mail.plus.net certificate not trusted

[#1]

Hi Alex,

It's the first time I've encountered this problem.  I have been having problems with my email in that the Inbox (root) keeps disappearing (emptying).  The folders within my Inbox remain as does their content.  This was through Outlook (365).  On iOS I see similar issues where the who account empties and then re-syncs periodically.

In an effort to fix this problem in Outlook I deleted my entire profile.  It's when I've tried to add my account back into the new profile I've created that I'm getting this problem.  I have however, not a long term solution, been able to set the account up in Thunderbrid with success.  

Happy to support in anyway I can to get this resolved.

Cheers,

JonC

[#2]

Ok after a bit of digging I have sorted this out! Re check the incoming and outgoing server settings. My issue only became apparent when I migrated from Thunderbird to Outlook 365. The issue appears to be caused by old server settings!

Server settings

Incoming 

mail.plus.net 

Port 995

Tick this server requires an encrypted connection (SSL/TLS)

Outgoing 

relay.plus.net 

Port 587 -

Encryption method STARTTLS 

Tick My Outgoing (SMTP) server requires authentication and check he radio button for use same settings as my incoming mail server.

I got this from the Plusnet help pages How to set up Plusnet email | Help | Plusnet under What other settings do I need. I had been using old settings in Thunderbird which are now defunct. You need to do the same for each mail account if you have multiple email addresses with Plusnet.

There are settings for POP & IMAP. If you want the server to retain your emails use IMAP. I use POP as i use a .pst file locally and don't want my emails retained by the server. You have to take the tick out of leave a copy of messages on server on pop account settings.

[#3]

Thanks for your post DaveCW.  One step forward.  If when creating my account in Outlook I accept the certificates and then go into the settings and configure as below, except I'm using IMAP, I can now see the folder structure within the Inbox.  That's where the progress halts.  When I click on any of the folders, or the Inbox itself, they appear empty and I get the following sync error.

😞

[#4]

Hi @jncunliffe,

Thanks for getting back to us. If Thunderbird seems to be working fine, it suggests this is most likely an issue with Outlook. It may be worth trying to setup the account using POP3 settings, though this would download the emails directly to that profile/device.

[#5]

Hi Alex, I know where you're coming from but I'm reluctant to use POP as I used my email across multiple devices.  After some further experimentation, I do believe there is an issue with my one specific email account.  I have set up another one of my PlusNet accounts in Outlook and whilst I still got the certificate warnings and had to hand craft the config after Outlook had 'successfully(!)' added my account.  It's is now working perfectly, unlike my other, primary, account.

If you can contact me via a PM I can share the details.

Cheers,

JonC

[#6]

No worries @jncunliffe. Our (staff accounts) Private Messages are always open at anytime if you would like to pass along details of this experience. Just for clarifications sake, are you saying that the steps you've taken on this secondary account aren't working when setting up the primary account? In addition to that, the primary account has been setup without issue on Thunderbird?

[#7]

Hi Alex,

I'll add the two email accounts to my open ticket  #218666396 that I assume you can access.

In summary, following the exact same steps, I have one account working perfectly and one failing miserably in Outlook.  The failing account I have set up in Thunderbird successfully.

Cheers,
Jon C

[#8]

Hi @jncunliffe, thanks for getting back to us and confirming.
As you've managed to get the email working through a different client it points towards the set-up of the outlook account as the cause. If you haven't tried setting up the outlook client afresh since doing the Thunderbird set-up then I'd recommend giving this ago as from my experience sometimes changes and tweaks don't take to email clients as much as setting up the account afresh.
If you're still not managing to set up the emails through outlook after doing this then please drop me a private message showing the details and information you're using in the set-up pages and I'll happily check over this for you.
 

[#9]

The general cause of certificates not being trusted arises from the errors of email applications to guess the names of the servers ... and get them wrong.  Though they might actually work (to a point) they are not the same as the server names in the certificates.

The names in the certificates are...

• relay.plus.net (smtp)
• mail.plus.net (pop3)
• imap.plus.net (imap)

Email applications can suppose the server names to be smtp.plus.net and pop3.plus.net which do work, but those are not the names in the encryption certificates.