Author Topic: email problem (Read 542 times)

-ammo- · « **on:** February 22, 2003, 02:27:29 PM »

Hey all-

I am stumped. I have a problem, I cannot send and receive email from my PC to my ISP's (road runner in San Antonio) pop3 and SMTP servers. Recently, there was a city wide email outage and no one could send mail. After about a day or so, RR resolved the problem at their end. However, on my end, my email client(s) still cannot contact their POP3 and SMTP servers. I have called their help desk for resolution several times and they believe the problem is on my machine. This may very well be true, but I can't seem to locate it.

Now, I have 2 PC's that are networked using a Linksys 4 port router, and I have win2K installed on both machines. The funky thing is I can actually create the very same email accounts on the second PC and that PC connects to the ISP's email servers without a problem. BOTH computers can connect to the internet and to my ISP's news server.

Things I have done to fix this problem.

What I haven't done yet. I have not changed any settings on my router (blocked any ports (intentionally)). I haven't uninstalled my email clients and reinstaled them. I haven't reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled win2k.

One other thing that is broke, I cannot connect to the other PC through my netwrok connection. This has been a problem for quite some time. I can "see" the other computer in windows explorer, but cannot connect. I don't think this is a related problem though.

any sdvice/help will be appreciated.

thx

Sancho · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2003, 02:42:34 PM »

You can send/receive mail from computer #2 but not from #1, right? That would mean your mail servers are working. It's gotta be something on the configuration of the 1st computer. What's the error message you get when you try to send/receive email on computer #1? Can you telnet to port 25 and 110 of the smtp and pop servers from that computer? Have you tried logging in as a new user in Windows to see if mail works as a different user?

-ammo- · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2003, 02:52:22 PM »

Hi sancho

I mailed this on the list as well, however I don't know if yahoo let it out.

It seems to be just on this machine. I wonder if RR would/can block just this machine?? I would have thought that the only IP they would see was that of my router.

Or it could be either my router, or a win2K setting on this machine.

Can you telnet to port 25 and 110 of the smtp and pop servers from that computer? Have you tried logging in as a new user in Windows to see if mail works as a different user?

can you tell me how to do this?

thx mate

-ammo- · « **Reply #3 on:** February 22, 2003, 03:07:41 PM »

"a TCP/IP error occured while trying to connect to the server. POP3 Server: pop-server.satx.rr.com error number; 0x800ccc15"

Sancho · « **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2003, 03:22:43 PM »

open a command prompt (start->run->cmd)
type:

telnet smtp-server.stx.rr.com 25

You should then see the mail server talking to you. Something like this:

telnet mail.jump.net 25
Trying 67.92.168.20...
Connected to mail.jump.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 chimta03.algx.net -- Server ESMTP (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.10 (built Jan 23 2003))

If you see that, then you can connect to the mail server from your computer. Also try 'telnet pop-server.stx.rr.com 110' to see about the POP server. You may also see a 'connection refused' message or it may just time out if you can't connect. Interestingly, you can actually type commands directly on the server to check or send mail, but I'm just wondering if you can actually connect to the server right now. I'm pretty sure if you could get that far you could send mail, since the other computer works.

Other question I have is do you have Norton Internet security installed? It uses a proxy server to scan your mail for viruses first. Sometimes the proxy stops working (like when your Norton software expires) and then you can't send mail, but you don't get a warning.

-ammo- · « **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2003, 03:28:54 PM »

Thx sancho-

here is the result-

"C:\>telnet smtp-server.satx.rr.com 25
Connecting To smtp-server.satx.rr.com...Could not open a connection to host on p
ort 25 : Connect failed

C:\>telnet pop-server.satx.rr.com 110
Connecting To pop-server.satx.rr.com...Could not open a connection to host on po
rt 110 : Connect failed"

Going to take my machine off the network and connect it straight to the cable modem to see if the router is the issue. BRB

Sancho · « **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2003, 03:29:51 PM »

that would be a good next step to take.

-ammo- · « **Reply #7 on:** February 22, 2003, 04:32:51 PM »

OK, Router is out of the loop and problem still exist. Things I checked. Tried using a different client (Outlook express). Tried creating a completely different identity in OE. Checked under "services" in administrative tools to make sure DHCP was started adn DNS was started. Called RR tech support, they went through all the normal fixes, to no avail. The guy even tried pinging the POP3 and SMTP servers with telnet and he couldn't get thorugh. That led him to belive that there is still an issue on RR's end. However it still doesn't explain why my other PC isn't having a problem.

So, any ideas?

Sancho · « **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2003, 05:03:45 PM »

I thought you said you could send email with your old computer, which would indicate a problem with the new one, but if the roadrunner support guy couldn't connect to his mail server it an ISP problem.

Sancho · « **Reply #9 on:** February 22, 2003, 05:09:31 PM »

One other thing... just because the "RoadRunner support guy" couldn't ping the mail server doesn't mean it doesn't work, especially if you can still send/receive mail from your other computer. They might be blocking pings on their firewall. He might not actually be a RoadRunner employee, or be within their firewall which would make it impossible for him to fully test the server. 3 years ago I worked for a company in Austin taking San Antonio RR support calls. At that time, we didn't have the ability to "fix" anything other than the most basic client side issues.

-ammo- · « **Reply #10 on:** February 22, 2003, 05:35:25 PM »

Yes, I can retrieve and send mail from my other computer, that hasn't changed. The techy juts says that there is still problems in my area with email and he fully believes that it is on the RR end and not mine. What I wanted to do was isolate the ISP out of the problem but was unable too. Reconfiguring my router now, but don't think it will solve the problem.

-ammo- · « **Reply #11 on:** February 22, 2003, 06:11:12 PM »

figured it out. Even though Zone Alarm was not actively running, it was blocking Outllok from accessing the internet. It wasn't until I started ZA, that I receoived a message saying that outlook was attempting to access the internet that I knew what was going on. I had no idea that a firewall like ZA could control app's ability to gain access to the internet when it WASNT EVEN RUNNING.

a very releived ammo.

thx for the help sancho

Vermillion · « **Reply #12 on:** February 22, 2003, 07:17:45 PM »

Ammo, why are you running zone alarm if you have the 4 port Linksys router? Doesn't it use NAT? And is therefore a firewall in its own right? Only thing I can think of is if your looking for trojans trying to get out to the outside world.

-ammo- · « **Reply #13 on:** February 22, 2003, 08:25:52 PM »

Hey verm, long time no speaky:)

Actually, I managed to do something stupid a few weeks ago and ended up with some malicious adware installed on my machine. To isolate it and rid myself of it I used ZA to tell when it was accessing the internet. I just hadn't uninstalled it.

Vermillion · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2003, 01:31:37 PM »

Hey Ammo, shoot me some email at vermillion_c@hotmail.com

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