Can't download emails to thunderbird

[Purvez]

I have an old free-online email address which I've been using for decades. Thunderbird has been downloading messages from my email account at free-online until 2 days ago. Now I get the message 'Host contacted. Sending login information '. This stays on there for almost 1 minute and then disappears without any error messages and nothing is downloaded.

I can see emails exist via Webmail. I spoke to Plusnet yesterday and they said if I could login via webmail then that proved that everything was working ok at their end. They did not support any Email Clients and therefore couldn't help further.

I have Gmail accounts set up on the same Thunderbird client and both of those connect and download without issues.

The lady who I spoke to yesterday said that they were moving email services to Greenbee over the next few months. I'm wondering if as part of that preparation the emails have stopped downloading.

I would like to know if anyone else is having similar issues and if there is a resolution that someone would be able to provide.

Thanks

[jab1]

@Purvez I have seen numerous ex-'free-online' customers with similar issues, which, although there has been no official announcement, seems to be associated with PN 'rationalising' email platforms. Hopefully, the right people  will pick this up, but as it is the weekend, don't expect a rapid response.

As to 'moving email services to Greenbee' - that is confusing, as I understand that was the platform the now-defunct John Lewis Broadband used for their email provision.

We need some clarity here.

[Dan_the_Van]

@Purvez welcome to the forum

Are you on or off plusnet work?

I use both Thunderbird and Outlook 365

These are the settings I use for IMAP

Incoming - imap.free-online.net port 993 encryption SSL/TLS

Outgoing - relay.free-online.net port 587 encryption STARTTLS

If you client does not support STARTTLS use port 465 and SSL/TLS

For POP incoming - mail.free-online.net port 995 encryption SSL/TLS

Username (authentication) configured on BOTH incoming and outgoing servers
Default mailbox accountname
Secondary mailbox accountname+mailboxname

Not sure the story about moving is Greenbee is accurate, but I suspect there maybe some truth in the mail services moving.

EDIT: the mail service moving would be for all not just free-online

[Townman]

Connected to my on going work to redefine email server connection issues testing, here are some useful diagnostics...

Brand: Free-Online - encryption supported: Yes

• IMAP: imap.free-online.net port: 993
  curl.exe -v imaps://imap.free-online.net -u userID:password
• POP3: mail.free-online.net port: 995
  curl.exe -v pop3s://mail.free-online.net -u userID:password
• SMTP: relay.free-online.net port: 587
  curl.exe -v smtp://relay.free-online.net:587 -u userID:password --ssl-reqd

The above cURL commands should be copied and pasted into a terminal / CMD window.  Modify the command to user your email account userID and password.  This should deliver a go / no-go connectivity report.

Only paste the end of the output if you share any of it.  Some of the outputs include your public IP address and your encrypted userID and password ... which are readily de-crypted.

[Purvez]

Another thought is, would anyone know what, if any, logs are created by thunderbird and where they might be located? I'm currently on Ubuntu 18.04 and thunderbird version is 102.11.0

[Purvez]

Hi all thanks very much for your prompt responses. Being new to the forum I'm still finding my way around how things work.

I'll respond individually next.

[Dan_the_Van]

@Purvez 

The cULR command will work in linux, you just need to drop the .exe, but I expect you might know that?

the output for the curl command should helpful as it should report a bad password or IP Address issues

[Purvez]

Oh well at least I'm not alone. ☺️

Hope they DO pick it up and resolve it. Currently I'm responding via Webmail so my responses are not in Thunderbird. Gets messy.

[jab1]

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@Purvez wrote:
Another thought is, would anyone know what, if any, logs are created by thunderbird and where they might be located? I'm currently on Ubuntu 18.04 and thunderbird version is 102.11.0

---

So far as I can see from my TB installation (on Zorin OS 17.3) , TB has no logging.

As a point of interest, that is a very old TB release.

[Purvez]

Is there somewhere I can read up on how to use this forum? In particular can I answer an individual post and my answer appears underneath to show a 'continuing' conversation or do all posts appear in sequence only?

Apologies if I'm not addressing individuals properly. Hopefully you know who you are from the context.

[Purvez]

Thanks for the cURL commands suggestion. I'll try that a bit later and report back. Currently away from the computer.

I'm only using POP with no authentication. The lady ran through the settings yesterday and said they were fine.

[jab1]

@Purvez Posts appear in sequence. If you are replying to a post not directly above, then you can quote that post in your reply by clicking the quote icon above the reply window.

If you want to 'reply' to an individual, you can use the '@' key on your keyboard, which will bring up a list of all respondents, just click the one you want to 'name'

[Purvez]

@Dan I don't know what you mean by on or off work Plusnet. Mine is a residential broadband connection (not full fibre).

[Dan_the_Van]

@Purvez 

Bit of a typo I was meaning on or off plusnet network, happens to use all see who you tagged

EDIT: Corrected who I tagged

[jab1]

@Dan_the_Van Was that aimed at @Purvez ?