AOL mail

[#1]

I was connected to fibre yesterday and was immediately unable to send a link such as 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

to anyone.

 I get the error message you will see in the attached screenshot.

1. This problem happened on all my family’s iPhones and iPads. 

2.  The links go ok if I use iCloud but none of us do, so it is definitely AOL related

3. In vain I deleted AOL and reinstalled it even though I couldn’t see that working as that was on one of my devices yet all are affected.

4. AOL suggested the deletion and got me to confirm the smtp imap settings which were correct, but they should be as we touched nothing, just connected to our new router. 

Help appreciated

thanks

[#2]

IF I read your post correctly, @Boatname, you cannot send  AOL mail through the PN relay - that is for PN mail. To send via AOL, you will have AOL mail servers.

If I am wrong, the mail expert on here is @spraxyt - so if he sees this, he may be able to explain more.

[#3]

Hi John, thanks for the reply.

Which I don’t understand 😁😁😁

I am a very simple internet user and always have been. 

For as far far back as I can remember we have had an AOL email address. I can’t even remember how or why but it’s been a loooooong time, both on Windows and then as early adopters of Apple. 

I have NEVER had to get involved in the nuts and bolts.

IMAP and SMTP are as involved to me as writing code. 

All I have ever done in the past when upgrading things is just select AOL as my provider and I guess the Cloud does the rest.

Now however, since changing from TalkTalk to Plusnet Fibre we all get the message displayed in the picture I posted. 

The emails with links go quite quite happily from my iCloud address but the AOL message is just gibberish to me. 

I did “open the bonnet” and wandered around settings until I found what AOL had said about IMAP addresses and was it port numbers? Anyway they all agreed. 

So, the AOL settings are correct, and should be as I went nowhere near them ... why would I?

As for PN relay, I really appreciate you’re trying to help but that means literally NOTHING to me.

AOL servers? No idea. 

We have ipads and phones that all now have the same error and all I did was connect to my new router  

I really am grateful for your attempt at helping but I can only tell you that everything worked fine on Tuesday, Wednesday we connected with Plusnet and links won’t send from our AOL email addresses and we see that strange message.

Any help appreciated 👍👍

[#4]

OK, I understand what you are saying, @Boatname, but until @spraxyt sees this, in simple language, you can't send messages using your AOL email address when you are a PN customer, unless you use AOL's webmail - can't help you on that as I've never been near it.

Basically, if you are a PN customer, you can only send mail from a PN email address using a mail client, as you appear to be doing,

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Well .... what can I say?

I have 10 rejected emails in my Outbox, all ‘sent’ to different people, all with simple links in (BBC, Newspapers etc), all from my AOL Account, all with the same rejection message and I’ve just tried again and it’s working! 

As I said, I changed nothing so although pleased I am equally confused. 

Thanks for the help on this and my other question.

Nice to know you’re out there and hopefully one day I can help someone too

🤪🤪🤪

[#6]

Glad it's worked for you, @Boatname, but I'm confused now

Hope @spraxyt can enlighten me, and improve/correct my understanding of the mysteries.

[#7]

Yeeesss, it is even more confusing than you think. 

First of all I have absolutely no idea what a PN customer is .... oh, holy crp, that’s Plusnet isn’t it!

Doh!

Fact is that I COULD send AOL emails totally as per normal ... literally no difference UNLESS they had a link in them then I got that strange message. 

Suddenly, this evening, the planets aligned and links send just as easy as emails without them. 

I’m not alone with this problem but none of these answers helped

https://appletoolbox.com/2016/02/cannot-send-e-mails-does-not-allow-relaying-fix/

https://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/974021

Pone even odder thing is that even though all the rejected emails I sent were to other people it was my email address that the error message referred to ... see the blacked out part of my picture  

It was almost as though “the system” thought that I  was sending links to myself!

I said it was confusing 😁😁

[#8]

@jab1 The user here will have added an email account to the Apple iOS mail app by choosing Aol from the option list

That would set the account up to use Aol incoming and outgoing mail servers. The Plusnet email servers would in no way be involved with message collection and sending with this account.

If one wanted to use Plusnet email it would be necessary to choose the "Other" option, then on further screens enter the Plusnet server names manually because the app's guesses would need correcting..

@Boatname I can only guess what might have happened here when initially trying to send messages including links. I suspect it could be an Aol spam prevention feature when sending from a new connection source was detected. After a suitable threshold (eg time or number of acceptable messages) was passed the blockage was removed.

However I emphasis that is just a guess - spam prevention tactics are normally kept under wraps..

[#9]

Yes as @spraxyt said, it is possible when you moved to fibre your IP had most likely changed.

AOL may have some spam protection techniques which didn't like your new IP, so it was rejecting them. Especially if they use Geo IP services which are not always an exact science, even though operators think they are.

Of course companies won't tell you how they work and their policies as then people would then work a way around them.

Well at least the problem seems to have gone away, though I know it is frustrating to not know exactly why.

If it happens again I would try using mobile data and see if it fails there. That would give you a different IP - not sure if your iPad is a mobile data version or just WiFi. Though you can certainly use your phones for mobile data, even then you've got the option of using public WiFi there .. to rule out it being a problem with your connection and IP, etc.

[#10]

---

@spraxyt wrote:

@jab1 The user here will have added an email account to the Apple iOS mail app by choosing Aol from the option list

That would set the account up to use Aol incoming and outgoing mail servers. The Plusnet email servers would in no way be involved with message collection and sending with this account.

If one wanted to use Plusnet email it would be necessary to choose the "Other" option, then on further screens enter the Plusnet server names manually because the app's guesses would need correcting..

@Boatname I can only guess what might have happened here when initially trying to send messages including links. I suspect it could be an Aol spam prevention feature when sending from a new connection source was detected. After a suitable threshold (eg time or number of acceptable messages) was passed the blockage was removed.

However I emphasis that is just a guess - spam prevention tactics are normally kept under wraps..

---

@spraxyt- Thanks for the correction and the information. I actually realised I had led the OP down the wrong path while I was in bed trying yo get to sleep, because a light-bulb lit and I realised it was a phone screen in the picture - Brian the brain just didn't work very well yesterday.

[#11]

Many thanks for all the input.

Yes, I selected AOL not Plusnet as my provider and eventually the problem went away. No idea why. 

I can still send emails using AOL with attachments.  Yay.

However my wife can’t. Boo.

I had basically been trying to get my iPad to work, suddenly it did and she was away for the night with hers.

When she got back her iPad and phone had/have exactly the same problem using wifi, data is fine, 

Settings are identical on all devices, mine work, hers don’t. 

As this doesnt seem to be a Plusnet concern, I’ll contact AOL again but am sure I am conversing with a Bot.

Incidentally my MacBook works fine too.

Very frustrating as our extended family are constantly sending links trying to resolve an elderly relatives issues.

Thanks again for your thoughts 👍

[#12]

These are perhaps long shots in the present context but I suggest trying the fixes detailed in posts

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Can-t-send-email-on-iPad-IOS-12/m-p/1585434#M25349

and

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Can-t-send-email-on-iPad-IOS-12/m-p/1585449#M25351

Those worked for some users.

[#13]

Thanks again but those links haven’t solved the problem and I have just spent the last couple of hours playing in settings and accounts.

Actions so far, router on and off, wife’s iPad hard reset and cached screens “swiped away”. 

AOL deleted and reloaded, manual adjustments that I really didn’t understand to server SPTP and IMAP settings.

Bottom line:

My Mac, my iPad, my iPhone and my wife’s iPhone all send emails with attachments using WiFi or data using AOL.

My wife’s iPad rejects them ... see original picture which was MY iPad which suddenly started to work ok.

Most relevant is that all four iPhones and iPads have EXACTLY the same settings for IMAP/SMTP

They of course should as AOL has been reinstalled on all four as I said, but it’s worth restating.

Fix? Use iPhone on WiFi or data, or iCloud on iPad but AOL SHOULD work.

Very frustrating.

[#14]

If you disconnect the errant iPad from WiFI then move it close to the iPhone does it offer to autoconfigure WiFi for you by copying settings from the iPhone? If it does and you let the iPhone supply them, does a miracle happen?

[#15]

Really smart thinking.

And continuing the odd theme. 

My phone and pad paired (I was really surprised, not seen that before) but my wife’s didn’t. 

However I’ve found a mini-fix purely by accident. 

 If I put some text in the email, even just a letter, plus a link, it sends normally, so that’s a result.

But still very odd. 

Same email settings, 5 devices, 4  send with just a link, 1 needs text.

I lurve computery things 😳