Help! More e-mail troubles...

[Guest]

That article is written from the perspective of the *server* -- you are the *client* and have nothing "listening" on ports 25 or 110. Your email program makes outbound connections to a server which listens on those ports.

 

Check your personal firewall configuration to make sure that *outbound* traffic on ports 110 and 25 is allowed. You do not need ports 25/110 specifically open for inbound traffic, all that would do is create a potential vulnerability.

 

 

[bangkokbutcher]

Hi Adikgede,

sorry I missed your post from yesterday .

Now onto your questions and comments:

 

>>>If you can access your pop3 mail from another computer the problem is on your new computer. <<<

 

Yes I can access it from another computer and I agree that the problem is on my new system.

 

>>>If you can access your pop3 mail on your new computer with a different mail app like eudoramail or the one in Mozilla/Netscape than the problem is probably with outlook.<<<

 

I have tried a number of different email applications all using their default settings along with my correct POP3 and STMP details and this has proved to be a no go.

 

>>>If you cant access pop3 mail on your computer with Outlook or any other program, but you can access pop3 mail from another computer, then your computer and not the server is blocking ports 25 and 110.<<<

 

Yep, that sounds about right, I just need to know how to stop them being blocked.

 

>>>If you can't access pop3 with outlook or any other program on your computer or on another computer the problem is on the server side, assuming you have the mail sending and retrieval addresses correct in all instances.<<<

 

Yep, this proves that it most definately is my computer causing the problems.

 

>>>If you have a terminal application on your computer can you open it up and type the following :

telnet smtp.xxx.co.uk 25 and tell us what the message you get is, remember to put your mail domain for "xxx" you can try telnet smtp.xxx.co.uk 30 while your at it. It should tell you what the escape charecter is, often [CTRL]+] youll need that to get back to the prompt.<<<

 

I have tried entering the above commands exactly as you stated (obviously replacing the xxx with my mail domain and even though you stated testing ports 25 and 30, both times it came back with the message:

"Connecting To smtp.xxx.net.25 ...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23: Connect failed"

 

It sounds to me as though that my pc cannot even find port 25, let alone connect through it.

 

And finally yes I am using Outlook Express as my email program not the MS Exchange Server, I only referred to this because SM's recommended link kept on referring to MS Exchange Server, sorry for the confusion.

 

Thanks for your help with this, now just got to find the final solution..

 

Thanks again

[bangkokbutcher]

Hi KHM,

yeah this firewall thing has been covered, and I have even tried totally uninstalling my firewall (Norton) to see if things worked out but they didnt.

 

Also prior to my problem first occuring, everything was operating normally.

 

It all started with a MS update download, which according to the support site has nothing to do with any email program conflictions. I also tried uninstalling the update, sadly to no avail.

 

Cheers.

[adikgede]

I have tried entering the above commands exactly as you stated (obviously replacing the xxx with my mail domain and even though you stated testing ports 25 and 30, both times it came back with the message:

"Connecting To smtp.xxx.net.25 ...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23: Connect failed"

---

 

Okay thats good we know that you arent getting to your host. The thing we need to know for sure is the ISP blocking the traffick or is your computer blocking it?

 

When you tried with success from another computer was it with the same internet service provider and from the same location?

 

 

Firewalls:

 

Earlier you said that you use a Norton firewall and have disabled it, but have you verified that the Windows XP firewall Internet Connect Firewall (ICF) is not blocking traffic on these ports? This is what I would suspect if the ISP isn't blocking the traffic.

 

See these instructions about the W32.Blaster.Worm and follow the instructions to configure the ICF firewall, and when you do so make sure that outbound traffic to ports 25 30 and 110 are not being blocked. And as the notes, linked above, indicate block 135, 137, 138, 139, and 445 tcp and udp inbound and outbound. This will block most MS networking traffic. and might save you some grief in the future.

 

Hope that helps, hopefully someone who actually uses Windows, I don't, can offer you any further assistance that may be required.

 

ag

 

 

 

[bangkokbutcher]

All done and correct, except the bit concerning 'blocking' and 'unblocking' the various ports.

 

All of the instructions on the site just kept taking me to pages containing information for configuring Windows 2000 .

 

It looks as though I am making some progress though thanks to you guys.

 

I will keep on trying various searches here and there to see if I can get the rest together, unless of course anyone has the answers written down on the back of a fag packet , for which I would pay a high price (as long as it still contained 20 smokes) .

 

Thanks for your input adikgede

[bangkokbutcher]

Ooops sorry, forgot to mention I am using Windows XP.

 

Cheers.

[Guest]

Going one level lower down in the protocol stack: can you even *ping* your mail hosts? Try

 

ping mail.xxx.co.uk

 

from the command line (putting in the proper server name) and tell us what happens.

[adikgede]

Pinging will not always give you a reliable answer anymore. Many servers especially mail severs don't allow ICMP echo requests (or responses) through their firewall. thats why I suggested telnet because many servers will let you get close enough to refuse you. If you have nmap you can use the -P0 option to get on to more interesting scanning, but you shouldn't do port scans without permission. You can try it with earthlink

 

 

[ibook:~] user% telnet earthlink.net 25

Trying 207.217.121.219...

Connected to pop09.earthlink.net.

Escape character is '^]'.

220-albatross.mail.pas.earthlink.net ESMTP Exim 3.33 #1 Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:15:34 -0700

220-NO UCE. EarthLink does not authorize the use of its computers or network

220 equipment to deliver, accept, transmit, or distribute unsolicited e-mail.

 

But if you ping the ICMP echo request may get dropped. The fact that its resolving to an IP gives you a clue that something is there but you don't know what or if you are actually on a mail port.

 

[ibook:~] user% ping smtp.earthlink.net

PING smtp.earthlink.net (207.217.121.213): 56 data bytes

^X^C

--- smtp.earthlink.net ping statistics ---

316 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

 

 

 

[bangkokbutcher]

Hi KHM,

I have tried the ping thing anyway for all of my mail accounts and they all returned similar results to below.

 

Pinging mail.onetel.net.uk [212.67.96.129] with 32 bytes of data:

 

Reply from 212.67.96.129: bytes=32 time=678ms TTL=247

Reply from 212.67.96.129: bytes=32 time=144ms TTL=247

Reply from 212.67.96.129: bytes=32 time=294ms TTL=247

Reply from 212.67.96.129: bytes=32 time=325ms TTL=247

 

Ping statistics for 212.67.96.129:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 144ms, Maximum = 678ms, Average = 360ms

 

So it would definately seem as though it is not the mail servers at fault, it is surely something on my system.

 

Cheers.

[BelgianBoy]

BButcher,

 

Okayyyyy maybe time to resort to some old fashioned methods ????

 

Have you tried kicking, hitting & cursing your new laptop ?????

 

Have you tried re-connecting your old PC and get back online from the same connection, and have you tried downloading your mails by taking your laptop to another place ?

 

Or starting from scratch again ?

 

Good luck.........

 

Cheers !