topic Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC in Email

More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:49:47 GMT

I realise there are already some threads on a similar topic to this but from what I've read so far they don't seem to cover a similar scenario to what I've experienced so I thought it was worth starting a new one.

Following notification of the migration to Greenby everything seemed to work seamlessly for a couple of days, then on the third day my email client, Thunderbird, suddenly reported it was unable to log in to the server while trying to check for new mail.

I raised a ticket with Greenby and after a conversation with it's AI bot eventually managed to change my account password after I'd found that a character in my existing password was not allowed. After changing the incoming and outgoing server passwords to match in Thunderbird I was able to read mail again but it would still not connect to send mail. The bot took me round in circles, changing the username for the outgoing SMTP server and then changing it back.

Eventually the bot stated it had exhausted the standard troubleshooting steps and it needed escalate to the technical team to investigate why SMTP authentication is failing. It then told me to raise a support ticket and gave me all the details to include. It said the technical team would be able to check the server logs to see exactly why SMTP is rejecting my authentication.

So I went ahead and started a new ticket following it's instructions precisely only to find that the response was from the AI bot again. I've had no contact with actual humans, am still left without being able to send mail via Thunderbird and now the AI bot is no longer responding to my replies.

However I can send and receive mail via Greenby's webmail and also via my Samsung Android phone using K9 Mail once I had updated the password, proving my credentials are basically correct.

Interestingly Thunderbird on my wife's laptop is still working perfectly without any changes being made. Her Android phone is also working fine without changes using the built-in Samsung mail app. The only difference is she uses a different username (the username+user form) and a password with alphabetic characters only.

I'm at a loss where to go from here and I'll be really grateful for any help and suggestions. I logged into my Plusnet broadband account intending to look for Support but I find they've removed email from the list of support choices. Thanks so much Plusnet. NOT!!

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:35:18 GMT

@Buggwrit You do not say what 'brand' of email you had - what is the last part of your email address (after the account name)?

I use Thunderbird for my Force9 mailboxes with no problems.

Are your outgoing server settings as follows?...

SMTP Server: relay.xxx.net where xxx is plus or force9 etc.
Port: 587 Security: StartTLS
Username: <account> or <account>+<mailbox> or <mailbox>@<email address>
Password: <mailbox password>
Authentication: Normal password

What was the mailbox password character that the bot said was not allowed?

In Thunderbird, can you check Menu => Settings => Privacy & Security => Saved Passwords and see if your password for the saved username is exactly correct?

Note that the servers were rather slow and at times unresponsive over the last few days, but it has just worked fine for me.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:59:18 GMT

Thanks for responding @mavison

See attached screenshot. I thought about including this in my post. Wish I had now 🙂.

The character in my original password - that I've used with Plusnet ever since I joined - was Dollar $. I replaced it with another non-alphanumeric character which has obviously been accepted by the incoming mail server.

I have checked the passwords are the correct updated version.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 20:54:21 GMT

@Buggwrit Your screenshot shows that the Port, Authentication and Connection Security are not ideal or even plain wrong (even though the Greenby bot may have suggested them!).

I suggest you ...

Select Add from that screen
Enter Description: Force9 Greenby
Enter Server Name: smtp.force9.net
Enter Port: 587
Select Connection Security: StartTLS
Select Autrhentication: Normal Password
Enter User Name: <your account name>
Click OK
Select Force9 Greenby in the list of servers
Check values are correct at the bottom
Click Test Connection to Server
If Successful, click on Make Default, then to send email.
If fails, post messages here.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 22:16:50 GMT

Ok, I'm game to try anything that might work but I feel I should point out those settings are what I've been using all the time I've been with Plusnet and they were, indeed, confirmed by what the bot recommended.

I presume I'll need to set the password for the new server name in the saved logins although it'll probably prompt for one the first time I use it..

I'll report back once I've tried your settings.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 22:59:47 GMT

@Buggwrit They may have worked with Plusnet email ... but they were not ones that have been recommended by PN for many years. Times move on, and I would not accept my emails not being encrypted these days, which would have been the case with your settings.

I deliberately did not suggest changing your existing server settings, but if one works better than the other you could delete the worst one.

It will ask for your password again - make sure it is the current valid one for your Greenby main account.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:34:17 GMT

It's still not working. Although I've changed the SMTP server settings it still seems to be trying to use relay.plus.net. I removed the SMTP entry from the saved logins list then tried to send a message. It asked for a password which I entered correctly after which it came back with the same error indicating it was using relay.plus.net and that reinstated the original entry in saved logins.

Notice that there was no facility to test the server connection in the Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings pane.

Moderator's note: Images rejected as they include personal information..

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:49:02 GMT

@Buggwrit Apologies - the outgoing server should be relay.force9.net.

What version of Thunderbird are you running, on what platform? (Win10, 11, Linux etx)

i cannot see your attachments yet.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:13:37 GMT

Ah, that's more like it 😊. We have success.

I discovered that the reason it was still trying to use relay.plus.net was because I needed to select relay.force9.net as the Outgoing Server in the Account Settings for mail.plus.net.

The version of Thunderbird I'm running is 115.5.1 (32-bit) on Windows 7 Professional SP2.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 13:26:59 GMT

@Buggwrit Glad to hear it is working now!

The reason you have no Test Server facility is probably because my Thunderbird is v146 (64bit) on Win11, and yours is a 'little' older.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:20:12 GMT

I thought it was probably something like that.

My grateful thanks for your help with this.

I was interested to note your comment regarding encryption. I've always been a bit concerned about the fact the password is transmitted insecurely. At the time I first set up with Plusnet that appeared to be the only option. Is there a better one now?

I'd also have quite liked to have my messages encrypted but I've always assumed this woud require the recipient to be set up to decrypt them. I've never researched it so I'd be interested to have your thoughts.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 17:16:06 GMT

@Buggwrit Yes, there is a much better secure option that has been available for some years. Messages between the server and you will be encrypted if you use port 587 for SMTP, 993 for IMAP and 995 for POP3 but SSL/TLS/StartTLS need specifying as well. My understanding is that the encryption includes the whole message and password. It uses the same sort of mechanism that secure HTTPS web sites use, but not HTTP sites. It seems silly of Greenby to suggest using non-encrypted emails these days, particularly as most mobile devices will be used on insecure public wifi connections at some time!

Note that this is not end-to-end encryption (ie encrypted between you and the sender/receiver of the message), but it is decrypted/encrypted by your email program and the Plusnet/Force9/Greenby mail server. If you are concerned about email severs being compromised, then for e2e encryption of the message body you need an additional layer of encryption and some form of key that you and only the sender/receiver of the message know (google PGP encryption). I believe Thinderbird can use PGP.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 19:49:25 GMT

Well, I tried setting the POP server port to 995 and enabling STARTTLS but it failed to get a test message sent from my phone. When I clicked Get Messages it did not report anything in the status line at the bottom of the page and just appeared to hang, eventually timing out. Once I set the port back to 110 and Connection security back to None the message came through.

I think that having overcome the original problem I'll just leave things as they are, but once again thanks very much for your help.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 23:02:25 GMT

@Buggwrit I had not realised you wanted to try POP3, or that Thunderbird offered StartTLS with POP3 (I use POP3, but not with Thunderbird), but I am not suprised it does not work.

However, if you change just StartTLS to SSL/TLS it has just worked ok here for me and retrieved some messages, and I think it will all be encrypted from the server.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

MisterW — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:29:08 GMT

However, if you change just StartTLS to SSL/TLS it has just worked ok here for me and retrieved some messages, and I think it will all be encrypted from the server.

That's correct. STARTTLS is only applicable for outgoing (SMTP) connections. For incoming (IMAP or POP3) then SSL/TLS should be used and does provide an encrypted connection to the server

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 22:10:35 GMT

@mavison I've been using POP3 from the outset. As you mentioned both STARTTLS and SSL/TLS in your earlier reply I didn't know which to use and chose STARTTLS because it was offered in the list and worked on the SMTP server. I'll probably try SSL/TLS in the next day or two and report back.

For a bit of background I use POP3 because I like to keep my messages on my local PC. I use IMAP on my other devices. I have Thunderbird set to delete messages from the server after 14 days. That gives me time to save any I want to keep if I first pick them up on my phone for example.

The server appears to have been down for a while today. After picking up some messages first thing in the morning Thunderbird started reporting failure to log in as it automatically checked for messages. I received this message:

It's back this evening but I hope this is not an example of the kind of service I can expect from Greenby. If it is, together with their almost non-existant customer service I may well be looking to jump ship.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Personal information removed from a public forum.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 23:22:00 GMT

@Buggwrit Sorry about the confusion with SSL/TLS and POP3.

I also use POP3 on one mailbox - but not normally on Thunderbird, though I have tested my settings on Thunderbird.

I have not seen problems today (been away from computers) but I hope that the performance problems will be resolved as Greenby tune their system after such a massive migration, and the usage returns to a more normal state. In general, after initial problems were resolved, my emails have been behaving reasonably well, though email setup and usage does vary tremendously from user to user.

I have raised several tickets on Greenby Support, and though currently their response can be slow I have had some real technical support once you get past the AI bot. Again, I have hope that their support response and the AI bot knowledge will improve. If not, there will be a mass ship jumping!

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:47:29 GMT

Okay, I finally got around to trying port 995 with SSL/TLS. After the outage on Christmas day there was another brief one on Boxing day so I decided to wait until it looked stable. After years with an insecure login another few days wouldn't matter.

It still doesn't work with these settings and I'm wondering if I also need to change the server name from mail.plus.net to mail.force9.net? Thunderbird wants to restart if I do that so I'd just like to confirm it before I go ahead.

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

mavison — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 18:29:36 GMT

@Buggwrit if I also need to change the server name from mail.plus.net to mail.force9.net?

You must use the correct middle part of the server name for your account - only use force9 if you have a Force9 address.

The thread title is about not being able to send emails from Thunderbird - you now seem to be talking about problems receiving emails using the POP3 protocol? Is sending now ok?

Is the mailbox you are trying to use with POP3 your primary mailbox, or a secondary one?

Have you changed any passwords since your migration?

Are you able to use the instructions in the post Diagnosing email server connectivity issues - the guide near the top of this email forum?

Re: More Greenby grief - I can no longer send mail from Thunderbird on my PC

Buggwrit — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:14:58 GMT

I must confess I only have a limited understanding of how all this works and I'm getting more and more confused.

Thanks to your assistance I am able to send mail successfully now. I am also able to receive mail after sorting out the password problem following advice from the Greenby AI bot.

I don't understand about primary and secondary mailboxes. As far as I know I only have one, which is presumably therefore my primary one.

Having, with your help, sorted out the problem with sending mail in which you recommended changing the server name from relay.plus.net to relay.force9.net and changing the port to 587 this latter part of the conversation only arose because of the discussion regarding encryption of the password during login. I thought it would be good to have password encryption if that were possible but simply selecting SSL/TLS and Port 996 didn't work so I wondered if perhaps I needed to use <force9> in place of <plus> in the outgoing server name. I don't understand what you mean by a Force9 address.

What really baffles me is that on my wife's laptop both sending and receiving mail with Thunderbird have worked seamlessly since the migration with no changes. So her mailbox is still mail.plus.net, Port 110, and her SMTP is still relay.plus.net, Port 25. The only difference from mine is that her username takes the form <username+user> and she has a different password with no special characters.

It seems as though mine only ran into problems because of the unaccepted special character in my original password but resolving that still left the problem with sending mail, resulting in the change to relay.force9.net, Port 587. If hers still works with relay.plus.net Port 25 why did mine need to be changed?

I would really like to understand why I needed to make the changes when my wife didn't but having got everything working I'm minded to just forget about encryption and carry on with my life.