topic Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi in Email

Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:36:29 GMT

I am sure the answer to this lays somewhere in the millions of "e-mail settings" posts, but I have been unable to find it, so I will kick off with an apology.

My Android phone (Vodafone) will only receive e-mails if I am connected to the internet via my plusnet router at home, which makes having e-mail on my mobile pretty useless. I am sure that this used to work, so I am guessing it's some kind of a new security feature?

My settings for incoming mail are:

Server: imap.plus.net

Port:143

Security type: None

What have I got wrong?

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

outcast — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:47:18 GMT

According to this - Plusnet email setup FAQs - IMAP

the server settings should be this -

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:56:09 GMT

Is STARTTLS required for the incoming or outgoing server?

If I use port 993 and STARTTLS then when I try to save the new settings my phone hangs on "Checking server settings". The same thing happens if I use port 992 and Security: None.

Port 993 and SSL/TLS was accepted though, so I will try that tomorrow when I am at work.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

MisterW — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 07:30:48 GMT

Is STARTTLS required for the incoming or outgoing server?

Outgoing . the incoming is SSL/TLS

The main think is that you need to set authentication on the outgoing server in order to work on a non-Plusnet connection

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

outcast — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 12:18:59 GMT

@MisterW wrote:

the incoming is SSL/TLS

@MisterW could you via the "SU space", or other means, get staff to add that info to the official documentation ?

as the official FAQ shown in Reply #2 isn't complete with that detail missing.

Perhaps labelled "Incoming connection security SSL/TLS"

and likewise to make unambiguous, change the outgoing to "Outgoing connection security STARTTLS"

Having the official documentation show complete information is likely to save other people time and confusion going forwards.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

MisterW — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 12:52:36 GMT

@outcast Yes, I'll feed that back and sse if we can get the FAQ clarified.

To be fair, the email clients I've used have always defaulted to SSL/TLS if IMAP and port 993 are selected

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Townman — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 13:28:50 GMT

@outcast

The feedback has been given on multiple occasions...

... and again - I have now added it to an on-going email configuration discussion thread.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:38:54 GMT

Thanks. It's working fine with SSL/TLS. I have been getting spam all day while at work🙄

I am also able to send mail using relay.plus.net on port 587 with security type set to "none" but Require sign-in ticked.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

MisterW — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:56:42 GMT

@Digsy you really should use STARTTLS on the outgoing server to ensure your authentication details are encrhypted

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:50:39 GMT

I have updated the outgoing server settings now too. Thanks!

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:56:17 GMT

Just resurrecting this for a related issue.

After sorting out the receiving of e-mails when using cellular data, I am now regularly (but not always) getting errors when sending e-mails.

I am using relay.plus.net, port 25, STARTTLS, and "require sign in" is ticked.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

jab1 — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:04:43 GMT

@Digsy What errors?

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 21:27:05 GMT

I am getting this (first time I actually read beyond the "Failed to send mail" part:

Failed to send mail

Connection problem. (544 avasout-ptp-004 smtp ESMTP sever not available (blacklisted by local policy)).

EDIT: I found some older posts advising to check my IP address against blacklists, so I used whatismyipaddress.com and checked it against https://hetrixtools.com/blacklist-check and it came up negative. I won't have tripped over any volume limits either, as I hardly ever send e-mails from my phone and when I do it is usually just a single line to myself as a reminder to do something.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Dan_the_Van — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:54:54 GMT

@Digsy

"I am using relay.plus.net, port 25, STARTTLS, and "require sign in" is ticked."

Try using port 587 which is recommended.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

jab1 — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 06:58:38 GMT

@Dan_the_Van I am more concerned that 'local policy' is blocking a perfectly legitimate server, but totally agree about the port - as people are constantly reminded, port 25 is certainly not the correct one.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Digsy — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:38:48 GMT

Changing the port to 587 seems to have fixed the issue.

Maybe its time to remove port 25 from the FAQ? It worked fine for me right up until a few days ago.

Anyway, thanks for the pointer.

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

outcast — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:01:29 GMT

@Digsy wrote:

Changing the port to 587 seems to have fixed the issue.

Maybe its time to remove port 25 from the FAQ? It worked fine for me right up until a few days ago.

@Townman is it worth 'escalating' that suggestion ?

Re: Phone only receiving e-mails with connected to home wifi

Townman — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:16:51 GMT

@outcast

Please see my PM - I'm working on a different solution!

Port 25 should NEVER have been included in the guide. Call it pedantry, but for email client message SUBMISSION it is technically wrong. The fact that using the MX message RELAY port might work does not mean it is correct. I just do not understand why users persist in using it.

Historically connections to 'off-network' servers on port 25 were firmly blocked.

The fact that port 25 is wrong and the encryption reference to STARTTLS is confusing has been raised several times over a long period ... and it remains unchanged! @James_B