Receive, but can't send

R

RJB

Using Outlook 2002... Hangs up on outgoing messages. Have deleted them from
Outbox, and re-sent...

Get the "connection to server timed out"... But I'm still RECEIVING messages.

Our ISP provides a web-mail option, which I have been able to use and send,
so I don't think it's an ISP issue. My web access is still good, too...

So what gives?

Thanks!
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

Using Outlook 2002... Hangs up on outgoing messages. Have deleted them from
Outbox, and re-sent...

Get the "connection to server timed out"... But I'm still RECEIVING messages.
Click to expand...

Do you have any anti-virus or anti-spam software scanning your outgoing
messages? If so, turn off that feature.
 
V

Vanguard

RJB said:
Using Outlook 2002... Hangs up on outgoing messages. Have deleted them
from
Outbox, and re-sent...

Get the "connection to server timed out"... But I'm still RECEIVING
messages.

Our ISP provides a web-mail option, which I have been able to use and
send,
so I don't think it's an ISP issue. My web access is still good,
too...

So what gives?
Click to expand...


Disable e-mail scanning by your anti-virus software.

Make sure your e-mail account is configured to authenticate to their
SMTP server.
 
R

RJB

Already tried all of that.

Besides, none of that has changed in the last 24 hours. And it's everyone on
our system. The ISP insists that it's on our end.

Have rebooted proxy server, surfing is fine. All other network functions are
OK.

When I run the "Test Account Settings" function, it finds all the servers
correctly, but fails on sending the test message - it says "THe specified
server was found, but there was no response form the server. Please verify
taht the port and SSL information is correct."

As far as I can tell, this is all correct - at least it's the same on
everyone's machine, and hasn't changed in the last 24 hours.

Thanks!

"Jeff St
 
V

Vanguard

RJB said:
Already tried all of that.

Besides, none of that has changed in the last 24 hours. And it's
everyone on
our system. The ISP insists that it's on our end.

Have rebooted proxy server, surfing is fine. All other network
functions are
OK.

When I run the "Test Account Settings" function, it finds all the
servers
correctly, but fails on sending the test message - it says "THe
specified
server was found, but there was no response form the server. Please
verify
taht the port and SSL information is correct."

As far as I can tell, this is all correct - at least it's the same on
everyone's machine, and hasn't changed in the last 24 hours.

Thanks!

"Jeff St
Click to expand...


Have you tested that the SMTP server is responsive by telnetting into
it?

telnet <smtpserver> 25
ehlo rjbhome
mail from:<[email protected]>
quit

I just used "rjbhome" as an example identifier. Just say anything you
want to identify yourself. Include the angle brackets in the "mail
from:" command, and no spaces before or after the colon.

Do you reach the SMTP server and does it establish a session? Does is
accept the "ehlo" and "mail from" commands?

Although you have tried disabling the e-mail scanning of your anti-virus
software, did you reboot your computer? If their file system driver or
e-mail proxy process becomes unresponsive, it doesn't matter if e-mail
scanning is enabled or not if their process has gone brain dead.

In a DOS shell (aka Command Prompt), run "ipconfig /flushdns" to make
sure the "good" locally cached DNS queries (for the "DNS Client" NT
service) are purged and you get whatever is currently defined in their
DNS server. You could also use their IP address for the SMTP server
isntead of the IP name for it to see if that gets around the problem.
If it does, and if flushing the local DNS cache didn't help, check that
someone or some malware didn't slide in an invalid lookup in your hosts
file. However, since you mentioned timeouts, it sounds like it is
reaching the server.

If you run "ping -n 100 <yoursmtpserver>", what percentage of packets
got lost? If they have disabled ICMP on their mail server or boundary
hosts then just try pinging to somewhere that will respond, like
www.yahoo.com to see if you're getting a high percentage of lost packets
(which incurs a delay due to all the retries). You need to do more than
the default number of just 4 pings so you have a decent sampling size to
reflect what your real loss might be.
 
R

RJB

Typing: ehlo rjbhome
gave me:

250-mail28.sea5.speakeasy.net
250-PIPELINING
250-size 20971520
250-STARTTTLS
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-8 BITMIME

Typing mail from:<[email protected]>
gave me:
ok

I assumed you meant do the following from the Prozy Server, and not from a
client PC:
In a DOS shell (aka Command Prompt), run "ipconfig /flushdns" to make
sure the "good" locally cached DNS queries (for the "DNS Client" NT
service) are purged and you get whatever is currently defined in their
DNS server. You could also use their IP address for the SMTP server
isntead of the IP name for it to see if that gets around the problem.
If it does, and if flushing the local DNS cache didn't help, check that
someone or some malware didn't slide in an invalid lookup in your hosts
file. However, since you mentioned timeouts, it sounds like it is
reaching the server.
Click to expand...
If you run "ping -n 100 <yoursmtpserver>", what percentage of packets
got lost?
Click to expand...

None. Avg 86 ms

Again, I did this from a client TO the Proxy Server, and from the Proxy
Server to the mail.speakeasy.net address.

COuld it be a network card on the Proxy Server? I mean, obviously, if POP3
and Internet are working, the Server is working, right?

Thanks
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

When I run the "Test Account Settings" function, it finds all the servers
correctly, but fails on sending the test message - it says "THe specified
server was found, but there was no response form the server. Please verify
taht the port and SSL information is correct."

As far as I can tell, this is all correct - at least it's the same on
everyone's machine, and hasn't changed in the last 24 hours.
Click to expand...

Could you turn on diagnostic logging (see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q300479) and post
the OPMLog.log file after this happens?
 
V

Vanguard

RJB said:
Typing: ehlo rjbhome
gave me:

250-mail28.sea5.speakeasy.net
250-PIPELINING
250-size 20971520
250-STARTTTLS
250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN
250-8 BITMIME

Typing mail from:<[email protected]>
gave me:
ok
Click to expand...

Looks like you're getting in okay to the SMTP server. Presumably you
specified the mail server's IP name instead of its IP address in the
telnet command so you also know the DNS lookup worked okay.
I assumed you meant do the following from the Prozy Server, and not
from a
client PC:
Click to expand...

The "DNS Client" NT service runs on the client PC as part of the
operating system. Your client PC still has to do the IP lookup to use
that to make the connection through the proxy. I'm not sure why your
proxy would also have to do the DNS lookup since it would be getting
passed an IP address from the client.

Since the above telnet into the mail server worked okay, and presumably
you used an IP name for the mail server, the problem wasn't with an
outdated IP lookup in the local DNS cache or a redirect in the hosts
file (I'm assuming that speakeasy.net is the domain for the mail server
you wanted to use).
COuld it be a network card on the Proxy Server? I mean, obviously, if
POP3
and Internet are working, the Server is working, right?
Click to expand...

Depends on what protocols are supported or passed by the proxy server.
Maybe it is configured to block SMTP traffic. Are YOU running the proxy
locally? Is the proxy connecting to your ISP's SMTP server (so you are
using the mail server on the network to which you connect) or are you
attempting to connect to some other-domain SMTP server (which means you
are trying to pass SMTP traffic over their domain and out of their
control)? If you are using some public proxy that isn't on your e-mail
provider's domain, they may not accept off-domain SMTP traffic or that
public proxy is on a DNSBL (DNS blacklist) as an open relay that is
getting abused by spammers.

Can you circumvent the proxy and make a direct connect to your SMTP
server? If the proxy is required on your corporate network then maybe
they don't want employees to be sending e-mails other than from their
domain so you have to use your company's mail server. Just where is
this proxy, who owns it, who manages it, is it on your domain, your
ISP's domain, or some other domain? Why do you need to use the proxy
for SMTP traffic?
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

Have rebooted proxy server, surfing is fine. All other network functions are
OK.
Click to expand...

What proxy server are you running? ISA proxy server by default ships in a
configuration that disallows Outlook to connect, only allowing OS apps like
telnet to connect. [I know because here at Microsoft they periodically
deploy ISA without reconfiguring, leading to random failures to connect to
external POP.]

While I don't know how it suddenly would have stopped working, if you have
ISA you might check its configuration...
 
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