Relay.plus.net won’t accept my password

[#1]

My reporting to plusnet of not being able to login to relay.plus.net in order to send emails was followed by an 8 day email outage last week. The plusnet service status of email is now shown as green, but despite having all the correct settings (as confirmed by tech support) I still cannot send email from my phone, laptop or tablet. Only Plusnet’s awful Webmail system works. Tech support aren’t interested and blame Microsoft & Apple. My devices have worked fine for years, now I am faced with having to switch broadband provider just to get functioning email. Is anyone else having this problem? Or has anyone found a solution? If I had any hair I would be tearing it out!

[#2]

Try splitting the router's 2 frequencies so you have DIFFERENT SSID's for the 2.4 &5ghZ bands.
Have you tried resetting the router via a paperclip end inserted into the router: that'll reset to default settings as printed on router label? Assume you haven't changed any p/word settings.
Temporarily, if still no joy, disable any security settings and see if you can connect; if so
you have an error in your devices configurations. Correct, reapply security settings.

[#3]

@Gadgetbloke 

A warm welcome to the forums.

In the absence of other connection stability issues, I would doubt that the historic 2.4GHz and 5GHz stability issues are likely to be in play here, if they were you would have problems far wider than connection to teh SMTP server issues.

You do not state clearly what the issue is - that is what you see - nor the email brand and if you are connecting over a Plusnet supplied internet connection.  There are a host of things which could be wrong, which most of the common email clients simply report (often incorrectly) to be a password error.  So the first task need to be to sort the server settings and then check the connectivity by a means which will expose the real error details.

For the core brand (*.plusnet.com) the SMTP (outgoing) server is relay.plus.net connecting on port 587 using STARTTLS encryption with user authentication the same as the incoming server.

If you can read mail (or connect using Webmail - which is far better post the problems than it has been in years) then you do not have an incorrect password issue, but something else, masquerading as a password error.

Test SMTP authentication

Email programs often report username / password error for issues not actually related to those being wrong, but for other connectivity issues. Such can be very frustrating when you are convinced that they are correct. Testing SMTP authentication through a command line interface can deliver a more precise error message. The following describes how to do this using TELNET.

This is not difficult, but you need the following resources which might be unfamiliar...

1. TELNET - this might need installing as an additional option, for Windows see enabling TELNET.
2. A code64 encoder / decoder such as this.

You can use TELNET to communicate direct with the SMTP server as follows...

Open the code64 encoder in a web browser and leave ready for use in the following steps.

Launch a windows command line window (DOS window) - press windows-key+R - type CMD into the run box - click OK

Enter...

telnet relay.plus.net 587

Press enter. Note if you use one of the other brand email services, use the appropriate SMTP server name for that brand. In response to SMTP server I'm here message, say 'HELLO'...

EHLO relay.plus.net

The SMTP server will then report what it can do after which tell the server you wish to authenticate...

AUTH login

The server should return the following, which is a base64 encoded string that requires your username:

334 VXNlcm5hbWU6

Use the code64 encoder to encode your username and paste it into the telnet window and press enter. For example:

bXl1c2VybmFtZQ==

The server should return the following, which is a base64 encoded string that requires your password:

334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6

Paste the base64 encoded password for the username. For example:

bXlwYXNzd29yZA==

The server will then report success or failure, any failure message should clearly indicate the reason for the failure. If the reason for the failure is not clear, please report back the message.

Close the SMTP / TELNET session by entering

quit

The session should look something similar to the below wherein your input is in bold...

220 avasout03 smtp relay.plus.net
EHLO relay.plus.net
250-avasout03 hello [your IP address], pleased to meet you
250-HELP
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-SIZE 104857600
250-PIPELINING
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 OK
AUTH LOGIN
334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
bXl1c2VybmFtZQ==
334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
bXlwYXNzd29yZA==
235 ... authentication succeeded
quit
221 avasout03 smtp closing connection
Connection to host lost.

Here are some examples of failure responses...

535 ...authentication rejected [as username / password is wrong]
535 ...authentication rejected as source IP has a poor reputation

[#4]

So what are your smtp settings and what is your email client?

[#5]

@bendipa1 

It might b more appropriate if you told us what you are using. It works for me on Outlook 2019.

[#6]

I am using Outlook in Office Profesional Plus 2016, and about 10 days ago started getting send/receive error messages. It sends OK but doesn't receive. error (0x800CCC92). Needless to say I had not made any changes to the account until this happened, including my password.

I have gone through various posts to check the server settings and have tried all the combinations, and have gone back to the relay.plus.net and mail.plus.net ones as advised in other posts, without success.

Any suggestions?

[#7]

I’m using outlook 365 on my PC and Mail on my iOS phone and iPad. I can’t log into relay.plus.net on any of them.

[#8]

Those having login problems, it would help if you clarified the email brand.

You’d also get a much clearer idea of what’s wrong by running through the above SMTP diagnostics.

[#9]

@bendipa1  @leebrown  @Gadgetbloke 

As well as the Plusnet email breakdown there has been a recent update to Outlook, which could be your problem. These POP3 server settings work for me:

[#10]

I also have password problems. Like hundreds (or thousands?) of customers my Plusnet email failed on 9th November. About a week later I was able to read emails on my iPhone but not on my iMac. This is still the situation, despite being able to access my account on webmail, also being able to send messages on the iMac. When trying to download incoming emails on the iMac I get the message that says it cannot access my account and asks for the password. But it always rejects my password, saying it is unable to verify the account or password.

I have contacted customer services twice about this and on both occasions they have confirmed that I am using the correct password, and say that my problem is due the major fault that had occurred earlier in the month and it will be sorted "soon".

It seems very odd that my password works with no problems on iPhone and webmail, but not on iMac.

This is causing me major problems. Can anyone help a non-techie to sort it out?

[#11]

Given that your password works every where except your iMac then it would be logical to conclude you have a problem with the iMac settings, but the Plusnet mail service.

It is very ijemt that there is nothing wrong with your password, but rather the iMac is not offering a full error status. Try running the SMTP logon diagnostic above.

[#12]

[#13]

Thanks for your settings, but I see you are not using a login to access relay.plus.net. So you would not be able to send email while not using your plusnet connection. My problem is that I cannot login to relay.plus.net on either my PC with outlook 365, or my ipad or iPhone using mail away from home. I know all of the settings are correct. I have been through them with plusnet tech support. So either both outlook 365 & iOS have developed the same problem at the same time, or more likely, there is still a problem with plusnet mail servers.

[#14]

Ive tried the Telnet login. Thanks for that. The error reported is:

535 Too many SMTP auth failures. Please try again later.

What can I do about this? I haven’t tried many times today.

[#15]

Good piece of diagnostic work.  We have seen this before where email accounts have been compromised and required their passwords to be changed.  See https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/SMTP-Response-535-Too-many-SMTP-auth-failures-Please-try-again/m...

You could try backing off entirely for an hour or two.  Confirm beyond doubt that you have the right password by accessing the account using Webmail and attempt to send from there.

I will add the code to the diagnostic guide.

@Gandalf  - can this state be reviewed with Net Ops please?  It might shine light on the various reports around here of continued difficulty in connecting to the SMTP servers.