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Teacher

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12 Messages

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 12:48 AM

2 programs stopped sending mail

I have two programs that stopped sending messages. Both have worked fine for years and stopped recently (different dates) sending mail, without any changes at my end.

 

1. A compuserve POP account which is set with the ATT SMTP server for sending. It has worked for years without any problems. But today it stopped working: when I try to send mail it issues an invalid login error.

 

The weird thing is that I have other non-ATT accounts with the same.

 

2. A utility called Abuse that analyzes email spam headers and sends a complaint to the ISP of the sender. This one was set with port 25 and somebody was claiming that it is blocked by ATT, is that true? Anyway, port 25 works intermittently and if I set the port to 465 does not work at all. The program is an older one and does not have SSL settings, so I dk if that is the reason port 465 does not work.

 

Anybody knows what's going on here?

 

Thanks.

Accepted Solution

Official Solution

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

OK, it looks like I solved both problems.

 

Turns out that I recently switched from DSL to UVerse and the only the latter has port 25 blocked and I wasn't aware of that.

For some reason 465 did not work either. They unblocked 25 but I'll use 587, which works.

 

As to the email program, the password got messed up but because it does not display I could not see that.

 

Thanks for your help.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

12 years ago

Port 25 has been blocked by ISP's for years now, due to Spamming. You could use SSL with Port 465, but if you are sending large amounts of mail, you could be blocked, if not on Business service.  You can use port 587, not 465, which is a legacy port.  225 is another, along with 110.  Now of course, this is always Google's smtp server http://kb.siteground.com/article/How_to_use_Googles_free_SMTP_server.html

Per chance, what are these two programs that you are having problems with, and what OS.  Here is some reading for you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol#Ports  http://kb.siteground.com/article/How_to_check_whether_SMTP_port_25_is_blocked.html

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

Thanks for responding.

 

I only send a few messages every day.

 

The 2 programs are PopPeeper, which is a simple email program and Abuse, an older utility that analyzes headers and sends notifications to suspected ISP of spammers.

 

Regarding PopPeeper: the incoming server is Compuserve's, the SMTP server is my ISP's ATT/Yahoo. It was working fine for years until yesterday, when it stopped for no reason. It now gives me a login error when I send the mail from the Compuserve account, even though it has nothing to do with the Compuserve's servers. Yet it works just fine when I send from any other account through the same SMTP server which is configured the same way, port 465 SSL. This is weird.

 

Regarding Abuse, it is an older program and it does not have a SSL setting. It was set at port 25 and it was working fine, when a few weeks ago its started failing intermittently. I set it at 465 and it did not work at all. I then reset it back to port 25 and at least one message went through, then the rest wouldn't. The question is can I just select any of the ports you mentioned? AFAIK the ISP instructs to use port 465/SSL.

 

I would prefer not to change SMTP servers, but rather t

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

Oops, forgot: I am running Windows XP64

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

I tried 587 and got
: Send email could not connect to SMTP server

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

Tried port 587 and got: "Send mail could not connect to SMTP server"

Teacher

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12 Messages

12 years ago

I tried port 587 and got "Send mail could not connect to SMTP server"

Professor

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1.9K Messages

12 years ago

I don't know if this is relevant or not. Found this in Help and Support......

 

Note: AT&T's POP/SMTP settings have recently changed to inbound.att.net and outbound.att.net. However, if you are using the old settings, they will continue to work.

 

Or so they say.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

12 years ago

I had to go back using pop.att.yahoo.com & smtp.att.yahoo.com, due to the inbound.att.net & outbound.att.net would error out about a month or so ago.

New Member

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25.7K Messages

12 years ago

You may want to look at Spamcop, which is one of the better programs out there http://www.spamcop.net/ You did not state what the other utility was, so it is hard to look up info on the second one.
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