Network Solutions web provider

Hi TW2210, I got the same email at all of the addresses for my Network Solutions POP email accounts. The way Netsol handles this is terrible and wasted an afternoon of my time hunting down information when the solution is actually straightforward and didn't involve deleting any accounts. The deadline to change my accounts was today, and everything is working smoothly with no emails lost. Details:

The emails Netsol sent all stated simply that the incoming and outgoing servers needed to be updated to new addresses before 10-18-2021. However, the servers in the emails were clickable links. Clicking them took me to a page in Safari stating that these servers were not to be trusted -- which of course made me think they were phishing lures.

I logged in on Network Solutions' site and hunted around for information. This led me to the horrible, confusing help page they have for Apple devices with hard-to-follow instructions claiming that accounts needed to be deleted, emails moved, etc. I read these multiple times and couldn't make heads or tails of why any of this was needed. Finally, I checked all 4 of my Netsol email addresses and confirmed that they had all received the same Netsol email, and decided to just go with the email instructions to simply change the incoming and outgoing servers.

I changed the server names on my 2 Macs, 2 iPhones, and iPad. All was working fine 2 days before the deadline, and everything is working fine post-deadline, which is today, October 18. I did not have to change passwords, SSL settings, ports, or anything. And the same messages that were left on the server were present at the new server address. No issues, no errors.

FYI on POP: All of my email clients are set up to leave messages on the server for 30 days before deleting them, and all sent mail is bcc'd to the sender. This gives me a pseudo-IMAP setup and the ability to retrieve the most recent emails online if needed. And all of the downloaded emails on the desktop are backed up daily. As I said, the 30 days of emails for each email account were still present on the servers after I made the server name changes.

I hope all of this helps! And, very poor job, Netsol!

Several people are giving differing Incoming and Outgoing "hostingplatform.com" thingies. The one I was given was:

Incoming Mail Server: mail0.hostingplatform.com

Outgoing Mail Server: mail0.hostingplatform.com

so it seems that the big difference is the single numeral digit. I actually tried mail6.hostingplatform.com and it did not work. Be that as it may, after deleting accounts and reinstalling them till I thought I would scream, I finally got it to work. Sort of. It still had trouble finding the server when sending outgoing mail. It would just stall out and sit there until I waited until the the dialog came up with Select the [highlighted] Server below button, and it would go through. This was still erratic and unacceptable, so I kept meditating and thinking till my head hurt and finally got the bright idea the the SSL Certificate was the fly in the ointment. I knew better than to hit up NetSol for any help, so I did some research about SSL which to me is all Greek. I finally figured out to go to Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app and launched it. I had NEVER done this before, so each step was carefully researched before I did anything I'd regret. Sure enough, I found under clicking on System Roots and Certificates (over to the left) there was the old Expired in October 2021 Certificate in the right hand column. Apparently, simply following NetSol's "instructions" did nothing to remove this Expired Certificate, so after researching deleting Expired Certificates I took the plunge and deleted it. And that was it—problem solved. If you scroll down to the "N"s you will find: Network Solutions Certificate Authority which is apparently the new one that Expires: Monday, December 31, 2029, but Mac Mail gets confused with two Certificates on board like it can't tell which one to obey. After deleting the old Certificate there is no longer a delay and a wondering if this thing is going to work this time and the outgoing email whooosh will be heard. I waited a couple days to post this just to be sure as I know LOTS of people are grappling with this.

As an aside, if you click on the "Expires" column you can see the expiration date of all the Certificates in Ascending order, and I see a couple set for Dec 15, 2021, so if things get wonky on a sort of Root level I know where I'm going to look first. Perhaps other providers of Certificates have a routine that does the housekeeping and Expired Certificates are automatically deleted but far be it from NetSol to actually do this for us... if fact, the Expired NetSol Certificate was the ONLY one I found amongst several scores of Certificates, so way to go guys.

I sooo hope this helps someone out there.

This is an unusual approach for what seems to be rotating some probably-expiring security certificates.

Expiring security certificates is not unusual, as those certificates increasingly expire yearly, and variously more often than that.

There are other similar reports to yours posted around the ‘net, involving other mail servers within that same domain.

I’d keep the suggested change in mind, and would ignore going through the change and would watch and see what happens with arriving mail after the cut-over date.

If your existing mail server is that same host, then removing and re-adding the account is harmless.

And use of IMAP is commonly recommended over POP, as the latter downloads mail to the first mail client requesting it that of all clients that might be sharing that same mail server account.

I would also consider finding a different mail provider.

emmyluty22 wrote:

Do you think the server info NS gave me is bogus: mail1.hostingplatform.com I even went on their chat service and they said it was correct. Yikes.

I’m looking at the certificate associated with that hostingplatform host name. There’s a mismatch. Whatever the intention here might be, either that host name is wrong, or the certificate is wrong. My TLS tools ⚠️ lit up at that pairing. If the intent was to support several host names, then a multiple-domain certificate would be typical. I didn’t poke at the DNS translations to manually confirm that.

Network Solutions email scam

TW2210 wrote:

Is the email regarding a change in the SSL certificate for Network Solutions Apple customers real?

https://www.networksolutions.com/knowledge

Open a Customer Support Request | Network Solutions

Network Solutions/Customer service

1 (800) 333-7680

The email from Network Solutions about SSL certificate update was real. But mine said to use: mail1.hostingplatform.com And since updating, my Network Solutions email does not work at all in Mac Mail. I've spent days trying to fix it, and am going to give up using NS for email. I'll check on the the NS website to see my domain email. And when renewal times comes up, I won't renew NS.

When I asked for help, NS did point out that my email was working on their website, so my email problem isn't my fault. It has something to do with my settings in Mac Mail.

But I'd also like to point out that NS sends you a link to doc at knowledge.web that is supposed to help you set up in Mac Mail, but the doc is like 10 years old and has wrong information.

Make sure you’re on at least High Sierra for recent public root certificates, as El Capitan and older require extra manual steps to update the local root certificate list.

As for NS, this whole sequence seems unusual, and my best guess is that they’re migrating to new new host domains for their mail servers.

The host cited in the previous reply here by emmyluty22 is presenting what is a bogus (untrusted) certificate. That’s not going to work anywhere, as the host you’re connecting to is not the host listed in the certificate. That can be fixed with a new certificate that lists all the host names, and that might work if you reconfigure your email to connect and use the domain networksolutionsemail.com, as the certificate offered by that server will match any subdomain host name *.networksolutionsemail.com. That’s a guess too, as I’m not going to poke further at that server.

POP is a mess and downloads stuff locally, yes.

Which makes multiple clients sharing a mail account into a race, figuring out which client checked first and scored the download, while all the others get a consolation prize of a download error or missing out entirely.

Apple is also making POP harder to get at, particularly when both POP and IMAP are available.

And if you have the option to switch from POP to IMAP, I'd recommend that switch to IMAP.

I too received this notice from NS (October 6th changeof settings) and thought it was spam. I forwarded the email to NS and have not heard back. I did not change any of the settings on my desktop Mac and "mail" seems to be working fine. However, this morning I tried to send an email from my iPhone, and it would not send stating the certificate could not be trusted. I did not change anything on the iPhone settings but I do see that the certificate reads that the host is *.hostingplatform.com. I am not sure how this happened and even though I dread calling NS, I will try later. I fear if make this change more damage will be done. I do really despise NS and although I think it's better to change mail providers, I am not sure which one to use.

For the certificate error, you can remove and re-add the mail account which resets the server connection, or can potentially access a website protected by the same certificate (possibly your webmail?) and accept and mark it trusted there. (It’s still odd that any of this is necessary.)

I’m using MacHighway for hosting, which has been stable for the last several years (they had a rough patch a while back), and haven’t been inclined to look elsewhere.

Thank u! I also just changed server name and problem solved.

Oh, I agree with you about that! NS is shameless, relentless, misleading with their upselling.

I once clicked on the big blue button instead of the tiny gray button and instantly signed up for an NS service that was expensive and useless. No way to cancel online. Nope, I had to call NS and waste another half hour of my life to cancel the service. They didn't let me out easily. Since then I am very careful when I'm on their website.

Let's hope someone else has more luck than we have had.