problem sending email

[#1]

I am getting the following message when trying to send emails using Thunderbird. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) relay.free-online.net was lost in the middle of the transaction. Try again. Any suggestions please.

[#2]

Why not use plusnet's configuration.
relay.plus.net

[#3]

Because I get the same response using that.

[#4]

Have you checked other configuration settings with PN's "template".

[#5]

Best thing to do is try sending the email via a different relay server, yahoo / gmail / hotmail / or other web email service you're registered with. It must be a temporary connection problem.

[#6]

Guys, it seems to be working now for some reason but thanks for your ideas.