Unable to Send Emails, Receiving OK

[#1]

Hi,

I have been unable to send emails today, 26/09/2024, but I can still receive them OK

I have been away from home and am not currently using my Plusnet Broadband connection.

I have had no problem sending emails for the last 2 weeks either via the wifi system I'm using or from using Mobile Data on my phone. The last email I sent was 24 hours ago. The problem started today. I have not changed any settings

I can't send from my Laptop, using a Thunderbird client, nor can I send from my mobile, using the standard Gmail client.

The message I get from Thunderbird are :
'Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) relay.plus.net timed out. Try again.'

I get an errow window titled 'Login to account "relay.plus.net failed" '. In the window the text is "Login to server relay.plus.net with username s**********+jack failed. with the option boxes Retry, Enter New Password and Cancel. It doesn't accept my password..

I have not changed my email password, obviously it still works because I receive my emails.

My SMTP Server settings are:

Descrption: Null

Server Name: relay.plus.net

Port 587 (default)

Security Authentication

Connection security: None

Authentication Method Password, transmit insecurely

Username S******+Jack

On my mobile the Outgoing setting are

SMPT.plus.net

Port 587

Any sent message just stays in the gmail outbox with status of Queued, with a Enter credentials for my account when it tries to sync.

I have jack@p******.plus.com email account but plusnet also host that as a jack@p******.co.uk (sorry can't remeber the technical name for that), I appreciate they stopped offerring that to new users many years ago .

Thanks for any help

S

[#2]

If you're away from home, you obviously need to modify your SMTP settings; SEARCH this forum for what
you need to change.

[#3]

With respect I don't think that's the problem. I am away a lot, I haven't had this problem before. My setting work just finde when I am away. I have had a plusnet account for 15 years.  As I said, I have had no problems posting emails for the last 2 weeks. I haven't changed anything om my account for months. Its also affecting my partner on her laptop and her phone. We can use and send emails on our backup gmail accounts, just not on our plusnet accounts. I therefore strongly believe it is a problem at the Plusnet end. Thanks anyway.

[#4]

Its also affecting my partner on her laptop and her phone. 

are you all using the same WiFi system ? Do you all get the same public IP ?

[#5]

Thanks for your reply MisterW.

Good question.

Yes we are both using the same public IP and the same wifi on the laptops..

Using android phones connected to wifi we get the same problems

However disconnecting wifi on the phones and instead, using using Mobile Data, I could send an email from my plusnet account to my backup gmail account.

So perhaps either a Wifi or Thunderbird issue?

I look forward to your next question

[#6]

Whose WiFi are you connected to?

If this works over mobile data then there’s nothing wrong with either the client settings or the Plusnet service.

The two possibilities are that either the WiFi network is not permitting outbound SMTP connections … or that network’s public IP address has a poor reputation and connections are being refused.

[#7]

@Slapdash2 

or that network’s public IP address has a poor reputation and connections are being refused. 

That would be my guess and the reason for the question.

[#8]

---

@MisterW wrote:

@Slapdash2 

or that network’s public IP address has a poor reputation and connections are being refused. 

That would be my guess and the reason for the question.

---

@MisterW @Townman

Sorry I tried to reply last night, I entered a reply 3 times but maybe it was too late and they thought I was spam.

Anyway in answer to your last questions from both of you

My Wifi is provided bv a TP Link Archer MR500 4G+ LTE AC1200 Wi-Fi 5 Gigabit Ethernet VoIP Router, that uses a data SIM rather than a broadband or Fiber connection. The data SIM comes from Vodafone ES (Spain).

I also have an older backup TP-Link 7000 Mifi 4G unit.

So I have been able to test the following:

2 different routers, the Archer MR500 and the TP-Link 7000 Mifi

2 different email clients, Thunderbird on Laptop and Gmail on my Android phone.

2 different devices, windows 10 laptop and Android phone

I have swapped and tested the interaction between all of them, and I get the same problems. I went to bed at 05:30 this morning. I woke up and had a brainwave. I had already mentioned it  in my initial post in passing but I tested the theory this morning and I think it does come back to Plusnet.

• This was a sudden event that happened sometime on Friday 26/09/2024.
• I have been in Spain since 10/09/24 with no problems until yesterday
• It affected both my laptop with Thunderbird and my phone with Gmail. 2 different email clients, two different devices, also my partners laptop andphone too
• The problem continued after I swapped my router to the Mifi unit. Next step was going to be to get another data SIM card.
• The clue that got me thinking was the Android Gmail Settings. I tried to re-enter the settings using the details from this community post;     

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Unable-to-use-New-Outlook-on-Windows-11/m-p/1963438#M46146

Inbound IMAP - imap.plus.net port 993 encryption TLS/SSL 

Outbound SMTP - relay.plus.net port 587 encryption STARTTLS 

Username… If it is the default email account just use the Plusnet account name If it’s a secondary email account use Accountname+mailboxname Use the password for the account required

So I tried entering these into my jack@s********.co.uk settings in Gmail and Gmail it kept coming back that username password did not match on the outbound SMTP. I treble checked it, same problem.

I have had a Plusnet account so long that Plusnet still provide domain name hosting for me, not available to new users, or probably any new user  in the last 10 years but they still do it for legacy users and old lags like me. So instead of using an email address of jack@s********.plus.com I use jack@s********.co.uk.

I think the problem is that the Plusnet domain hosting function has failed. Gmail does not recognise use jack@s********.co.uk

To prove my theory I went into Thunderbird and created a new user account.:  jack@s********.plus.com, using the above IMAP and SMTP settings. It worked. I received all my emails and could send out emails without a problem

Unfortunately I can’t do this in Gmail on my phone. The Gmail account format does not use the Accountname+mailboxname format. Instead it derives it from your email address, so I cant use Gmail on my phone until Plusnet fixes this.

@MisterW @Townman I would appreciate you feedback on what I have posted above. If you concur how do escalate the issue to Plusnet to investigate and fix the domain name issue for legacy users?

Thank you everyone for your help

Moderator's note:
Post released from the automatic Spam Filter and others deleted.

[#9]

On behalf of @Slapdash2 who reports difficulty in posting here (from Spain?).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@MisterW  @Townman 

Sorry I tried to reply last night, I entered a reply 3 times but maybe it was too late and they thought I was spam.

Anyway in answer to your last questions from both of you

My Wifi is provided bv a TP Link Archer MR500 4G+ LTE AC1200 Wi-Fi 5 Gigabit Ethernet VoIP Router, that uses a data SIM rather than a broadband or Fiber connection. The data SIM comes from Vodafone ES (Spain).

I also have an older backup TP-Link 7000 Mifi 4G unit.

So I have been able to test the following:

• 2 different routers, the Archer MR500 and the TP-Link 7000 Mifi
• 2 different email clients, Thunderbird on Laptop and Gmail on my Android phone.
• 2 different devices, windows 10 laptop and Android phone

I have swapped and tested the interaction between all of them, and I get the same problems. I went to bed at 05:30 this morning. I woke up and had a brainwave. I had already mentioned it  in my initial post in passing but I tested the theory this morning and I think it does come back to Plusnet.

• This was a sudden event that happened sometime on Friday 26/09/2024.
• I have been in Spain since 10/09/24 with no problems until yesterday
• It affected both my laptop with Thunderbird and my phone with Gmail. 2 different email clients, two different devices, also my partners laptop and phone too
• The problem continued after I swapped my router to the Mifi unit. Next step was going to be to get another data SIM card.
• The clue that got me thinking was the Android Gmail Settings. I tried to re-enter the settings using the details from this community post;     

https://community.plus.net/t5/Email/Unable-to-use-New-Outlook-on-Windows-11/m-p/1963438#M46146

Inbound IMAP - imap.plus.net port 993 encryption TLS/SSL 

Outbound SMTP - relay.plus.net port 587 encryption STARTTLS 

Username… If it is the default email account just use the Plusnet account name If it’s a secondary email account use Accountname+mailboxname Use the password for the account required

So I tried entering these into my jack@s********.co.uk settings in Gmail and Gmail it kept coming back that username password did not match on the outbound SMTP. I treble checked it, same problem.

I have had a Plusnet account so long that Plusnet still provide domain name hosting for me, not available to new users, or probably any new user  in the last 10 years but they still do it for legacy users and old lags like me. So instead of using an email address of jack@s********.plus.com I use jack@s********.co.uk.

I think the problem is that the Plusnet domain hosting function has failed. Gmail does not recognise use jack@s********.co.uk

To prove my theory I went into Thunderbird and created a new user account.:  jack@s********.plus.com, using the above IMAP and SMTP settings. It worked. I received all my emails and could send out emails without a problem

Unfortunately I can’t do this in Gmail on my phone. The Gmail account format does not use the Accountname+mailboxname format. Instead it derives it from your email address, so I cant use Gmail on my phone until Plusnet fixes this.

@MisterW @Townman I would appreciate you feedback on what I have posted above. If you concur how do escalate the issue to Plusnet to investigate and fix the domain name issue for legacy users?

Thank you everyone for your help

[#10]

@Slapdash2 Its possible your post has been trapped by the spam filter. Eventually it will be released and appear.

Meanwhile , if  email to your .co.uk address is still being received then there's nothing wrong with the hosting.

I haven't had a domain hosted by Plusnet for some time, so I'm not sure whether the domain address can be used for SMTP authentication.

Certainly when I had a hosted domain I would have used the accountname+mailboxname format as username.

I've always used Thunderbird as my email client and that doesnt have a problem with the username being specified separately to the email address.

I've never used gmail but if ists assuming that the username is the same as the email address then that's a problem with gmail I'm afraid.

Are you sure there's no way to specify the username manually ?

My guess is that your connection has been previously rejected due to ip reputation and that gmail is now requesting username/password details again.

[#11]

---

I had already mentioned it  in my initial post in passing but I tested the theory this morning and I think it does come back to Plusnet.

Username… If it is the default email account just use the Plusnet account name If it’s a secondary email account use Accountname+mailboxname Use the password for the account required

So I tried entering these into my jack@s********.co.uk settings in Gmail and Gmail it kept coming back that username password did not match on the outbound SMTP. I treble checked it, same problem.

I think the problem is that the Plusnet domain hosting function has failed. Gmail does not recognise use jack@s********.co.uk

To prove my theory I went into Thunderbird and created a new user account.:  jack@s********.plus.com, using the above IMAP and SMTP settings. It worked. I received all my emails and could send out emails without a problem

Unfortunately I can’t do this in Gmail on my phone. The Gmail account format does not use the Accountname+mailboxname format. Instead it derives it from your email address, so I cant use Gmail on my phone until Plusnet fixes this.

---

Wow, a lot of very relevant additional information supplied here and an inference that things are now not what they were when it used to work.

This is NOT a Plusnet problem.  To the best of my knowledge, you@yourdomain.co.uk has NEVER been valid authentication credentials, where as you@youraccount.plus.com was added to youraccount and youraccount+you

This is a problem with the email client you have chosen to use - it is exceedingly presumptuous to take the email account as being the email service user ID.  The New Outlook product does the same, where as 'proper' Outlook allows the email address and the service user ID to be different.

The fact that this connection is from Spain adds an additional layer of security consideration in sending from Spain.

[#12]

:@Townman and @MisterW 

Thanks for contacting the mods and freeing my last post from the Spam Filter.

---

@Townman wrote:

Wow, a lot of very relevant additional information supplied here and an inference that things are now not what they were when it used to work.

This is NOT a Plusnet problem.  To the best of my knowledge, you@yourdomain.co.uk has NEVER been valid authentication credentials, where as you@youraccount.plus.com was added to youraccount and youraccount+you

This is a problem with the email client you have chosen to use - it is exceedingly presumptuous to take the email account as being the email service user ID.  The New Outlook product does the same, where as 'proper' Outlook allows the email address and the service user ID to be different.

The fact that this connection is from Spain adds an additional layer of security consideration in sending from Spain.

---

This may not be a problem for Plusnet, but its a problem for some Plusnet users. I have never used you@youraccount.plus.com. I have always used you@youraccount.co.uk. It has always worked, why wouldn't you do it that way if you had domain hosting? The .co.uk suffix had far greater credence than.plus.com 20 years ago. I used it with (proper) Microsoft Outlook client for probably 15 years, and then Thunderbird for at least the last 10 and it always worked on my android phones for the last 13 years . If it wasn't meant to work that way, it never would have, All the email clients I have used supported it, so it has had 20 years of validity. Thunderbird, MS Outlook and Gmail are hardly obscure email clients.

I phoned plusnet support. They basically said that the plusnet email server was dying and had been for 10 years. They are now only supporting Webmail. They were impresseed that I had found a workaround in Thunderbird and they were aware of the problem with Gmail. It is doubtful that anyone will even look at the problem. Their recommendation was to find another email hosting service. They weren't being dismissive, they were just trying to be helpful and honest, as they always have been. I appreciate that.

I can't even remember how long I have been with Plusnet, ever since I moved from Demon Internet, so probably early naughties/ 20+ years. For year after year they won the best awards for customer service, but now they are basically just a brand that has been taken over and run down by a big corporate.

I hope plusnet email service survives until I get back to the UK.

If anyone knows of a good email hosting service I would be grateful for any recommendations.

Thank you all for your help and good luck.

[#13]

@Slapdash2 

Well I beggared, I sit corrected!!

Accepting your report, I did a test configuration of a mailbox I only access via webmail.  I am astonished to find that 'proper' Outlook does indeed successfully auto configure a mailbox using me@mydomain.co.uk domain / mailbox account credentials with NO MANUAL intervention ... except to change smtp.plus.net to relay.plus.net to not trip up on the certificate verification.  I am surprised that (a) auto-configure worked and (b) that the domain-name credentials were accepted.

Do you have access to the full Outlook product?  I am now wondering if there is a logon authentication restrict from a over seas location.  I will ask.

This fundamentally changes the 'acquired wisdom' surrounding the spate of issues in configuring the dumbed down version of (new) outlook.

"Only supporting webmail" should be read as "we can only offer advice on our own email client", which given the oft reported vagaries of the many email clients out there is not surprising.

As for other histing companies, both myself (in a different context) and @MisterW use Mythic Beasts.  I have found them to be very reliable ... to the point of the service being invisible, working without issue.

[#14]

I have always used you@youraccount.co.uk. It has always worked, why wouldn't you do it that way if you had domain hosting?

@Slapdash2 Domain hosting is a legacy facility. Hosting of email is not a separate account to your account.plus.com. In effect, you create mailboxes on your account.plus.com e.g you@account.plus.com and any emails to you@hosteddomain are saved to to the you@account.plus.com mailbox. Both @Townman and myself have had domains hosted on our Plusnet accounts and we may be wrong but have never expected a domain address e.g you@hosteddomain to be able to be used for SMTP authentication because it is not a valid accountname.

As to a recommedation for hosting, if you use multiple mailboxes then I'd suggest looking at Mythic beasts https://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting . Their email only account costs £20/yr (paid annually) and allows unlimited mailboxes and domains subject to the space/traffic limits. If you need webspace then the Web25 costs £30/yr and includes https hosting.

I've had two of my domains there, on a Mail only account, for about 2 yrs now and moved a third from Ecohosting earlier this year because they wanted to increase the cost from £10/yr to £30!

edit: @Townman s post crossed, looks like I was wrong also. Unlike Townman I wasn't actually able to check since I no longer have a hosted domain.

[#15]

---

@Townman wrote:

@Slapdash2 

Well I beggared, I sit corrected!!

Accepting your report, I did a test configuration of a mailbox I only access via webmail.  I am astonished to find that 'proper' Outlook does indeed successfully auto configure a mailbox using me@mydomain.co.uk domain / mailbox account credentials with NO MANUAL intervention ... except to change smtp.plus.net to relay.plus.net to not trip up on the certificate verification.  I am surprised that (a) auto-configure worked and (b) that the domain-name credentials were accepted.

Do you have access to the full Outlook product?  I am now wondering if there is a logon authentication restrict from a over seas location.  I will ask.

This fundamentally changes the 'acquired wisdom' surrounding the spate of issues in configuring the dumbed down version of (new) outlook.

"Only supporting webmail" should be read as "we can only offer advice on our own email client", which given the oft reported vagaries of the many email clients out there is not surprising.

As for other histing companies, both myself (in a different context) and @MisterW use Mythic Beasts.  I have found them to be very reliable ... to the point of the service being invisible, working without issue.

---

@MisterW @Townman,

Thank for your recommendations guys, its obvious that you know your onions. My background was in bespoke Oracle IMS and RADS, email servers is another world to me.

I'm afraid I no longer have proper MS Outlook, my version was MS Office 2003. I only used it in the UK.  I think it kept running up to the time I upgraded to Windows 10, which no longer supported it, and then I moved to Thunderbird.. I can still get the 2003 version of Word  and Excel working on one of my other WIn 10 machines. I''ve retired since then and am caring for an ageing family relative here in Spain, on and off, so all my old hardware and software is here.

New Outlook more or less auto configures as well, you have to do the same relay.plus.net change as you mention but I got it up and running fairly easily.

I'll keep an eye on this post in case you turn up anything interesting

Thanks again

Take care