BellSouth replies with a, “Bah Humbug!”.
At 10:00am this morning, I couldn’t send emails, nor see my website. Then, internet dies. Turns out the blond hottie had disconnected my modem. I plugged it back in, and suddenly I got email, internet, and instant messenging back, but still couldn’t send emails.
By 12:30 pm, I had sent emails piling up in my Outbox in Outlook Express. Couldn’t log into my Mediatemple account to request support. A “forgotten password” later, I fired a support request off reporting my email problems.
Received a response by 5:00pm saying that sometimes internet service provides, such as BellSouth, will suddenly block port 25 without telling their customers. Any more technical support would have to be taken up with BellSouth. Apparently the ball was in BellSouth’s court.
Chatted with a bot, and a polite one I might add, about my problems. They had me use this trick on using BellSouth as the outgoing SMTP server. Their only response for why, suddenly after 2 years my email stopped working with my existing settings was, “…some problem with the server I was using.”
According to Mediatemple, apparently not. Who’s right?
Called BellSouth because I wasn’t getting anywhere with the bot after suggesting he/she/it would look good in tight leather. Nice gent with a cool accent on the other line had me run through the same setup. I explained 3 times, saying the same thing 3 different ways to prevent sounding repetitive since that is an effective communication tool, that my email had worked without using BellSouth’s outgoing email server. He laughed, but didn’t outwardly agree, when I suggested I was just lucky for the past 2 years. After being pointed to the 2nd result in Google (which I had already read, twice), I thanked him for his time, and resigned myself to having to use BellSouth’s outgoing email server.
I guess it’s not a big deal. After doing a report on internet terrorism for my speech class, I certainly understand why they don’t support email routing. I guess I am just exteremely curious how after 2 years, 2 apartments, 1 house, and 2 routers later… it just magically stops working when my dog tackles her brother against the window, disconnecting me. My curiousity will apparently not be satiated. I really need to go to school for networking.
Still love my dog, though.
Same thing up here in Canada.. Have to use the ISP’s mail server to send mails.. I had probably the same conversation as you did with the guy, other than that mine never worked from the beginning.
Check you mail provider if their mail server is listening on a higher port also. Usually 2525 or 25025. It’s quite a common practice for ISP to block port 25 to anywhere else but their mail server. It helps them fight spambots, and keep their IP address range out of blacklists.
Cox started doing this a couple years ago. One day our email at work just stops working. A message was sent to our main cox email address but no one checks it so we didn’t know. Yeah, I think it is mainly anti-spambot releated.
Jesse,
There is another port for mail they let go through. I have it configured at home it is either 576 or 596. I think the first one.
Kenny
Ok I was off… The port is 587.
Had the same issue with two clients of mine, one can still connect to a foreign smtp server, the other can’t both with bellsouth DSL and within a mile of each other.
Bell south tech support was highly amusing by telling me
1) Outlook only supports 1 email account
2) We have never allowed people to send email from any email address other then a bellsouth one
3) You must have a virus.
I eventually found this through a search
bellsouth blocks port 25
and started using the bellsouth outgoing server for all mail.
Same s*** here with Bellsouth DSL today…all of a sudden I just can’t send mail. At least the people from India who aren’t at all helpful are at least polite, which is better than then non-helpful knobs with attitude you get stateside.
Thanks for this entry, at least I know I can quit trying to blow away and recreate my outgoing mail profile in a vain attempt to get it working again. grr.