Sending emails scuppered by VPN

[#1]

After activating AVG Antivirus's VPN option on my Samsung Galaxy A42 5G, an error was flagged whenever I tried to send an email.  The error went away when I disabled VPN.  Is there some way I can set up Email to enable me to send emails while still having VPN active?

[#2]

Have you got authentication configured for the outgoing server ?

[#3]

You reading my mind, @MisterW ? Just going to ask the same question. 😀

[#4]

I have "Require authentication to send emails" set to On.  Should I switch it off?

[#5]

No, it should be on.

In that case, its likely that the IP you're being allocated by the VPN has aquired a bad reputation and the Plusnet anti spam system is not allowing sending from that IP

[#6]

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@AndrewGood wrote:

The error went away when I disabled VPN.

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Why are you using a VPN?

Vendors of such services create no end of scare stories to tempt people to buy their services ... for no particular meaningful merit.

The only merits I'm convinced of for using a VPN are

1. To provide a secure point to point connection to extend a secure network across the internet - for example work from home but appear to be connected direct to the company's internal network
2. To appear to be located somewhere, which you are not - this has both legitimate and questionable purposes: an example of the former would be when abroad to appear to be in the UK to access key UK service providers

Does your VPN software permit split-tunnelling / whitelisting / bypass options?  If yes then the Plusnet servers could be placed "outside of" the VPN channel.  See What is whitelisting and should you use it? - Surfshark