Unable to send emails using Plusnet Webmail (Free-Online)

[#1]

Thanks for letting me know.

[#2]

And is now back working - if you did anything then thank you

[#3]

All seems to be working again for me now. Thank you.

[#4]

Thanks for letting us know. 

[#5]

This issue is now effecting my email accounts.

I have a bog standard plusnet account with a domain registered and hosted by plusnet.

A week ago my outbound mail simply stopped working for all accounts on all devices tablet phone with vodaphone. I hit send and within half a second I get the SMTP failure (535) error. Today I tried the command line checks (win 11)  as suggested in the Gmail debacle saga thread and the connection for IMAP, POP3 and SMTP all passed!!!

Any suggestions please??? Many hours of frustration have passed. My system doesn't seem to want to fix itself.

[#6]

Apologies but to prevent my post from being buried at the bottom of a previous topic I have created a new one!

Moderator's note:
Post reattached to this thread to avoid confusion

This issue is now effecting my email accounts.

I have a bog standard plusnet account with a domain registered and hosted by plusnet but no website.

Everything has being working fine (for many years) apart from the instant rejection (bounce back) of all Gmail emails, as seems quite common.

A week ago my outbound mail simply stopped working for all accounts on all devices, laptop, tablet through broadband and phone through vodaphone. This is with my domain email addresses and the vanilla account address version 

I hit send and within half a second I get the SMTP failure (535) error. Today I tried the command line checks (win 11)  as suggested in one of the Gmail debacle saga topics, to my surprise the connection for IMAP, POP3 and SMTP all passed!!!

Any suggestions please??? Many hours of frustration have passed. My system doesn't seem to want to fix itself.

[#7]

Apologies but to prevent my post from being buried at the bottom of a previous topic I have created a new one!

Moderator's note:
Post reattached to this thread to avoid confusion

This issue is now effecting my email accounts.

I have a bog standard plusnet account with a domain registered and hosted by plusnet but no website.

Everything has being working fine (for many years) apart from the instant rejection (bounce back) of all Gmail emails, as seems quite common.

A week ago my outbound mail simply stopped working for all accounts on all devices, laptop, tablet through broadband and phone through vodaphone. This is with my domain email addresses and the vanilla account address version 

I hit send and within half a second I get the SMTP failure (535) error. Today I tried the command line checks (win 11)  as suggested in one of the Gmail debacle saga topics, to my surprise the connection for IMAP, POP3 and SMTP all passed!!!

Any suggestions please??? Many hours of frustration have passed. My system doesn't seem to want to fix itself.

[#8]

Bog standard PlusNet account - for each user their account is 'bog standard' - doe you mean you@youraccount.plus.com ... or one of the other 'bog standard' accounts?

Are you connected to the Plusnet net work, or are you connecting via a mobile or another ISP's network?

Are your encountering issues when using webmail or a local PC client?

If the email server connection diagnostics all passed, then there is something that is different with your client set up - especially if you are off network.

[#9]

It would appear that your credentials aren't being accepted - have you had any notification of your email moving to Greenby?

[#10]

Re Greenby: Only the message a couple of weeks ago concerning 'migration' when logging on to the webmail.plus.net interface. With all other users I assume, the message about the sort function being temporarily disabled. Otherwise I have not been told directly about the whole email system being transferred over.

I use my plusnet broadband (or vodaphone on my phone) to send emails via the 'webmail.plus.net' portal interface. I don not use any other client. Everything has worked fine, albeit quite slowly at times, for many years until last week I got this error and it remains. 

I only have two 'actual' 'username.plus.net' email accounts and two domain accounts which are redirected to the two 'username.plus.net' accounts above. One of these accounts has several alias' which I use to attempt to track cr*p I may receive after having left my details (including the alias email) with companies. 

When I use Terminal to run tests on any of the addresses or alias' outlined by the very helpful 'Townman' in the

"Diagnosing email server connectivity issues - the guide"  topic.

For POP3 I get a list for clients of varying length after the STD53 violation statement below, The 1021 client is repeated up to about 20 times for some addresses.

USER "xxx@xxxxxx.co.uk
< +OK USER  "xxx@xxxxxx.co.uk set, mate
> PASS xxxxx
< +OK logged in.
> LIST
< +OK POP3 clients that break here, they violate STD53.
1 1021

# Connection #0 to host mail.plus.net left intact

For SMTP I always get  "235 ... authentication succeeded"

As in...

Connected to relay.plus.net (212.159.9.107) port 587
< 220 avasout-ptp-002 smtp relay.plus.net
> EHLO Eric
< 250-avasout-ptp-002 hello [xxx.xxx.38.204], pleased to meet you
< 250-HELP
< 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
< 250-SIZE 104857600
< 250-PIPELINING
< 250-8BITMIME
< 250-STARTTLS
< 250 OK
> STARTTLS
< 220 Ready to start TLS
* schannel: disabled automatic use of client certificate
* Connected to relay.plus.net (212.159.9.107) port 587
> EHLO xxxxx
< 250-avasout-ptp-002 hello [xxx.xxx.38.204], pleased to meet you
< 250-HELP
< 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
< 250-SIZE 104857600
< 250-PIPELINING
< 250-8BITMIME
< 250 OK
> AUTH PLAIN
< 334
> <Redacted>
< 235 ... authentication succeeded

However all attempts to send email  from any account generates the Authentication error 535

I'm stumped and need to send emails as I am mid house buying! I might have to resort to Gmail but have never used it before!

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

[#11]

Thanks @Baldriick1 for moving this topic whilst I was mid typing a reply!

[#12]

@barryh 

If you are using ONLY the webmail clients ... where does POP3 come into your consideration?  Note that the email mail server connection diagnostics only have any real relevance when accessing the email service using a LOCAL email client.  Your results verify that the credentials used work for the POP3 connection.  In respect of SMTP, where those tests run whilst connected to the Plusnet net work or otherwise?

Webmail is an on-network IMAP client, so that should eliminate a number of bear traps.

When you log into WEBMAIL are you using EXACTLY the same log on details as those used in the email diagnostic tests?  Webmail (for PLUSNET branded email) will accept the following log on credentials...

• accountname (default mailbox)
• accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox)
• you@accountname.plus.com
• you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk

As of my testing last night, all of the above will grant access to read emails via webmail, but the first two will not allow emails to be sent - that returns a 535 Error.  That observation has been raised to the business.

[#13]

Thanks again for your input @Townman.

I have to say I feel as though I am drowning in a sea of acronyms, as has always been the case with computer related issues I suppose!

However

"Webmail (for PLUSNET branded email) will accept the following log on credentials...

• accountname (default mailbox)
• accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox)
• you@accountname.plus.com
• you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk"

For me the first two, in bold, hold true but I have never been able to login to plusnet webmail any other way..

Could this be the reason for login failure, In my case "you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk" is a redirection to an "accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox). 

When the Webmail interface opens using accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox) and the associated mailbox password, the interface (Top right) "Current mailbox" shows as "you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk".. My assumption for the last 17+ years is that this is correct, as up until last week it all worked? As in I could receive and send emails.

All outgoing mail from this interface was sent as from "you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk"..

Could this be where the authentication failure now stems from?

I close all plusnet associated tabs and the 'Edge' browser.

When I run the SMTP 'Terminal' session using  "you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk" and the now redirected accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox) password, it fails with a 535 error.

When I run the SMTP 'Terminal ' session using  accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox) and associated accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox) password, it succeeds with a 235.

Could it be that, because of the preparations for transition, the system can no longer cope with my  "you@yourhosted-domain.co.uk" 'From' email field and my accountname+mailbox (secondary mailbox) password?

I'm probably talking complete twaddle but I am getting increasingly frustrated with this situation as I have to talk to a legal firm who do not want me to send emails via Gmail....

[#14]

Barry,

There appears to be some fluidity around that the moment.

Do not confuse what work last year, with what worked yesterday, works today or will work tomorrow.  I've been watching over the pre-migration preparation activity for a while: there is a long legacy of what has worked and I suspect that during the migration preparation some flexibility got tightened up in unexpected ways.

There has been some changes in the recent days which (from my testing) has flipped how things worked / work.  Email address sign on to the servers was not working for secondary mailboxes - the mitigation was to use account+mailbox.

That got fixed first for IMAP & POP3 - both work for inbound servers.

It the appears to have gotten fixed in part for SMTP servers - email address sign on works - but now now the alternative.

Sign on to webmail using the EXACT same credentials as you used for the diagnostic tests.  Testing with one set of credentials and then using something different with webmail, is like mixing apples and pears...

A hosted domain is effectively an alias of the native domain / mailbox, not a redirection.  In my example logon options, the different identities all connect to the same IMAP mailbox...

• account+fred
• fred@youraccount.plus.com
• fred@your-hosted-doamain.co.uk

[#15]

Thanks again

I think some confusion is at large here.

I did use the exact same logins when the terminal test passed.

I simply cannot log into webmail using anything other than, as you say ( I assume 'account' should be 'youraccount')

• 'your'account+fred.blogs

the following simply cause a login failure (the password should obvs be the same)

• fred@youraccount.plus.com
• fred@your-hosted-domain.co.uk

Now in my case if I look at the Summary tab on my 'Manage My Mail' account Plusnet webpage under the Email Address column..

Way back when, I created an address fred@ 

I now see, when I mouse over, "fred@youraccount.plus.com" and not fred@your-hosted-domain.co.uk" as I expected.

This fred@ is in fact a 'Manage My Mail' Redirect to the actual Mailbox which is fred.blogs@ which, if you mouse over, you see fred.blogs@youraccount.plus.com. I can't log in as 'youraccount+fred' it has to be 'youraccount+fred.blogs' the actual mailbox. I don't know why I did it this way, I think I followed an example that used the fred.blogs notation rather than fred, which is what I wanted... this was 17 or so years ago! It wasn't broke so I didn't fix it.. now guess what, it's broke!

I also have five alias' which point to the fred.blogs@youraccount.plus.com mailbox but I think this could just cloud the water. It worked, emails to any of those ended up in fred.blogs@youraccount.plus.com box so I was happy! All outgoing reply emails were from fred@your-hosted-doamain.co.uk but hey ho that's fine.

Unfortunately non of this fun gets me any closer to being able to send an email, fluidity or no fluidity. 

I really appreciate your time and effort Townman but I'm not sure which alley to head up next.

Cheers

[#16]

Aah, one more thing

The 'Manage My Mail' page will not let me create a new mailbox to play/test with... It simply exits the dialog when I hit save!