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Mail account setup issues

  • 9 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by MurfOscar

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Background For over 15 years have been using a US based email forwarding service which receives mail addressed to the email address they registered for me and forwards it to my email address with my Australian ISP email client. Summarising, messages went to the US and were resent to Australia.

Just over a month ago now my ISP started bouncing all forwarded emails for reason of poor reputation of the US sending servers. Seems they were distributing too much spam.

Between the US company and my ISP it was agreed that the best solution was to take the US server out of the equation by creating an account for my US email address on my Australian ISP client.

To this end the US side provided connection details for the email address they manage; incoming POP port 110, outgoing SMTP port 2525 or 587 (actually got 587 to work briefly).

Issues

Two issues and a question.

The original settings are coming back every time Thunderbird is reloaded, and connection to server mail.mydomainname.com is timing out.

Pressing the Done button should write the new settings. Correct? For me this action brought up the encryption warning to which I took "Understand the risk" option. Does taking this option cancel the write or should it have continued? If it cancelled the write would there be a warning message to this effect?

Password doesn't appear to be a problem. Toad_Hall’s advice "The password is usually the same password as used by the incoming mail account and also the same as used to access webmail account via a browser" helped to clarify the issue of what logins are affected when resetting passwords. Two sites for this account are listed in Password Manager; mailbox and smtp. No problem logging on to mailbox to read messages, and am assuming that smtp addresses both incoming and outgoing ports.

Also regarding the 'Save password' box which comes up always ticked. If left that way and an incorrect password is entered will Password Manager accept the change?

Feel I’m pretty close to resolving this issue, and advice which will get me over the line will be appreciated. Thank you.

Background For over 15 years have been using a US based email forwarding service which receives mail addressed to the email address they registered for me and forwards it to my email address with my Australian ISP email client. Summarising, messages went to the US and were resent to Australia. Just over a month ago now my ISP started bouncing all forwarded emails for reason of poor reputation of the US sending servers. Seems they were distributing too much spam. Between the US company and my ISP it was agreed that the best solution was to take the US server out of the equation by creating an account for my US email address on my Australian ISP client. To this end the US side provided connection details for the email address they manage; incoming POP port 110, outgoing SMTP port 2525 or 587 (actually got 587 to work briefly). Issues Two issues and a question. The original settings are coming back every time Thunderbird is reloaded, and connection to server mail.mydomainname.com is timing out. Pressing the Done button should write the new settings. Correct? For me this action brought up the encryption warning to which I took "Understand the risk" option. Does taking this option cancel the write or should it have continued? If it cancelled the write would there be a warning message to this effect? Password doesn't appear to be a problem. Toad_Hall’s advice "The password is usually the same password as used by the incoming mail account and also the same as used to access webmail account via a browser" helped to clarify the issue of what logins are affected when resetting passwords. Two sites for this account are listed in Password Manager; mailbox and smtp. No problem logging on to mailbox to read messages, and am assuming that smtp addresses both incoming and outgoing ports. Also regarding the 'Save password' box which comes up always ticked. If left that way and an incorrect password is entered will Password Manager accept the change? Feel I’m pretty close to resolving this issue, and advice which will get me over the line will be appreciated. Thank you.

Modified by MurfOscar

All Replies (9)

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Yah if your ISP gets on a blacklist for spam it's a nightmare to get removed...

hmm if the decision was to take the US server out of the equation, then you shouldn't be using their server configs but to now use the configs for your new service in australia (from when im comprehending).

You are going to have to go into your Preferences -> Account Settings -> and change all the details in here to match the setting for your new e-mail account security settings/ports/servers/passwords. The settings can be different, especially if you're trying to send outgoing mail from a connection that isn't your ISP.

If you got a notice that you are not using encryption, then I'm positive you don't have all the correct info needed

Honestly without all of the exact settings needed from your new address we arn't going to get very far, if they didn't guide you through the setup or at least directed you on where to get that info that's some pretty bad service....

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Here are the settings provided by the US email forwarder:

1. User Name: Enter the full address of the email service you have with us. 2. For your Incoming mail server (POP3): type "mail" followed by your domain name (e.g. mail.example.com) 3. For your Outgoing mail server (SMTP): type "smtp." followed by your domain name (e.g. smtp.example.com) 4. Change your outgoing server setting to 2525 or 587. If you are with Verizon you should change your port to 587

On entering the POP3 information in 2 the port value automatically changed to 110.

No guidance was provided on SSL and Authentication values.

more options

Went through the configuration process many times over the weekend.

Didn't receive the message "Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account". From this conclude the password entered is correct.

In the original settings the User Account name is "ian". Without changing this but entering the values in the above message, pressing "re-test" returns a screen reporting "The following were found by probing the incoming server" and repeating all values just entered.

Pressing "Done" returns the message "pop.example.com does not use encryption" and offers an "Accept the risk option". Accepting this option highlights the "Done" button. Pressing "Done" produces the message "Error creating account. Incoming server already exists".

If the User Account name is changed to the full "ian@example.com" as recommended, pressing "re-test" returns a screen reporting "The following were found by probing the incoming server" and repeats all values just entered. Pressing "Done" in this instance goes straight to the message "Error creating account. Incoming server already exists",

Now when loading Thunderbird am getting the message "Sending of password for user ian did not succeed. Mail server pop.example.com responded: requesting retry or new password".

If you take the "new password" option you are not asked for your previous password although the field is apparently filled with it. My question is does "new password" mean correcting a typing error with no password reset, or will the password actually be reset and Password Manager updated?

In due course Thunderbird responds "Connection to mail.example.com timed out.

Don't understand why the "Error creating account ..." message is coming up. From the File/New/ menu am selecting "Existing Account" and updating same. Could this indicate that because the password is not correct setup assumes a new account is being created?

If so, the issue becomes "How do we get the password required to align with the password stored in Password Manager, or vice versa?"

As ever will appreciate assistance to sort this issue.

Modified by MurfOscar

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re :"Error creating account. Incoming server already exists",

You get that error message if you have already created a pop mail account for that email address.

Once you have created the pop mail account then you alter any settings via Account Settings. There are various ways to access Account Settings and all are just as vaild.

  • Right click on mail account in Folder Pane and select 'Settings'
  • click on Mail Account in Folder Pane then select 'View Settings for this account'.
  • 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Account Settings'


If your ISP has told you to use Port 110 (not Port 995): Pop incoming server using Port 110 is a non-encrypted port. So you use: Server Type: 'Pop Mail Server' Server Name: 'mail.yourdomain.com' User name: 'full email address' for your domain 'Connection Security' = 'none' Authentication method' = 'Normal Password' click on 'OK' to save and close window.

To confirm you have got this setup correctly..... Please post the following information.

In Thunderbird 'Menu icon' > 'Help' > 'Troubleshooting Information' make sure checkbox 'Include account names' is NOT selected. click on 'Copy text to clipboard' button In this forum question, right click in a 'Post a Reply' text box and select 'Paste'. You can remove/edit all the font and print info, but do not alter anything else.

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Image of folder panel with three mydomainname.com accounts added.

Notice the top one has a lock symbol on it. Believe this is the one causing the problem. It was set up by the ISP under account name ian@icampbel.com (for addressing purposes) but with ISP email server settings.

As an account with ISP email server setting would be required in future, I simply changed the account name from ian@icampbel.com to icampbel@bigpond.net.au. Seems a new account for the latter was created and the former account not deleted, hence the settings conflict.

The other two would be those established recently. Propose to delete the one with 4 emails leaving the single account with 110 emails. If you agree, have to ask if the lock will stand in the way?

Your assistance is much appreciated. Thank you. MurfOscar

Modified by MurfOscar

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"Once you have created the pop mail account then you alter any settings via Account Settings".

My problem is "How do you create the new account? Have no problems changing existing account settings.

The "Get new account option" under File/New/ starts off by getting a new email address for you, but I already have my preferred email address.

If I try to bounce the new account off an existing account, one of which is always highlighted, by changing the email address, the existing account is simply renamed. That is not acceptable when all existing accounts are required.

For the record to make a fresh start have deleted the three instances of ian@mydomainname.com, the account I am trying to create that unexplainably appeared but don't connect. Also removed all sites in Password Manager that reference ian@mydomainname.com.

The latest Troubleshooting Information Report below and the snip of the Folder pane confirm the existence of three accounts, icampbel@myISPdomainname, mycompany@myemailhostname.com, and Local Folders.

Feel I'm ready to create the new account. Just need to set it up and have it listed in the Folder Pane.

Will appreciate assistance in this regard.


REPORT]

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/REPORT

Modified by MurfOscar

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File|New|Existing Mail Account

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Thank you Zenos, sure you will agree that direction to "Existing Account" is something of a contradiction when you're wanting to create a new account. Moreso when on the File|New menu there is a Get a New Account option.

Had used the Existing Account option many times only to be baulked by the failure of the system to remove the message "User Name or Password incorrect" when the correct password was subsequently entered. This only became apparent when out of sheer frustration I decided to go beyond Re-testing and press the Done button. From then on it was "Messages Incoming".

On the evidence it would appear that responsibility for this meat in the sandwich situation rests with my ISP and its decision to experiment with bouncing incoming messages received from servers with poor reputations for unacceptable levels of spam. Starting 8 November last all messages from my US email forwarder were bounced; the test regime was too harsh.

On November 29 the settings must have been reviewed for emails from several but not all senders known to be forwarded started to appear prefixed in the subject line with [DKIM] or [SPF]. From December 5 it was obvious that emails from all forwarded senders were coming in, and without any prefixes in the subject line.

Either my ISP got the settings right or this particular spam blocking initiative was abandoned. Whichever, to return to square one on reputation filtering, ie none apparently, suggests there was never the need to displace the forwarding arrangement that had worked so well for over 20 years?

My sincere thanks to all Community members who have contributed to the solving of this issue.

Modified by MurfOscar