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

[#1]

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!!

[#2]

@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.

[#3]

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.

[#4]

@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.

[#5]

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.

[#6]

@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.

[#7]

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..

[#8 · Accepted solution]

@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.

[#9]

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.

[#10]

@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.

[#11]

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.

[#12]

@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.

[#13]

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.

[#14]

@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.

[#15]

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