Outlook & Outlook Express

[casual01]

I have a customer that is having problems sending emails in OE & Outlook. He can recieve mail just fine in both. Sending will only go thru about once every 5-6th try (without changing anything).

Running Winxp pro, on a shared internet connection on a small network. The shared connection is on a Win98se pc. It is a small office network with NT server and 7 workstations with a mix of win98se & xp pro. We checked for virus' and spyware, all clean. Has even talked to the isp and they have no clue (their techs. are pretty clueless anyway).

Any help would be appreciated greatly.

Thanks.

[doctorgonzo]

What service is he running for sending mail? SMTP, IMAP? Are there any firewalls? What error message does he get when the sending fails?

[Statica]

What is the error message that you're getting? OE for example should through back an error message. Again, as DrG mentioned, it would be helpful to know what service you are using to send the email.
If the email is going through only once in every so often, maybe you could try increasing the timeout value and see if that helps (Tools > Accounts > Any account property > Advanced tab)

[casual01]

It's a pop3 account using smtp. disabled the xp firewall also.
I'll have to get back on you with the exact wording of the error.

[doctorgonzo]

Turn on SMTP logging to see what messages are coming from the server. In OE, go to Tools...Options, then the Maintenance tab, then check on "Mail". That will create a log file with all the traffic between OE and the mail server, so you can see the error messages.

[casual01]

I increased timeout, turned on logging, double checked server settings, reset tcp/ip stack, still error on sending only.

Error = connection to server has failed, acount: ***, server: ****, protocol: smtp, port: 25, secure(ssl): no, socket error: 10051, error # 0x800CCC0E

Any other suggestions? The isp says to reinstall OE.

[glc]

This is a common error when the ISP is blocking port 25 to prevent use of 3rd party SMTP servers on their network - a legitimate antispam procedure. Make sure you are using your ISP's SMTP server, with authentication if required.

[Statica]

Originally Posted by casual01 I increased timeout, turned on logging, double checked server settings, reset tcp/ip stack, still error on sending only. Error = connection to server has failed, acount: ***, server: ****, protocol: smtp, port: 25, secure(ssl): no, socket error: 10051, error # 0x800CCC0E Any other suggestions? The isp says to reinstall OE.

Open a command prompt (Start > run > cmd) - on XP
Try this command telnet smtpserveraddress.com 25
If you cannot connect, it means that the server port is blocked by the ISP.

[ffreeloader]

First: Are you sure the smtp email server in the email client is the correct one? My ISP used to have separate servers for sending and receiving email. I've also had those settings appear to be correct, but were corrupted somehow. I just re-entered the info again and it worked.

Second: It's rather doubtful that the ISP would be blocking port 25 internally. They will block that port entering and leaving their network, but not internally because then no POP3 email clients could send email because all POP3 email clients use port 25. They would be blocking their own customers from sending email.

Third: I would check any firewalls coming into the lan where the problem is occuring to see if port 25 is blocked.

Fourth: I had a problem similar to this one time that was caused by, believe it or not, my router. I found it by running a packet sniffer and discovered that I was getting no packets back from the email server. I could ping the email server and traceroute it but not send and receive mail. I ended up doing a hard reboot on the router and that fixed the problem. This problem affected only one computer on my lan.

[glc]

No, POP3 uses port 110. SMTP uses port 25. POP3 receives, SMTP sends.

[Statica]

Originally Posted by ffreeloader Second: It's rather doubtful that the ISP would be blocking port 25 internally. They will block that port entering and leaving their network, but not internally because then no POP3 email clients could send email because all POP3 email clients use port 25. They would be blocking their own customers from sending email.

A lot of ISPs block port 25 and use a non-standard port for SMTP traffic. Yes it's blocked to their own customers as well. It's a pretty standard mechanism to prevent spammers from using them as the ISP to use even another SMTP server. The same can be true of POP3.
Remember that it isn't necessary that mail traffic needs to be on 110/25 .. it can be on whatever port you wish to run your daemon on.

[ffreeloader]

I see I mis-spoke a little. Yes it is smtp that uses 25. It seems I'm forever turning those two ports around in my head.

As to ISP's blocking port 25 internally that may very well be the case, however, I, personally, have yet to see an ISP that does it.

As there was nothing in the original post about the user having just changed ISP's or anything else that would lead one to believe that something had changed in the setup I still lean towards ports 25 and 110 not being the problem. Even the most clueless users will notice an email from their ISP telling telling them they will lose email service if they don't make changes so I would look for corrupted client email settings and/or problems with the router.

Placing a packet sniffer on the client machine to look at traffic is the first thing I would do. That way you know if you are at least getting any responses from the email server and you will see if those packets are going where they are supposed to be going. These packets are easy to read since all email related packets are in clear text and it only takes about a minute to check this.

[calypso]

In one case, when I recieved the dreadful 10051 error, I pinged the smtp server to get the ip address of the server and used it in replace of the dns address(mail.server.ext) and it worked perfectly. Might give it a try.

-calypso

[Statica]

FYI port 587 has been allocated for authenticated SMTP submissions since about 1998 - read RFC2476 http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2476.html .
As this grows more prominent you are going to see it being done more.

[casual01]

I tried the "telnet smtpserveraddress.com 25" and it came back, "could not open connetion to host on port 25, connection failed". The settings are the same as others in the office that are working. I disconnected the pc from the network and put a modem in the pc and dialed out directely, still errored on sending mail.

I forgot to mention, and I just tested to make sure, but it also does this in Outlook 2000 also.

[Statica]

Are you running any software firewalls? The error message means that outgoing port 25 is blocked. Either by your ISP, but since others on the same network seem to have it working, check for any software firewalls that you have installed on your computer. Something like zonealarm etc? For good measure turn off your windows firewall and try it.

[casual01]

No firewalls except xp's and I disabled it with the same results.

Also, I just noticed that once in a while when I click on a program to run it, it will take 45-60 seconds before it actually comes up. I reboot and then running a program is back to normal (a couple of seconds to come up).

I also removed MS anti-spyware program thinking that could be blocking it, but that wasn't it either.

[Digitalic]

I`m trying to picture in my head how your network is setup.

Is the problem only on the XP Pro machine? I presume this is a client.

The shared internet connection is through a W98 machine via dial up I believe. You have NT server. Is the W98 serving as the gateway? By what means, ICS, router?

Does each client access mail directly through the ISP or are you running a version of Exchange Server?

The lag time to open a program, 45-60 seconds, is this on the XP Pro machine, which I presume to be a client or are you refering to the NT server or for that matter the W98 gateway if I am correct about your network setup.

Trying to determine if you are referring to the problem being isolated to one client, the XP machine, or the network in general.

[casual01]

It's all happening on this one xp pro machine. It's is a client, all workstations access email through the isp via outlook express or outlook. The Win98se machine is the internet host using ICS.

[Digitalic]

Presuming the other machines are sending their e-mails OK I`d say it`s isolated to this machine.

I couldn`t find the resource but maybe someone else can help, I think I read somewhere that ICS will work from a XP machine to a W98 but can have problems the other way around. Considering this is a mix and match network spanning from NT server to XP pro ( I have those too) I`d guess that the XP Pro machines are of the minority and possibly this is the only one on your network. (kinda reaching here) If possible, try to setup your XP machine as the gateway and preferrably through a router. MUCH more secure and stable than ICS.

If it`s a business network you seriously need a router for basic security.

edit: Sorry, forgot to address the program start up lag. This could be caused by any number of things and could be the cause of the problem itself or something else entirely. We`d need to know a lot more about that machine, software and hardware wise to troubleshoot that. Any and all info you send helps.