Receive/Send mail problem.

J

Jenny Sumner

I have a problem sending mail with Outlook 2003 (and/or OE 6). This used to
work fine up until two days ago.

I can receive mail (pop3 is fine cause it reads), but cannot send (smtp).
I've even sent emails to valid email accounts and also sent emails to
nonexistnat addresses ([email protected]).

I haven't even rec'd a bounce message (I sent it yesterday at about 2:30, it
is now
6:10 MST). That is plenty of time to get a bounce message. So the email went
into the vapornet.

Anyway, I've talked with my ISP (Shaw Cable) and my IP is not blocked, the
smtp server is set correctly. I've plugged directly into the cable modem and
it works fine, but through any of 4 different routers, no go.

Configed the router to use Static DNS, still nada. Configured the DHCP
server on the routers to assign static DNS to the clients, same thing.

Finally, I specified the IP address of the SMTP server (instead of the DNS
address), still no go.

Now in the last few days, this system managed to get the "Windows
Security Alert Virus". I ran SecurityKiller and it nuked it.

I then did a system restore. I've ran virus scans, malware scans and the
like. Nothing is found anywhere.

Everything on the system works fine, except sending emails.

WinXP , SP3 and all updates.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks, Jenny
 
J

Jenny Sumner

Sorry Ben - I should try to be more specific. What actually happens, is
this:
1) Connected to a router, I periodically get error 10061 (Connection
refused), this is totally random, which makes it difficult to troubleshoot,
2) I create a message and click send. It seems to send, in other words, no
error, nothing... I've even sent emails to totally bogus email addresses, no
bounce message nothing. It's as if the message never left my system, but it
is in the "Sent Items" folder,
3) If I bypass the router, again it seems to work, but it is sporadic.
Mostly connection refused messages.

I've connected my laptop (which is absolutely clean) and it works fine - in
either scenario. So this does confirm what my ISP told me - my IP is not
blocked, my Shaw account is fine (credentials, not locked out etc).

So it sure seems to be something on the system in question. I've removed
Office 2K3, made sure the registry is clean and reinstalled. reconfigured my
Outlook client and the same results. Seems to send, but nothing. Even Test
Messages (during the config phase) seems to work, no errors nothing, but I
receive no message.

Removed OE6, re-installed same thing. Even Eudora exhibits the same
symptoms.

If someone sends me an email, I receive it just fine (pop access of course).
If I reply, it seems to get sent, but nothing is received on the recipient
end. Web Based messages are fine (but of course it doesn't rely on a client
config for POP and/or SMTP).

Also, I took the system in question and moved it to another physical
location (my office) and sent an email. The same thing. So it is looking to
me to be specific to the system in question.

This is quite perplexing and I really need to get this fixed, I don't want
to have to rebuild my system from scratch. The system has all my video
editing software and tools and it would be nasty to rebuild. I do have a
True Image (and Ghost image) of the system, but I've added enough hardware
lately to cause the system to have to re-activate. I think in the last year
I've hit the limit of 3 (I believe it's 3). I realize I could call Microsoft
in this case, but to fix an email issue I think it to be a drastic step.

Thanks for the assistance.

Jenny.
 
N

N. Miller

If you have a security suite, uninstall it (for the duration of this test)
and try again.
 
J

Jenny Sumner

Again, my apologies for not being detailed enough - sorry to keep wasting
your time - I realize it's valuable.

I Use Bitdefender 2010 suite and it has been disabled. I've also disabled
Malware Bytes. When I say disabled, I meant until "User Restarts", not one
of those 60 minute or until restart settings.

I've also gone thru every dialog in both tools and made sure that everything
is disabled. I've sent emails to both organizations with all the details I
could provide and have not heard back as yet (I've rec'd the typical - "Got
your case, your case number is ..."). BTW, these messages were sent via
their "Contact Tech Support Pages", I shouldn't have said emails.

I should also have mentioned that I've run Kaspersky and Bitdefender
RescueCD (UNIX boots) and nothing was found.

Boy this is quite perplexing. The bizarre part is the randomness (is that a
word???), which makes it so difficult to even use a net/protocol scanner to
capture the net data. In OE6, I enabled logging and it showed everything to
be fine - in other words, no apparent errors etc.

If there is anything that I've not provided, please let me know.

Again, much thanks.

Jenny.
 
J

Jenny Sumner

It looks like the "likely culprit" is a product called Shaw Secure, those of
us on the Shaw Cable Network have heard of this. Telus installs a similar
product. In both cases, they do install some BH pieces and some other DLL
components which (according to Shaw) don't get removed during an Uninstall -
NICE!!!

Short story, while I was out of town on a business trip, my roommate had an
occasion to call Shaw for some technical support. They had her install Shaw
Secure, which I promptly removed. Apparently, it still had some hooks
hanging around (you can see if it is installed by viewing the title bar in
IE, it will say something like "Compliments/Provided by Shaw..."

Anyway, I cleaned that all out and now all "seems" to be well.

I want to thank everyone for their patient and assistance.

btw: Part of the clue was doing a Repair of Windows XP (sfc/scannow), which
prompted me for the CD and replaced who knows how many files.

Also I ran the repair of IE tool, (http://www.repairie.com/).
 

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