| reply to paulnrld
Re: [Email/WebMail] Email problems in Watertown, WI email troubleshooting 101
Some problems I've seen happen:
1) POP3 server name has changed, or server is down
2) SMTP server name has changed, or server is down
3) Authentication settings in the SMTP server do not match the client authentication settings
4) DNS issues causing problems
Sorry if this is too techie, but here goes:
For email you have an inbound (pop) and outbound (smtp) mail server. The first step is to go to a command prompt and see if you can ping both servers. (so typically you would type "ping pop.charter.net" and "ping smtp.charter.net" )
If you can't ping both of them, that's the ISPs problem,not yours. Make sure you have the correct server names in the correct places in your email client program.
DNS workaround Tip: Write down the IP address of each server from the ping you did above. If there is a temporary DNS problem at the ISP, then the server names will not work, but the IP addresses always will. Thus you would need to enter the IP addresses of the Pop3 and smtp server in your email client configuration instead of the names. (Note that using the IP address is only for troubleshooting, as the ISP may change the address of a server, then you're hosed).
Authentication settings: These can be a real pain. To prevent spam, some ISPs enable authentication on the SMTP server, and some don't. If they changed it on the server, and did not tell anybody, then you can't send any mail. Similarly, if your email client is configured to use SMTP authentication, and the SMTP server does not need it, you can't send any mail. Therefore, the authentication settings must match, period.
Using Telnet to see what's working: I won't give the whole procedure here, but you can use telnet from the command prompt to test if either server is working as an inbound or outbound email server. Do a google search "telnet smtp server" and "telnet pop server". |
