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billford
(elder) Tue 14-Jun-22 09:27:41

Re: Email problem

[re: Andrew_W] [link to this post]

I'm also with IDNet and having no problems... have you tried logging in to webmail and having a look around the folders for anything odd?

Just tried that and on one of my accounts I found a couple of items still in the Sent folder dating back to 2013 crazy

Strikes me that if something like that has somehow happened to you and your mailbox is getting full it might cause problems (but don't ask me how or why!).

Bill

Andrew_W
(knowledge is power) Tue 14-Jun-22 09:34:21

Re: Email problem

[re: Pheasant] [link to this post]

Everything else works as it should.

Email was working first thing this morning but now it does not! This fails of course.

ping smtp.idnet.com

Andrew

Oliver341
(eat-sleep-adslguide) Tue 14-Jun-22 10:38:36

Re: Email problem

[re: Andrew_W] [link to this post]

The server (smtp.idnet.com:587) passes a connection reliability test:

Text

[14/06/2022 10:21:37] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)
[14/06/2022 10:21:42] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)[14/06/2022 10:21:47] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)
<big snip>[14/06/2022 10:29:49] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)
[14/06/2022 10:29:54] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)[14/06/2022 10:29:59] 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)
 [14/06/2022 10:30:04] Connection attempts: 100 -- Success: 100

Oliver.

bsdnazz
(member) Tue 14-Jun-22 10:41:25

Re: Email problem

[re: jchamier] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by jchamier:
Some very old info:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/foru...

I think this is significant. The error code tells us Outlook had a problem sending an email and the old info tells us that Outlook 2003 only supports the older SSL encryption and not the newer TLS encryption.

What might have changed to cause the user to start having a problem?

ISPs are retiring SSL encryption because it's buggy and not secure and moving to only support TLS.

If the users ISP only offers TLS on their email server then I'd expect Outlook to fail to make a secure connection to it and you'd get an error.

billford
(elder) Tue 14-Jun-22 10:54:48

Re: Email problem

[re: bsdnazz] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by bsdnazz:
If the users ISP only offers TLS on their email server then I'd expect Outlook to fail to make a secure connection to it and you'd get an error.

The problem is that it accepts a few, then stops... that's why I suggested a nearly full mailbox: when those few have been sent on (or some new incoming ones read) there's a bit more room again.

Although I'm not at all sure that's what the behaviour would be crazy

Bill

Pheasant
(knowledge is power) Tue 14-Jun-22 11:34:24

Re: Email problem

[re: Andrew_W] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:
Everything else works as it should.

Email was working first thing this morning but now it does not! This fails of course.

ping smtp.idnet.com

If you want to try a telnet based SMTP server test you can follow these steps;

Convert your mail username (usually your full email address) and password to base64 format, using an online ascii to base64 converter like this one.

Paste the resulting username and password somewhere you can easily copy and paste them.

On your linux box, open up a terminal window, then type:
telnet smtp.idnet.com 25

You should get:

Text
1 23 4	Trying 212.69.40.22... Connected to smtp.idnet.com.Escape character is '^]'. 220 smtp.idnet.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU)

Then type:
EHLO smtp.idnet.com

You should get:

Text
1 23 45 67 89 1011 12	250-smtp.idnet.com 250-PIPELINING250-SIZE 50000000 250-VRFY250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES250-8BITMIME 250-DSN250-SMTPUTF8 250 CHUNKING

Then type:
AUTH LOGIN

You should get:

Text
1	334 VXNlcm5hbWU6

Then type:
<your email account username in base64 format>

You should get:

Text
1	334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6

Then type:
<your email account password in base64 format>

You should get:

Text
1	235 2.7.0 SMTP350 Authentication successful for user xxx etc, etc.

Then type:
MAIL FROM:<your email addresss >

You should get:

Text
1	250 2.1.0 <your email address> sender ok

Then type:
RCPT TO:<an email address you want to test sending to>

You should get:

Text
1	250 2.1.5 <<an email address you want to test sending to> recipient ok

Then type:
DATA

You should get:

Text
1	354 OK

Then type:
Subject: Test from IDnet
<enter>
Test message hello world
.

You should get:

Text
1	250 2.0.0 13MsoX9T0Dbx513OCoWgSm mail accepted for delivery

Then type:
QUIT

You should get:

Text
1	221 2.0.0 smtp.idnet.com closing connection

Andrew_W
(knowledge is power) Wed 15-Jun-22 08:33:46

Re: Email problem

[re: Pheasant] [link to this post]

Thanks Pheasant and all. Got other probs at the moment but will be back!

Andrew

Pheasant
(knowledge is power) Wed 15-Jun-22 09:11:09

Re: Email problem

[re: billford] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by billford:
In reply to a post by bsdnazz:
If the users ISP only offers TLS on their email server then I'd expect Outlook to fail to make a secure connection to it and you'd get an error.
The problem is that it accepts a few, then stops... that's why I suggested a nearly full mailbox: when those few have been sent on (or some new incoming ones read) there's a bit more room again.

Although I'm not at all sure that's what the behaviour would be

My understanding is the behaviour is evident on two windows machines and a Linux box with both old versions of Outlook and also an up to date version of Thunderbird.

It could well be a single mailbox issue.

Have asked OP to run a check by telnet into the SMTP box and manually send a test message, which may reveal some error messages directly from the mail server, rather than somewhat cryptic (or let’s just say not totally conclusive) error messages from Outlook/T-Bird.

Alternatively Andrew may also wish to test with a fresh/another/new account on the same SMTP server.

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 15-Jun-22 09:15:19)

ashdown
(regular) Wed 15-Jun-22 20:50:02

Re: Email problem

[re: Pheasant] [link to this post]

As I understand it, emails send successfully sometimes but not others and "ping smtp.idnet.com" and "traceroute smtp.idnet.com" works sometimes but not others.

There has been some discussion about DNS and whether it's returning the correct IPv4 address. That can be easily taken out of the variables by using the IP address instead of the name. So I'd recommend following Pheasant's excellent SMTP guide but using both "telnet 212.69.40.22 25" and "telnet 212.69.40.22 587" instead of "telnet smtp.idnet.com 25". and by trying these telnets several times and at different times of the day and especially immediately after an email fails to send.

If those telnets work sometimes and fail other times, that would be most interesting. One possibility that's not been mentioned so far is a firewall that responds to what it thinks is abuse by blocking inbound connections from a particular IP address for a while. Such rate-limiting and blackhole techniques are often used to protect networks. There's little evidence to suggest this is the cause (although I think it's consistent with the reported symptoms) but it's a possibility to consider.

Edited by ashdown (Wed 15-Jun-22 20:51:56)

Oliver341
(eat-sleep-adslguide) Thu 16-Jun-22 11:06:07

Re: Email problem

[re: ashdown] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by ashdown:
One possibility that's not been mentioned so far is a firewall that responds to what it thinks is abuse by blocking inbound connections from a particular IP address for a while. Such rate-limiting and blackhole techniques are often used to protect networks. There's little evidence to suggest this is the cause (although I think it's consistent with the reported symptoms) but it's a possibility to consider.

That was partly the reason I connected to the server 100 times in a row earlier in the thread. I didn't get any issues with that though.

Oliver.

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