Problems With Yahoo Mail

[#1]

For the past couple of days Thunderbird has been reporting "An (SMTP) error has occurred sending mail. The server responded: yahoo.com closing transmission channel. Remote IP is over the limit for messages allowed to be sent in a single day."
I haven't sent any messages and the problem persists after powering off my router for a few hours so
* I have picked up an IP address of someone who has sent too many messages and retained it while my router was off - in which case the message is lying because I know I haven't sent the messages "in a single day".
or
*  I have picked up two different IP addresses of people who has sent too many messages.
or
* Yahoo is blocking (all?) Plusnet IP addresses because there is spam originating from some of them
or
* Something else
Has anyone else seen this message from Yahoo? Any idea what is going on?

[#2]

Are you sure what server is causing/reporting this?
I've seen exactly this in the last 2 days generated by Hotmail, due to some spammer using the email server I share (not PN) to send too many messages to Hotmail adresses.

[#3]

I can't get email from yahoo - Thunderbird reports a problem logging into server

[#4]

I have always had GMail retrieve my emails from my Yahoo address using POP3. Yesterday I noticed that GMail was reporting a problem logging in to the Yahoo server and had not been retrieving emails for some time. I changed the Username from "username" to "username@yahoo.co.uk" and it started working again. Yahoo must have recently changed their log in requirements as GMail has been happily retrieving my Yahoo email without having to use  'yahoo.co.uk' in the username for as long as I can remember. Mal08, it may be worth checking to see whether you have this problem also.

[#5]

Looks like this is a problem at Yahoo!'s side from what I can tell. There are similar things being reported elsewhere judging from a quick Google search.

[#6]

I suspect it's not actually a problem 
To get SMTP/POP access Yahoo say you need to PAY for an additional service. This looks more like a bodged implementation of that, the only complaints I've seen (here and elsewhere) relate to free accounts that should not work at all! 

[#7]

I have a standard Yahoo email address and within the options it allows you to use POP access. See the attachment 'Yahoo Mail Options'.
The paid service gives a number of extras all of which are listed in the attachment 'Yahoo Mail Plus'. POP access does not feature in the list.

[#8]

It's a certificate problem (well it is on my setup).
My Thunderbird connects to the SMTP server at yahoo.co.uk but gets a certificate from yahoo.com
Sending email via Yahoo.com (or .co.uk) has always been hit and miss.
Sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn't.

[#9]

I am getting the certificate error reported above. I am no longer seeing the "too many messages" message.
I have managed to send messages by changing from SSL port 465 on outgoing messages to not SSL and port 25.
It is true that on parts of the Yahoo site it says that POP3 is available only to paying customers. This has been the case for a long time. However, the last time I looked I found a different page that contradicted that. It certainly has been working and (with the above change) is still working.

[#10]

If it were just a certificate problem wouldn't Thunderbird report a certificate error?

[#11]

Someone with a Madasafish email account has tried several times over a few months to send emails to my Yahoo email address. The messages do not bounce but they never arrive that is to say they never become visible to me even using Yahoo webmail.  They are not in spam / bulk folders. All the other email that I expect arrives OK including messages from Plusnet support / billing.

[#12]

Are they sending via Webmail or using a standalone mail client like Outlook?
I've just sent the following email from a Madasafish account using the Madasafish mail servers:

220 smtp3.global.net.uk ESMTP Exim Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:37:58 +0000
ehlo lionel
501 Syntactically invalid EHLO argument(s)
ehlo lionel
250-smtp3.global.net.uk Hello lionel [80.229.150.170]
250-SIZE 26214400
250-PIPELINING
250 HELP
mail from:<bobpullen@madasafish.com>
250 OK
rcpt to:<xxxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk>
250 Accepted
data
354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
subject:This is a test message
Testing the sending of email to Yahoo from a Madasafish address via Brightview'
 mail servers.
.
250 OK id=1LXMn3-0009fz-ET

It arrived successfully in my Yahoo mailbox:

Return-Path:   	 	 <bobpullen@madasafish.com>
Authentication-Results: 		mta158.mail.ukl.yahoo.com from=; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: 		from 212.159.7.99 (EHLO relay.pcl-ipout01.plus.net) (212.159.7.99) by mta158.mail.ukl.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:39:17 +0000
Message-Id: 		<7jl65a$67vvt@relay.pcl-ipout01.plus.net>
Received: 		from smtp3.global.net.uk ([80.189.92.91]) by relay.pcl-ipout01.plus.net with ESMTP; 11 Feb 2009 21:39:17 +0000
Received: 		from [80.229.150.170] (helo=lionel) by smtp3.global.net.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.42) id 1LXMn3-0009fz-ET for xxxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk; Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:39:16 +0000
subject: 		This is a test message
Content-Length: 		95
Testing the sending of email to Yahoo! from a Madasafish address via Brightview's mail servers.

Has this 'someone' tried contacting our support team to see if they're able to help?
Have you got anything set up under Options > Mail Options > Filters on your Yahoo! account?

[#13]

They are using Outlook Express under Windows XP. I have no Yahoo filtering.
As the next step I have asked them to mail my PlusNet email address to see if that works. I'll also ask them to mail my Yahoo address by webmail to see if that makes a difference.

[#14]

Quote from: alanf

As the next step I have asked them to mail my PlusNet email address to see if that works. I'll also ask them to mail my Yahoo address by webmail to see if that makes a difference.

Good idea as Webmail uses different outbound servers. There's definitely no problems sending email from Madasafish to Plusnet so if they have problems with that too then the likelyhood is that it's a local problem.

[#15]

Correction. They are using Outlook 2007 not Outlook Express as I stated.
We didn't get as far a trying webmail today but:
When they REPLIED to an email I sent from Yahoo nothing came back.
When they REPLIED to an email I sent from PlusNet nothing came back.
BUT
When they SENT a message to Yahoo the message arrived. I'll have to dig a little deeper.
Thanks for your input Bob. I failed to mention that their email service was originally set up for an IC24 dial up account and they moved in the second half of last year to Madasafish broadband (who had taken over IC24 ) retaining their @ic24.net email address. Could that be affecting anything?