than difficult ... so long as you follow each step carefully, you should get a clear error status at the end!

Test SMTP authentication

Email programs often report username / password error for issues not actually related to those being wrong, but for other connectivity issues. Such can be very frustrating when you are convinced that they are correct. Testing SMTP authentication through a command line interface can deliver a more precise error message. The following describes how to do this using TELNET.

This is not difficult, but you need the following resources which might be unfamiliar...

TELNET - this might need installing as an additional option, for Windows see enabling TELNET.
A code64 encoder / decoder such as this.

You can use TELNET to communicate direct with the SMTP server as follows...

Open the code64 encoder in a web browser and leave ready for use in the following steps.

Launch a windows command line window (DOS window) - press windows-key+R - type CMD into the run box - click OK

Enter...

telnet relay.plus.net 587

Press enter. Note if you use one of the other brand email services, use the appropriate SMTP server name for that brand. In response to SMTP server I'm here message, say 'HELLO'...

EHLO relay.plus.net

The SMTP server will then report what it can do after which tell the server you wish to authenticate...

AUTH login

The server should return the following, which is a base64 encoded string that requires your username:

334 VXNlcm5hbWU6

Use the code64 encoder to encode your username and paste it into the telnet window and press enter. For example:

bXl1c2VybmFtZQ==

The server should return the following, which is a base64 encoded string that requires your password:

334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6

Paste the base64 encoded password for the username. For example:

bXlwYXNzd29yZA==

The server will then report success or failure, any failure message should clearly indicate the reason for the failure. If the reason for the failure is not clear, please report back the message.

Close the SMTP / TELNET session by entering

quit

The session should look something similar to the below wherein your input is in bold...

220 avasout03 smtp relay.plus.net
EHLO relay.plus.net
250-avasout03 hello [your IP address], pleased to meet you
250-HELP
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-SIZE 104857600
250-PIPELINING
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 OK
AUTH LOGIN
334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
bXl1c2VybmFtZQ==
334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
bXlwYXNzd29yZA==
235 ... authentication succeeded
quit
221 avasout03 smtp closing connection
Connection to host lost.

Here are some examples of failure responses...

535 ...authentication rejected [as username / password is wrong]
535 ...authentication rejected as source IP has a poor reputation

Another cannot send email

paul1098 — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 21:00:01 GMT

I can receive emails but cannot send emails via plusnet using either outlook on my laptop or Xiaomi mail on my android phone.

I changed my email password 2 weeks ago as i discovered it had been compromised. Not sure whether it was a coincidence or consequence of doing that but I discovered I couldn't send emails. I have been thru' the trouble shooter guides with no success. I talked to tech support who suggested it could be my kaspersky security causing problems or outlook.

Since the discussion I managed to disable my kaspersky and my VPN and i'm still not able to send emails.

I can send emails from my Webmail account.

I decided to have a look at my wifes email settings to see what I was missing only to discover that she cannot send emails from her account either so it's not just my account with problems.

I have noticed when I log on to my plusnet account that it cannot give me information and there is a banner telling me that changes are already occuring and I can't make changes - it's been saying that for the last 2 weeks so don't know if that's the issue.

I have a domain name linked to the Plusnet account and the plusnet account is dormant i.e. only used for emails. My current ISP is BT and my router is a BT router. Not sure whether that makes a difference except for SPA authentication requirement.

I do have a Plusnet account with router but that is at another property and isn't linked to my emails as far as I know.

Starting to get a little sick of not being able to send emails and not getting any useful help from tech support.

Is there anything else I can try?