Plusnet Email in chaos again tonight (sorry)

[#1]

Hlep please form @Townman or other Superusers.

Asif we hadn't had enough with the Microsoft/Gmail problems and the separarte isssue when PN emails wouldn;t  send at all (rectified quite quickly over the Bank Holiday weekend) tgherels beenmorf emayhem this afternoon and tonight.

Everything J:m baout to describe has been rfepolicated with emails sent from an account.plus.com account via Outlook, KIPhone Mail ands webmail.

I fuirs norticed emakils sent from my PN account were painfully slow to be despatched.

Some of them got the old familar r550 SMPT error.

I started sending test messages to my own PN account copied to my Gmail account.

All were horribnly slow to be sent successfully. Some never left my Outbox until I eventually deleted them.

When they were sent successfully, they arrived in my Gmail account very fast.]

Bu they took ages to arrive in my Plusnet Inbox whether I  was trying to view them in outlook on my PC, in Mail on my iPhone or in webmail

I know that everyhone at PlusNet is doing their best to sustain a working email service before migration, but tonight;s problem cannot be blamed on Gmail or Microsoft.Th s is an in-hose problem and it really really does need to be sorted asap.

Trying to use Plusnet email at the moment is absurdly stressful.

[#2]

@PeterB1 seems fine for me this morning.

[#3]

Good morning and thanks @MisterW 

Yes - it seems to be better for me now as well(as indeed it was all morning yesterday).

In my experience, though, when a significant problem with PN email  like yesterdays is replicated on Outlook, iPhone Mail and PN webmail, when my standalone Gmail account is working as normal and when my full fibre internet connection is 100% there's always something up that isn't local to my system at home.

Last night's shenanigans with Sending were very similar,to but not quite as severe as the incident over the Bank Holiday weekend when wew couldn't send at all and we know the SMTP server threw a wobbly. The difference was that this time incoming emails were also painfully slow (though the same test messages copied to my Gmail account were delivered instantly).

I'm around and about in the coming week with limited access to email. Could we keep this thread open - and, if you can, coulld you possibly keep an eye on things, especially later in the day?

PS:  All this is rather ironic really as the PN-ro -Gmail problem that's been bugging me for months seems much better at the moment !

[#4]

@PeterB1 

What is your general broadband performance like?  There is a possibility that you’ve got connection issues.  IMAP synch can be bandwidth heavy.  I’ve seen the symptoms you describe arise from a marginal line, especially sending delays.

Doubtful that applies, but all possibilities should be considered.

[#5]

Good thought @Townman , thanks.

But (Ijust for once becazsue I usually doubt my own judgement!) I'm quite sure it's not broadband overload.  For the past two years, since I moved to a new build house, I've had Plusnet full fibre broadband which constantly delivers over 70 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload and never seems to flag. There's just my wife and me here, so no other users to overload the system with hi def streaming etc. Also, apart from the Gmail problem, my Plusnet email has been working fine on the same set-up for the whole two years. So would you agree, Oh Wise Friend, that: broadband overload an unlikely culprit?

[#6]

@Townman @MisterW 

In my Plusnet Inbox, I've just received at 11.53 today this Failed Delivery Notification relating to an emali I tried to send to myself late last night when the chaos was at its height:

The message was addressed to myself at my PN address and copied to my Gmail account. It failed to arrive at PN and was delivered instantly to Gmail.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.     

Delivery to the following recipients failed permanently:

   * peterbell@xxxxxxx.plus.com

Reason: A message that you sent to the following recipient could not be delivered due to a permanent error. ** The remote server ?? responded with: ** peterbell@xxxxxxx.plus.com ??:?? This message was created automatically by mail delivery software on the server .

This looks awfully like a version of what was happening at the recent Bank Holiday weekend when the SMTP server was up the shoot.

I;m quite relieved this evidence has emerged because it suggests I wasn't  hallucinating about last night's problems!

[#7]

Readers of this thread will be aware I’ve been having intermittent m trouble sending emails from my @account.plus.com account reminiscent of the recent SMTP server meltdown over the Bank Holiday weekend. In the past 24 hours aI have been travelling and I have a complete shutdown of Plusnet email sending.
While travelling I am using iPhone Mail which hitherto has been highly reliable. I stayed last night at a hotel with fast wifi and a strong 4G signal. This afternoon I am in an apartment with similarly fast wifi and strong 4G. On both places the symptoms are the same as I was experiencing at home whether I am connected on wifi or 4G. Every time I try to send an email from my Plusnet account, it is placed in my Outbox and iPhone mail gives me the message “Cannot send mail. The Server rejected one of the recipients email addresses. The message has been placed in your outbox.”
Incoming mail reaches my Plusnet account OK.
And needless to say emails on my Gmail account are sending as well as receiving perfectly and very fast
Hope someone out there can help as all this is getting absurdly frustrating.
Perhaps

[#8]

Perhaps @Townman or @MisterW might take pity on me?

[#9]

I should add that I do NOT think the problem is caused by being away from home and my Plusnet broadband connection. First, the problem began several days ago when I was at home (though at that point it was intermittent) Sevond, I have successfully sent PN emails from my phone before from hotels and the homes of friends who are not Plusnet customers.

[#10]

Hi Peter,

Coincidences can be distracting!  I am wondering if you are encountering an "iPhone contribution" issue here.  These beasts are wonderful until they get their sync messed up.

Try unloading the the mail application, then restart it.

Can you send via webmail?  Tedious, but being able to do that eliminates any account side issues.

Please remind me - are you sending as you@youraccount.plus.com or something else?

You are now off network - double check your SMTP server settings (account & password).  How are you authenticating - email address or account+mailbox ?

[#11]

Thanks@Townman.
I’ll do my best to answer, but bear in mind I’m travelling with just the iPhone
1. I have unloaded Mail app and restarted
2. I can send from webmail
3. I am sending from me@myaccount.plus.com
4. SMTP settings
Server relay.plus.net
Port 587
Use SSL yes
5. Authentication is where I get a bit hazy as I have never fully understood the detail, just made it work (on and off network) and left it at that.
As of today, incoming server settings say authentication is Password. Username is my account name + mailbox. SMTP settings say username and password “optional”.
(It’s always been like that )
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it vanishingly unlikely that my problem lies in server and authentication settings as none of these settings have changed and it’s only a short while since I was successfully sending from my PN account using my iPhone away from home via both wifi networks other than Plusnet and the 4G phone network.
Very grateful for your help as always. Look forward to feedback on the above!

[#12]

@Townman
I don’t think the details I gave you in my last post of server settings were complete enough. If we’re going to crack this you might as well have the lot.
So here goes.
INCOMING
Server mail.plus.net
Username Account + Mailbox
Associated password: supplied (correct number of dots)
Use SSL yes
Authentication = Password
Port 983

SMTP
Server relay.plus.net
Username = Optional
Password = Optional
Use SSL yes
Port 587
Authentication is blank. i.e. none of the four options, including Password, is selected.
NOTE
I vaguely recall when setting all this up opting for an instruction to use the same authentication settings in SMTP as in Incoming settings, but I can’t currently find any reference to this.
Hope this helps.

[#13]

Off network, SMTP server MUST have username and password.

[#14]

Is 983 a typo or the port you are using?

these are the required settings 

• IMAP: imap.plus.net port: 993 TLS/SSL
• POP3: mail.plus.net port: 995 TLS/SSL
• SMTP: relay.plus.net port: 587 STARTTLS

[#15]

Typo, @Dan_the_Van.
Thanks for spotting!