POP3 and AOL issues

[mtanner01]

We are a small organization that runs Exchange 2000, and connect some remote users with POP3 and MS Outlook 2000 as the client. They use different ISP for their internet access.

One of the users has intermittant issues with sending email, and either it goes in to "neverland" or he will fail on the send. This is the only user connecting via AOL. He is always able to receive.

We have check the connection information and it appears correct. The users account can be configured elsewhere and it works fine. Spyware check and updates have been run on the computer.

As a final test we configured another user with AOL, and have had the same intermittant issues.

Does anyone know if AOL has changed the rules to not allow other POP3 accounts to send via their network? AOL insists the issue is not them.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[johnodq]

Have you set the outgoing email server (SMTP) to that of your ISP ?



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Johnodq
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Please let me know if the advice I give is of help.
Feedback will benefit all

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[mtanner01]

I am not clear what you mean by "set the outgoing email server (SMTP) to that of our ISP"?

The user has the correct server information, and authentication at the client side. Is only using one email account.

The Exchange 2000 server I did not setup, as have only a general knowledge of how they function. Do know it works for all other remote users fine, and they use 2-3 different ISPs depending on location.

Thank you for the assistance

 

[johnodq]

If you are running your own email server then that would be the route that ALL outgoing email would go thru, incoming email would come thru the email providers POP server.

An example would be that you connect to the web via Blueyonder and you have an email account with BTopenworld, the email settings would be :-

pop.btopenworld.com - incoming email
smtp.blueyonder.com - outgoing email

If you also had a Virgin account on the same pc then the settings for that would be:-

pop.virgin.net - incoming email
smtp.blueyonder.com - outgoing email

(Thess are just examples, exact server settings might be different)

As you can see the outgoing email is the server that your ISP uses rather than that of the email provider, in your case the outgoing server might be your own email server.

---------------
Johnodq
---------------
Please let me know if the advice I give is of help.
Feedback will benefit all

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[jpm121]

Chances are AOL is blocking access to port 25 ANYWHERE except their own SMTP server -- so the client within their address range can't get to your server to send the mail. They can, however, access port 110 (POP) to download their messages from your server.

Many US ISPs are blocking this traffic, as well they should. AOL is a bit goofy, but every other ISP I've heard of will allow you to relay through their SMTP server with little or no hassle (from within their subscriber IP block).

 

[Newposter]

Right. AOL started this a year ago. My own web server and email server are via my ISP, and I had to 'smart host' so that AOL doesn't seem email as addressed from a different domain than my ISP's.

Newposter
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."