Outgoing emails go sometimes and not at other times

Kresp · 28 Dec 2019, 06:30 AM

I have a friend who has called upon me for help. The problem she is having is that while she seems to receive emails just fine she will have afternoons of not being able to send emails. But the problem does not seem to be consistent. She might reply to a few emails at 11:00 am and they will all send just fine. Then she'll reply to another one 10 minutes later and it will tell her that there is a problem with her smtp outgoing server. The email will be saved in her outgoing emails but will not send immediately. Later in the afternoon she may sit back down at her computer and reply to another email and it will go along with all those that piled up in her send queue. But then 30 minutes later it will tell her the same error and won't send them. She is working on a MAC POWERBOOK and I have examined everything about how her email is set-up. I have talked to her hosting company and have double checked all her settings. Everything seems in order. Her hosting company says things are set up correctly. And of course everything does work correctly part of the time. It's the other part of the time that has her climbing the walls and driving me nuts to fix it. I have established that when it WILL NOT SEND she does indeed have internet connectivity and can browse to other websites etc. I am considering the idea of switching her from POP to IMAP. Would this be a good idea? Could it possibly resolve this kind of problem? I personally like POP because I can work on my emails when not connected to the internet. But it may not be as big a deal for her as she generally is connected at all times.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? And/or does anyone have any "sage" advice for how I might go about troubleshooting this and determining exactly what is going on?

Thanks in advance. Any help on this is appreciated and I will do pretty much anything to get to the bottom of this.

Berenburger · 28 Dec 2019, 08:39 AM

Can you tell what email service (provider) she uses?
Can you publish the mail settings here?
Which mail program does she use?
Can she sent via webmail (if available)?
Is POP before SMTP maybe ‘on’?

JeremyNicoll · 28 Dec 2019, 10:34 PM

Does the email program concerned generate log files? If not, that needs to be turned on. Even if it is on, there may be some way of making it more detailed.

You say the hosting company say everything looks right... but it would help to know what they've examined. Are they only looking (in the logs on their systems) of what happens when an email is successfully sent? What - if anything - are they seeing when emails can't be sent?

For example, are there signs of your friend's system attempting to authenticate who it is before passing a mail to the hosting company's server?

28 Dec 2019, 06:30 AM	#1
Kresp Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2019 Posts: 1	Outgoing emails go sometimes and not at other times I have a friend who has called upon me for help. The problem she is having is that while she seems to receive emails just fine she will have afternoons of not being able to send emails. But the problem does not seem to be consistent. She might reply to a few emails at 11:00 am and they will all send just fine. Then she'll reply to another one 10 minutes later and it will tell her that there is a problem with her smtp outgoing server. The email will be saved in her outgoing emails but will not send immediately. Later in the afternoon she may sit back down at her computer and reply to another email and it will go along with all those that piled up in her send queue. But then 30 minutes later it will tell her the same error and won't send them. She is working on a MAC POWERBOOK and I have examined everything about how her email is set-up. I have talked to her hosting company and have double checked all her settings. Everything seems in order. Her hosting company says things are set up correctly. And of course everything does work correctly part of the time. It's the other part of the time that has her climbing the walls and driving me nuts to fix it. I have established that when it WILL NOT SEND she does indeed have internet connectivity and can browse to other websites etc. I am considering the idea of switching her from POP to IMAP. Would this be a good idea? Could it possibly resolve this kind of problem? I personally like POP because I can work on my emails when not connected to the internet. But it may not be as big a deal for her as she generally is connected at all times. Has anyone else ever experienced this? And/or does anyone have any "sage" advice for how I might go about troubleshooting this and determining exactly what is going on? Thanks in advance. Any help on this is appreciated and I will do pretty much anything to get to the bottom of this.

28 Dec 2019, 08:39 AM	#2
Berenburger The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 2,905	Can you tell what email service (provider) she uses? Can you publish the mail settings here? Which mail program does she use? Can she sent via webmail (if available)? Is POP before SMTP maybe ‘on’?

28 Dec 2019, 10:34 PM	#3
JeremyNicoll Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Scotland Posts: 484	Does the email program concerned generate log files? If not, that needs to be turned on. Even if it is on, there may be some way of making it more detailed. You say the hosting company say everything looks right... but it would help to know what they've examined. Are they only looking (in the logs on their systems) of what happens when an email is successfully sent? What - if anything - are they seeing when emails can't be sent? For example, are there signs of your friend's system attempting to authenticate who it is before passing a mail to the hosting company's server?