topic Re: Total failure of metronet email service in Email

Total failure of metronet email service

tobiz — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:31:51 GMT

1) I'm connected to Plusnet as my ISP (and have been for many years)

2) on17th March 2025 after ~11:11 (my last received email) my metronet email service stop both receiving and sending

3) My email system is Thunderbird (and has been for many years)

4) I've spent many hours trying to workout what has gone wrong, ie checking my Thunderbird email setup (which hasn't been changed in years) without result.

5) I decided to install Thunderbird on my Mobile as a test, went through the setup for my account with the same details as my desktop version(which until 17/3 worked). Setup for mail.metronet.co.uk was successful. Setup for smtp.metronet.co.uk failed with the error msg: "avasout-peh-004 smtp ESMTP server not available (blacklisted by local policy)". This suggested the problem is at plusnet/metronet end and not my desktop system or mobile.

6) I investigated Plusnet forum and found this problem has been seen before and could be due to Plusnet having, by some means blacklisted my fixed IP address for the smtp.metronet.co.uk IP address

7} This fits my set of circumstance under which my desktop Thunderbird email service failed completely, ie no change to my email config, Thunderbird doing nothing ie not sending or receiving at the time.

I have a fixed IP address allocate by Plusnet many, many years ago.

9) whatever is stopping my desktop Thunderbird working and not being able to setup Thunderbird on my Samsung Mobile to be fixed ASAP.

10) If anyone needs to know anything else, just ask.

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

BruceArden — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 21:29:43 GMT

See https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Free-Online-email-servers-error/td-p/2002411 and https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/SMTP-problems/m-p/2002588

(You need to change your username from myemail to myemail@metronet.co.uk, but sending still isn't working. Though you can still use webmail.plus.net)

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

Townman — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:09:37 GMT

UPDATE: SSL/TLS is NOT available for Metronet users.

Encryption should be set to NONE. That will eliminate the certificate issues.

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

tobiz — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:29:45 GMT

@Townman.

On my system Encryption = None, port 25, server=smtp.metronet.co.uk.

Tried port 587, Security StartTLS, server smtp.metronet.co.uk

And it failed with something about Certificates and security.

Basically, on anything but PN Webmail none of my desktop nor mobile systems using my metronet account are able to send emails.

Do Plusnet Support keep a log of changes made?

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

Townman — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:53:13 GMT

Clarification, there should be no security set on Metronet configurations - that will eliminate the certificate issue.

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

tobiz — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 14:56:30 GMT

Can I suggest following this issue on the "SMTP problems??" (https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/SMTP-problems/td-p/2002526/page/2https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/SMTP-problems/td-p/2002526/page/2 ) forum thread. My one is obviously the same as that one and has more responses to it and it will make life easier following one rather than two.

I'd like to thank the people that spotted the UN: myemail vs UN: myemail@metronet.co.uk issue for solving half the problem.

A solution from PN to solve the other half they've created would be nice!

Re: Total failure of metronet email service

Gritstone62 — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 18:27:10 GMT

I have a pretty similar set up to you tobiz static ip, plusnet email, thunderbird client and can't send via smtp which has been working for years