freenetname outgoing mail

[#1]

After many years successfully using my freenetname identity to send emails using Thunderbird it stopped working. From time to time, after very lengthy telephone conversations (often of several hours)  with tech support it would work for a week or so and then die  inviting me to enter a different password again . In the end, after being told the error was at my end,  I gave up and have been  using web mail for outgoing emails for several years while occasionally checking that it wouldn't work from Thunderbird. It was a pain but it did enable me to send and receive emails. After this last outage fiasco, however,  I am again  able to send emails from Thunderbird using my freenetname identity. I have changed nothing at my end which suggests to me that whatever system/software/data was used in getting it back up is 'right' whereas whatever has been used from time to time  during routine maintenance includes an element which is 'wrong'.

Experts will no doubt recognise from the above that the I have minimal knowledge of the technology behind this but  accept that what I have bought is an extremely useful tool that I didn't expect to have to put a new handle on from time to time.

I would welcome any suggestions that will ensure that whatever was 'wrong' before will be identified and  not  used again

- many thanks for getting this far !!!

[#2]

Hiya @Arthur_Dent, sorry for the delay in getting back to you and for the previous issues you have faced with using a mail client.

I am pleased this is currently working well. To be honest I'm unsure what may have recently changed to allow it to work again. What was the previous issue exactly? Would it advise you the password was incorrect when trying to entering? Or just frequently ask you to enter the password?

[#3]

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to Email.

[#4]

Thank you for your reply.  The message I received when trying to send a message was that the password was not recognised and inviting me to send a different one. That has been happening for years interspersed from time to time when I find the energy to ring tech support who sometimes get it running again for a week or so. On other occasions I have been told the problem is at my end, new email client being given as the reason ( which it isn't),

It is working now ... both receiving and sending, I have changed nothing, but I am hesitant to say that 'it's fixed' for the reason I have explained above. What I am asking is that whatever has caused this recurring fault in the past is identified and whatever data has been used to set up the server (or whatever) this time is marked as the one to use next time - I appreciate it doesn't work quite like this but I trust you get the gist of what I mean.  The fact that it has been put right in the past but falls over a week or thereabouts later suggests to me that there is  a perhaps regular routine maintenance operation which has a faulty component.

[#5]

Thanks a lot for your response here @Arthur_Dent and I'm sorry for the previous issues that you've been having with your email service. Though reading through the above, it does appear that this is a client based issue - especially if your webmail is working okay.

Are you able to send us a screenshot - preferably via PM, showing us the configuration settings you have on your client?

[#6]

I too have a freenetname email address, which came across with me when Plusnet took over Madasafish, which I have used with Thunderbird (and Plusnet) flawlessly from 2005 until Tuesday morning. Now (like Arthur Dent) all I get is a box with:-

An error with account Freenetname Account

Sending of password for user xxx.xxxxxxx did not succeed. Mail server mail.freenetname.co.uk responded: Login failed.

Pressing the 'OK' button then goes to another box with:-

Login to account "Freenetname Account" failed

Login to server mail.freenetname.co.uk with username xxx.xxxxxxx failed. and three options - Retry, Enter New Password, Cancel.

Service Status repeatedly tells me via what seems like a cut and paste message:

Most customers should now be able to log in their Plusnet email, however they may experience a delay when sending and receiving emails

My question is whether I will ever get a 'back to normal' acount through Thunderbird, or give up completely and go elsewhere?

[#7]

Afternoon.

Just sharing my findings from yesterday evening.  Outlook on a PC was working but Samsung email on my phone kept wanting credentials.  After making a small change, I've got email working.

I did a little digging whilst cooking the kids their supper.  And I spied changes in Outlook's server settings which I know are different to what I used when I set it up.  But at what point these changes have occurred I do not know.

Incoming mail is now imap.plus.net (previously it was mail.freenetname.co.uk)

*Outgoing is now smtp.plus.net (previously smtpmail.freenetname.co.uk)

*Outgoing has been working fine then not.  I also saw a reference to relay.plus.net which I've tried yet been good one minute and not the next, so I'm just keeping an eye on both.

Receiving test emails that I've sent to myself seems rather slow still (on both phone and PC Outlook) but I got a wad of new emails from all other sources once I made the phone changes - which mimicked my Outlook.

Jonty.