Free-Online email servers error

[#1]

I am on metronet email on outlook  -and had the same problem today - kept asking for password. I tried adding @metronet.co.uk to the user name of my metronet addresses in Outlook tools and got further - through to a message to check my address when I sent a test message - however my test messages then all came down - BUT now when I send an email it uses my plusnet name and says "on behalf of (my metroneet name)- very confusing for my recipientd - what has gone wromg? - is it me or Plusnet

[#2]

OK I've got my imap email from metronet.co.uk working again by adding @metronet.co.uk to my login name (thanks).

But sending emails (via smtp.metronet.co.uk:25) gives an error about "too many recipients in past hour".  Is this just me?

[#3]

I got that too

[#4]

Having managed to get incoming mail by changing User Name as advised above, I cannot send emails. Pop-up message "Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Authentication required. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again."

Very annoying. I'm not a techie and have already wasted about two hours trying to sort this.

[#5]

I had the username problem initially (see msg 3ff above),  which was sorted,  thank you @dave ,  everything worked fine for a couple of hours but now having trouble again and can't send email,  have joined the "too many receipients in the last hour" brigade. 

[#6]

Thanks for the fix for incoming email: it stil seems to be working this morning. However, as in my post from yesterday, I cannot send emails. I get pop-up saying "Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Authentication required. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again."

This is just with Metronet, Thunderbird, Windows 10. Webmail working normally.

I have: Server Name: smtp.metronet.co.uk, Port: 25, Connection Security: None, Authentication Method: No Authentication, User Name: (greyed out) myemail.

Do I need to change the outgoing User Name to myemail@metronet.co.uk. and if so how, since it is greyed out on this pane?

Thanks for your help.

[#7]

In principle yes, but you will need to select the option OUTGOING SERVER NEEDS AUTHENTICATION or the like.

It should be port 587 with STARTTLS.

[#8]

@paulmacd wrote:

I have: Server Name: smtp.metronet.co.uk, Port: 25, Connection Security: None, Authentication Method: No Authentication, User Name: (greyed out) myemail.

Do I need to change the outgoing User Name to myemail@metronet.co.uk. and if so how, since it is greyed out on this pane?

---

I had to add @metronet.co.uk to my outgoing user name in Thunderbird yesterday.  But mine wasn't greyed out.   I think your problem is that you need to select "Authentication method": "Password transmitted insecurely".

BUT today it seems I can't authenticate to smtp.metronet.co.uk with either myemail@metronet.co.uk or with just myemail.  I've tried port 587 as well as port 25 and STARTTLS as well as None (but not all combinations).

[#9]

Seems I also have the send e-mail problem with metronet. Receiving works using the new username@metronet.co.uk but the smtp server responds with an error.

“Authentication required, validate e-mail address in account settings”

Port 587
Starttls
Normal password

Same if settings
Port 25
No security
No authentication

[#10]

In order to resolve the issue with sending email using Free-Online relay.free-online.net server, I changed the server setings.

In Outlook 2007, I was using port 587 with TLS encryption. I am now using port 465 with SSL encryption.

In Thunderbird, I was using port 587 with security set to STARTTLS.I am now using port 465 with security set to STARTTLS.

[#11]

Thanks but those settings don't seem to work for metronet servers, in Thunderbird it just sits their saying 'sending message'.

At least this is different with the other settings it comes back quickly with the failed to authenticate message.

[#12]

Same for me, If use Port 587 with STARTTLS it just hangs sending email.

If I use Port 587 STARTTLS with No Authentication then I get this pop-up

If I use Port 587 Connection Security = None, and no authentication then I get

Other combinations ask me to enter my password but this is not accepted, though AFAIK it is the correct one.

[#13]

@paulmacd It's the same as I saw the other day with the Free-Online servers.

CNAME is pointing relay.metronet.co.uk to mail.plusnet.enmail.co.

And the security certificate is not quite setup correctly (seems it's not covering all the domains used). Most clients will not trust the certificate so will show a warning.

Maybe try sending with authentication but without any security? (only for testing as this isn't an ideal setup)

[#14]

@RPMozley Thanks, but with Authentication but no security settings, and also with Connection Security=none and  No Authentication I get the "Send message error" as in my second screenshot.