Thunderbird Smtp Mail Problem

[Moira]

I'm suddenly completely unable to send any email.

I have 3 computers running Thunderbird and while I can receive mail from various sources with no bother, I can't send any email from any account through any smtp server.

I haven't changed anything at all, in fact hadn't used the laptop for a long time, yet all three PCs are having this problem. I use AOL as my ISP and have had this setup for a long time without encountering any issues whatsoever.

The message is along the lines that my email address isn't correct, or isn't verified. Specifically, trying to go through smtp.aol.com 587 it says: "Incorrect domain in mail/rcpt command. Please verify your email addres is correct in your Mail Preferences."

I've been in the habit of sending mail through yahoo's servers as that seemed to work. However I've since tried the above and that doesn't work at all. I can send mail from the respective web addresses, and I've followed the fairly simple instructions - in any case it all worked until a couple of days ago!

I connect to the internet via a router, but I've never had to particularly configure that to send email. Sygate and McAffee have long since been given "permission" to connect to the net. I have absolutely no idea what could be wrong and would welcome any suggestions.

[JPnyc]

Moira, contact AOL and be sure they aren't blocking port 25. Some ISPs do this as a supposed spam control measure, but all it really does is annoy their users.

[Moira]

I'm not using port 25 though ..... however, contacting AOL is something I'm reluctantly accepting that I'm going to have to do. This is a last resort! I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything dumb or obvious.

[JPnyc]

You're sure? That's the default outgoing port for smtp mail.

[Moira]

Yes, all of the account settings stress that if you can't change the smtp port, you can't use that client for their mail. They all want port 587 to be used. ISP's had a huge problem with port 25 being used so much for spam which is the reason you'll find hardly any mail clients accept it for smtp now.

[Moira]

I've had some partial success although I still think I need to contact AOL and try to find a better solution than this.

I discovered that mail will send from my aol address, through AOL's smtp server, but fails when I try to send from any other email address. This means that while I can put whatever I want in the "reply to" field, the email appears to be sent from my aol address.

Not only is this confusing, but I don't actually want as many people to have my main ISP address, so that it stays relatively spam free. I can repoint aliases anywhere, but not my main aol email.

What's more, this never used to be the case and I can't understand why it's now happening. However at least it's progress of a kind!

[dalek]

Hi did you just recently update to Firefox 2.0, if so there are issues with the new version and thunderbird.

Version Notes

Restores the mail functions that were removed in Firefox 2.0
Uses 24px & 16px icons and a "Tools" menu entry (below Add-ons).
Uses the original keyboard shortcut for "New Message" CTRL + M
Developer Comments

To use the supplied toolbar button:
Open the customize window, drag and drop the Get Mail icon to the toolbar.

Having problems setting or accessing the default email program?
Most problems seem to be with Windows... Please try the steps below one at a time:

Step 1. Make sure the email program you are trying to access is set as default through the program itself.

Step 2. Go to Start > Set Program Access and Defaults > click Custom. Set the default email program there.
You may need to restart your computer for this change to take affect.

Step 3. The Windows Default Mail Utility
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/defaultmail.htm

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3591/

[Moira]

I did just update to Firefox 2 - thanks for the info. It does sound though, that the problems with the new version and Thunderbird are for people either accessing mail through firefox, or who haven't set Thunderbird as their default mail client - not the kind of problem I'm having really.

[JPnyc]

Well regarding the spam factor, you might consider what I do, which is get a free throwaway email and use that for all websites that require an email, like purchases, forums, etc.

[Moira]

Oh I do, don't worry. But the fact that all the mail I can send at the moment has to go through aol's servers, which will show my aol email address, is a bit of a concern.

I can only hope that maybe Yahoo were tweaking their POP mail forwarding as that message suggested, and that this smtp server will work as before, once they've finished. I can appreciate why aol might have taken this stance, as ISP's are having to deal with a sudden upsurge in the amount of spam being sent at the moment, which is showing around a 30% increase. Full story here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10...et_spam_surge/