Email problem

Could someone please help an old man with an old problem on his PC running Windows 10 with Microsoft Office 2003? This setup has worked well for several years. It’s simple, I understand how to drive it until recently Outlook refused to send email! Sometimes the mail is sent but generally fails.

Error code (0x800CCC67) appears saying the server was found but no response from the server. So I contact by phone my ISP Idnet who says that is an MS error code!! “Try change changing the SMTP port to 587 from 25”. That works for a couple of tries then fails.

I have another Windows 10 PC with Office 2003 and that throws up the same error. I have even tried another router.

Suggestions please!!

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

Suggestions please!!

Upgrade Microsoft Office.

Is the e-mail account one of the open access accounts like gmail or hotmail or tied to your ISP?

Edited by GonePostal (Sat 11-Jun-22 13:03:38)

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

Error code (0x800CCC67) appears saying the server was found but no response from the server. So I contact by phone my ISP Idnet who says that is an MS error code!! “Try change changing the SMTP port to 587 from 25”. That works for a couple of tries then fails.

I have another Windows 10 PC with Office 2003 and that throws up the same error. I have even tried another router.

Do you have any internet security suite type of software installed, possibly on both computers? I think something on the PC(s) is interfering with the connection. Your intermittent connection indicates email filtering type of service.

Another possibility is your ISP has upgraded their email security and no longer support older versions of TLS. You can use anther email application as a test, Thunderbird from Mozilla (makers of Firefox) is free.

Thanks all for replies.

First, my email is tied to my ISP . I tried temporally disabling my firewall no improvement.

Sending via Thunderbird worked first time but another attempt with Tbird produced this:

An error occurred while sending mail: The mail server sent an incorrect greeting: Cannot connect to SMTP server 212.69.40.22 (212.69.40.22:25), connect error 10060.

How would I know if my ISP have upgraded their email security and no longer support older versions of TLS?

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

An error occurred while sending mail: The mail server sent an incorrect greeting: Cannot connect to SMTP server 212.69.40.22 (212.69.40.22:25), connect error 10060.

Are you connecting to the server with TLS or STARTTLS?

Oliver I have no idea! How can you tell?

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

Oliver I have no idea! How can you tell?

Check the server settings in your e-mail client for the connection security setting.

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

Thanks all for replies.

First, my email is tied to my ISP . I tried temporally disabling my firewall no improvement.

Sending via Thunderbird worked first time but another attempt with Tbird produced this:

An error occurred while sending mail: The mail server sent an incorrect greeting: Cannot connect to SMTP server 212.69.40.22 (212.69.40.22:25), connect error 10060.

How would I know if my ISP have upgraded their email security and no longer support older versions of TLS?

Ask Idnet. There are details of how email clients should be configured on their website and in particular your 'Dashboard'.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Upgrade Microsoft Office.

That was my thinking, as even running on Windows 10, it is possible the email server has been updated to latest security requirements, and Outlook 2003 (which is 19 years old) no longer knows how to connect.

IDNet's settings are here:
https://www.idnet.com/settings.php?type=email

Looks as if they still support SMTP over TCP port 25 without encryption, or over port 587 with encryption. TLS 1.2 is recommended.

Some very old info:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/foru...

Edited by jchamier (Sat 11-Jun-22 16:42:22)