No incoming or outgoing e-mails

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick
  • Start date Start date
R

Rick

I'm running Outlook 2000. The system suddenly stopped
sending and receiving. Checked for viruses, none found
(new McAfee installation). Messages sent go to Outbox and
are held. Cannot send self a message (trapped in
Outbox). Message errors include:

The SMTP server name you specified cannot be found...

The TCP/IP connection was unexpectedly terminated by your
mail server...

Called Verizon, they weren't able to help. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
 
I apologize, Conrad. I've heard about "pinging" but I
don't know how to do it, let alone doing it to the
server. Please assume in your response, you are talking
to a lump of coal--and that gives me the benefit of the
doubt!
 
To use ping, open a DOS shell and enter:

ping <yourmailserver>

where <yourmailserver> is whatever your ISP told you to use for their mail
server. They may use different subdomains for incoming and outgoing
e-mails, like pop3.mydomain.com and smtp.mydomain.com. I saw a page at
Verizon that said to use:

POP3 (incoming) = incoming.verizon.net
SMTP (outgoing) = outgoing.verizon.net

So try to ping those. However, it is possible that pinging is disabled on
those hosts, so you will get timeouts. Ping uses ICMP (Internet Control
Message Protocol) which is part of (an extension to) the IP protocol (the
TCP/IP protocol you installed in Windows, if not already installed, to give
your Internet access). This means a ping will respond if TCP/IP is loaded
on the destination host, so the only thing a ping will tell you is that the
mail server's host is reachable and responds to your pings. A ping does NOT
tell you if the mail server program on that host is actually running and if
it is responsive and working. The ping tells you that you've reached the
host, not about any processes running on it.

To check if their mail server is actually running and responsive, telnet to
it:

telnet <yourmailserver> <port>

For the incoming mail server (POP3), use port number 110. For the outgoing
mail server (SMTP), use port 25. You may not be able to maintain a
connection and instead get timed out but if you get any connection, like an
intro text message saying that you are connected, then you have a good
inkling that their mail server is actually up.


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I apologize, Conrad. I've heard about "pinging" but I
don't know how to do it, let alone doing it to the
server. Please assume in your response, you are talking
to a lump of coal--and that gives me the benefit of the
doubt!
 
So ping was disabled (and why you got 100% loss). The telnet worked to
get you connected into the mail servers. So now you know the mail
servers exist by those IP names and that they are up and working. So
have you gone back into Outlook to check that the e-mail accounts
defined within it are using the correct IP names for the mail servers?
Have you checked that the username and password you entered in those
e-mail accounts are correct?
 
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