"Cannot send message using the server ________"

Try deleting the account from Mail and re-adding it, but this time uncheck the auto-configure option. Look online at your email providers instructions for setting up an email application, which should include the proper settings. Mails auto-setup doesn't always get the right settings.

Try a different email account in Mail to see if the issue is mail or the email account itself.

I have the same exact issue, but only on mail using domains on my server. GMail, Mobile ME, AOL, etc all work fine.

I contacted my server admins and they say my settings are all correct.

I am finding that this issue occurs only some of the time. Mail will send fine, then all of a sudden, I get the error. If I quit Mail and relaunch it, it sends fine again.

A real pain in the butt!

Any ideas?
Cooch

One other bit of info...I am using IMAP.

It sounds like an issue with the servers on your domain, not a Mail issue. See what the server admins say.

Hey Macwiz

I have contacted my server admins numerous times...including tonite. Rackspace. Here is the latest reply...

"I could not find anything in the servers maillog that would indicate why your client is failing to send. Please try running Thunderbird when Mac Mail fails. If Thunderbird does work, the issue is probably with the Mac Mail client."

This is business email, so I do not have the time, nor can I risk the loss of any mail. So I haven't tried Thunderbird.

Anyone else solve this issue by using Thunderbird?

Hi Clinton,
I'm having the same intermittent problems! I contacted MobileMe yesterday, and they walked me through setting up a dummy account to see what the problems might be and at the time things seemed to be working ok....Then this morning I started having the problems again...It's very erratic, though...I couldn't even tell you what triggers it...I've also tried deleting my account and resetting it up...

Waiting for another possible solution 🙂

I would try another mail client. If all other emails are working in Mail, I doubt the application is the issue. There may be some funky incompatibility with the 2.

I may have solved my problem here...I do have MobileMe, and I went ahead and deleted the account from Mail. Then I closed down Mail...I was planning to manually add my MobileMe account...When I reopened Mail, because my sync settings in MobileMe had it set to sync Mail accounts, the account was automatically set up for me without having to add the account. For some quirky reason now, I'm actually able to send messages without the hang...

I wish I had a better explanation as to why this works, but at least it seems to be working now...Good luck!!

I use both Mail and Thunderbird for business purposes. I get this Apple Mail error alert a lot, and when I do, I copy my message, paste it into Thunderbird, and it sends the message reliably.

It's frustrating, because the Mail error alert is happening much more frequently than it used to. I've tried everything suggested in this thread, and nothing seems to work. I'm glad I have Thunderbird as a backup. I never have problems with it.

Same account, two messages ...

Message 1: 2 pix, short message, BCC to 25 people. Get "cannot send" error message.

Message 2: No pix. Send to self. IT WORKS IMMEDIATELY!

One goes. One won't. Tried re-creating the "cannot send" message in a new window. Still won't go.

As others mentioned, this has been extraordinarily erratic. But it has been recurring for weeks.

YOU GOT A BUG, APPLE!!

I´ve been working for about a week now, trying to get Mail to send my emails. After trying EVERYTHING, I was about to give up when my last solution actually worked for me!

I quit the Mail.app. Then I removed the "com.apple.mail.plist" file from home/library/preferences (afraid of doing soemthing wrong, I just dragged it from preferences to library). When I relaunched Mail it was like for the first time, setting up my account. When it still wouldn´t send with my smtp, I switched to Custom Port 25, SSL is off and no Authentication. This actually worked for me!!

For those of you afraid of loosing emails, I was in the same situation using my workmail on my laptop:
Select the accound in the inbox you want to save. Go to "Mailbox" (on top of your screen) and select "Archive mailbox". Just add a location like your desktop, or some other easy-to-remember place. Now you have a file called something like "INBOX.mbox".
When this is done, with all you need to save, deleting an account is safe. When you start up Mail again, you can now Import Mailbox from the File-menu. Choose .mbox from the menu that shows up, and select the location where you saved it (like Desktop..). The archived mailbox is put below Inbox, Trash etc. You can now just open the mailbox like you do with the Inbox, Trash etc, click "cmd+A" to select all messages and "right-click----move to----inbox"!

If you want to be sure you do this correctly, just try the procedure before deleting anything, that´s what I did, to be sure I wouldn´t loose anything important.

I read somewhere that the Snow Leopard is having some Mail.app SMTP bugs...I guess that´s what hit my mac, because everything was working fine, then it suddenly wasn´t.