Unable to send email from Iphone

[#1]

Suddenly after no problems at all before, today I am unable to send emails from my phone.

I get an error message which says:

"Cannot send Mail
The server rejected one of the recipient's addresses. The message has been placed in your Outbox."

There was only one recipient and one address, so that was confusing right from the start.

I went into the phone's account settings and added the userename and password manually (they were left blank and marked "optional").  I used the settings recommended:

host name: relay.plus.net
username: [Removed]
password: *************
SSL off
Authentication: password
Server Port: 587

This time when sending an email I get the error message:

"Cannot send mail
The username or password for "relay.plus.net" is incorrect." (It isn't.)

I tried deleting the account from the phone completely, and restarting the phone.  Then adding a new email account with the same details.  Once again I get the error message:

"Cannot send Mail
The server rejected one of the recipient's addresses. The message has been placed in your Outbox."

I've spoken to Plusnet support for about 45 minutes and they were unable to help.  Does anyone here have any brilliant ideas?

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Personal information removed from a public forum (to an area that staff can see).

[#2]

I managed to compare the phone with the problem to an old phone that I no longer use to see if there would be an obvious difference between them.

The old phone wouldn't send emails either, but the error message it gave me was something like "the password for account (null) is missing".  I looked at the server settings for that phone and found that it had no primary server configured at all, and a list of other SMTP servers, the first of which was relay.plus.net with no password.  I entered the password in there and hey presto, the phone was able to send emails.

So I then went to my newer phone and tried to duplicate that set up.  It doesn't seem to be possible to make the primary server "Not configured", but I was able to turn it to "off", and then add another SMTP server with exactly the same settings as were previously in the primary server (same host name, username and password) and that solved the problem.

Why this should be I have no idea.  

So in sum, the solution to my problem was to disable the primary outgoing mail server and use the same settings on what Iphone calls an "other SMTP server".  

[#3]

Thanks for your post @MatthewBest

What an odd issue, Apple devices generally like to report an 'incorrect password' error to cover a variety of issues regardless whether the password is actually incorrect. Out of interest what's the model of iPhone you're using? 

[#4]

Having SMTP servers configured with and without passwords on a phone will cause confusion.

Whilst a password might be optional when connected via WiFi to your home Plusnet router, in all other connection scenarios (connected by 4G or some other WiFi) authenticated connection is mandatory. Consequently if the phone (for whatever reason) flips between WiFi at home and 4G you will see inconsistency in operation.

Unloading the email app on the phone and restarting it has been known to resolve such issues.

[#5]

The phone is an Iphone SE.

[#6]

That all may be true, but in this case I don't think it's too relevant, as the phone had worked fine for a month or so, and the old phone had worked fine for several years.  Something must have changed somewhere to make them both suddenly unable to send emails, but it wasn't anything I did with regard to passwords.

The weird thing is that they both work fine now (at home and out and about) without having a primary outgoing email server configured at all!

[#7]

Indeed something might have changed - the phone has got its nicker elastic twisted. It happens.

[#8]

Of course, in this case it was actually TWO phones.

[#9]

iOS email is known to be tempromental, especially when setting up and trashing accounts when things do not work - see https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/smtp-plus-net-not-responding/m-p/1706938#M30065

[#10]

Yes, that all sounds kind of similar, if not exactly the same, as my problem.  I wonder what Apple did in the last week or so....

[#11]

There has just been an upgrade to 13.3.1 (IIRC) but I doubt that there is any real link there.  As advised, iOS email is tempromental when getting email settings wrong ... all too often setting them correct; does nto resolve the problem.

[#12]

No brilliant ideas, I'm afraid. I've had the same problem since I changed my phone from android to iPhone, months ago and I've never been able to send an email from the iphone. Like you I spent ages fiddling around with settings and speaking to support.   They finally admitted that they can't deal with  emails sent from an iphone and all they could suggest was using webmail, which sort of works but is far from satisfactory. I just checked in to see if they've come up with a solution, but judging from your post, they obviously haven't

[#13]

Hi Welcome to the forums.

There is absolutely no issue with getting email on iPhone working to the Plusnet email servers.  I have an iPhone and two iPads connected to a good number of Plusnet mailboxes.

It is best if you seek to configure the mailboxes whilst connected to WiFi on a Plusnet internet connection.  Such avoids the risk of the mobile network IP address in use having been blacked balled.

Advising of the iPhone model and the exact error events might help with identifying the issue.  have you tried entirely deleting the mailbox on the iPhone?  There are also some issues where SMTP settings become orphaned … I do not recall how they are cleared up, but that is required, I am sure that someone can find them if you cannot.

[#14]

Wierdly, I’ve just managed to successfully send emails from my iPhone without making any changes whatsoever. Mind you, it’s the first time I’ve tried in weeks as it’s failed so many times in the past. Something must have changed

[#15]

More than likely the iPhone picked up a different IP address - one which had not been blackballed!