Plus nets Relay server down?

[#1]

yes

the first responses I gave you were those due to to telnet 587.

Sorry my mistake, that should have been port 25. 

Port 25 is what was in and working in for some years in Thunderbird  before the problem started to occur and the problem is indentical for both port 25 and 587

I have tried the same probe again which gave the same response.

220 avasout-ptp-004 smtp relay.plus.net

Connection to host lost.

I have also just rebooted my modem etc and tried the Telnet probe and got

220 avasout-ptp-003 smtp relay.plus.net

Connection to host lost.

I can also now send emails

Any thoughts

Cheers

[#2]

The server is timing out because you are not sending EHLO

Mail is probably sending again because you have a different ip or the reputation of your existing one I proved.

I suspect its going to be a consistently intermittent problem...

[#3]

Hello MisterW

I've been seeing this issue intermittently for a long time and it's very annoying.  I'm using Thunderbird and relay.force9.net on port 587.  It refuses to work at all one day, and is completely fine the next.

It sounds like you know why this might be happening - can you go into more details or suggest a fix please.

Thanks

Martin

[#4]

@martinwalton when it fails , try the test described here https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/No-email-this-morning-10-November/m-p/1831686#M36647

That will give the exact reason for the failure. The problem with email clients is that they tend to hide the real reason for failure and rather just report 'failure to send'.

[#5]

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@martinwalton wrote:

It refuses to work at all one day, and is completely fine the next.

Martin

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Hi Martin,

That is very symptomatic of having picked up a bad (dynamic) IP address ... and then having picked up a clean one.  The test set which @MisterW point you to will disclose the cause of the authentication failure condition.

You do not indicate how your device is connecting to Plusnet's mail servers...

• Plusnet supplied internet
• Mobile network
• Some other ISP's network

If it is a Plusnet supplied connection, have you noticed any restarts on the router - such has a fair chance of changing your (dynamic) IP address which can give rise to the symptoms you report.  If the connection is third-party, then there is a higher chance that you have been swapping IP addresses but are quite unaware of that.

[#6]

Hello @MisterW 

Thanks for the replies.  I followed the telnet test in the other thread to relay.force9.net and was able to connect successfully.  I got the following reply:

235 ... authentication succeeded

And then quit, as per the example.  Attempts to send email before and after this test still result in "Login to server relay.force9.net with username ***** failed"

In answer to the questions from @Townman, this is using Plusnet supplied internet, with an Ethernet cable between the router and the PC.  I've not noticed any resets on the router, but it's at the other end of the house.  When you ask about IP address, is this the IP address supplied by Plusnet to the router, or the local IP address?  The router is set to act as a local DHCP server.  All other internet services still appear to work fine when it's in this state.

Thanks for your help

Martin

[#7]

Hi Martin,

Its the IP address assigned to the router which can be troublesome - this will be sticky-dynamic or static. A static address you need to request otherwise you’ll get a dynamic address. Generally if a disconnection is moderately short (under 90 minutes) you are highly likely to get the same IP reassigned?

Given that the diagnostic test was successful you did not then have a blackballed IP address. Therefore there must be something wrong with the account credentials in the email program (or the encryption settings).

[#8]

Hello

The connection settings for the server are:

Server Name: relay.force9.net

Port: 587

Connection Security: STARTTLS

Authentication method: Normal Password

The user name and password are the same I used to access successfully via telnet.  I'm not changing these settings when it stops working - they are always the same.

Martin