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Mail goes "offline" in AOL's smtp settings

I have three e-mail accounts in my Mail 4.4 app. The POP accounts for ATT and MSN work fine but AOL's IMAP settings have suddenly started acting up. I can still receive e-mail on the AOL account but whenever I try to send an e-mail the AOL account suddenly goes "offline." It continues to show "online" in the menu's "online status" but shows "offline" in the account preferences and after vainly trying to send the message for a couple of minutes the mail application posts a window that tells me I cannot use that server and should try later or try another.
Since I am not a paid AOL user but simply take advantage of its free e-mail service, I cannot even call their tech support to find out what the problem is. I assume it's on AOL's end but has anyone else experienced this?

MacMini 2,1, Mac OS X (10.6.5), Mail 4.4

Posted on Dec 12, 2010 5:36 AM

29 replies

Feb 26, 2011 6:53 AM in response to gwlaguna

Some issues of a few days ago on AOL's end of things may have resulted in Mail removing the Password from the preference settings. Go into Mail Preferences/Accounts/Account Information and see if the AOL SMTP is shown as Offline? Then click on the arrows beside the name of the SMTP, choose Edit Server List, and if needed reenter the Password. I found this to be the case just now, and since I only maintain an AOL account as a test account, I had not noticed. Once I entered the PW, sending worked.

Ernie

MRRooney

Level 1

18 points

Feb 26, 2011 6:16 PM in response to Holger Jensen

I just updated my dad's MacBook Pro to the latest OS updates... NOW his AOL email cannon send via Apple MAIL program.
I had this problem last year, but resetting keychains and other things with Apple got it working, but it was not easy. I've tried all of those, but ever since I installed these updates the AOL program cannot send.
Thoughts???

Mar 8, 2011 7:45 AM in response to Holger Jensen

Anyone out there come up with a fix yet???????
I have four e-mail accounts -- AT&T, Qwest, MSN and AOL -- and Mail 4.4 works fine with three of them but while it receives AOL mail it simply will not connect to AOL's SMTP server for outgoing mail. As usual AOL tells me it's a Mac problem or a problem with my ISP while my ISP says it's a Mac problem or a problem with AOL. As for Apple: a deafening silence.

Mar 8, 2011 4:16 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Well, after much angst and investigation, this is definitely a Mac Mail problem. The only trouble is, the Mail app seems to work fine with all other e-mail providers except AOL. It keeps asking for passwords when they have been given multiple times and are stored, multiple times, in the keychain. It hangs up when trying to send e-mail through AOL and Connection Doctor keeps saying cannot connect to this SMTP Server, even when all the settings are correct. When, or when, will Apple come up with a reliable Mail app????

teky_man

Level 1

0 points

Apr 1, 2011 3:23 PM in response to gwlaguna

AOL SMTP Settings SOLUTION using MAIL on MAC OS X

I spent hours on this and couldn't for the life of me figure it out. Until I had a coffee. It appears in the Ingoing/Outgoing Mail Server settings, the username is being striped of the domain, thus only sending the screen name as part of the authentication.

Follow steps below for POP and SMTP configuration

1) Add new Account Configuration from within the Accounts Tab
a)Full Name: Joe Smith
b)Email Address: joesmith@aol.com
c)Password: mypassword
d)Click Create
e)Click Manual Setup

2)Incoming Mail Server
a) verify settings are correct :
b) Incoming Mail Server: imap.aol.com
c) User Name: joesmith@aol.com
d) Password: mypassword

3)Outgoing Mail Server
a)Description: AOL Outgoing
b)smtp.aol.com
c)User Authentication
User Name: joesmith@aol.com ******make sure this has @aol.com at the end
Password: mypassword

4) Account Summary
a) tick - Take Account online
b) Create

TEST THIS ACCOUNT NOW

5) New Message
a) To: joesmith@aol.com
b) Subject: FINALLY
c) Send this message

Another way with existing account configuration
1)From your Edit SMTP List, select the AOL SMTP config
2)Select Use default (25, 465, 587)
3)ssl can be enabled or not
4)Authentication: Password
5)Update User Name: joesmith to joesmith@aol.com
6)Password: mypassword
7) save this

Good luck people

Message was edited by: teky_man

null

May 6, 2011 3:36 PM in response to teky_man

Many Thanks teky_man ... I have had the same problem for a couple of months now with my comcast account. I will try your fix and let you know if it works for comcast also.

May 9, 2011 4:50 PM in response to gwlaguna

Been running into seting problems also--I am aset on 25 for outgoing---works fine until I try to forward something and the system switches to 587 and hangs

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

May 9, 2011 5:12 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Read a few posts on this site from the last few weeks, this is a regular issue, the only useful (although you may not like it) is get another email provider.

Jul 29, 2011 10:49 AM in response to Csound1

I have been having problems like this for the 8 months? One day it works the next it doesn't. Now it hasnt been working for 3 days. smtp is offline and it won't connect. Iv'e tried everything and have now had to open MSN account. Ridiculous and totally random as far as I can work out!

Aug 24, 2011 12:55 PM in response to Holger Jensen

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple support yesterday trying to resolve this issue, and at the end of the call they pretty much threw their hands up and said "oh well, we've tried everything and nothing works. sorry." Thanks, Apple. I spent five minutes online today and found this site and used one of the solutions here which solved the problem. For now anyhow. When you're composing an email go to the "from" section at the top portion of the mail and go over to the button on the far right where it should say AOL. If yours was like mine before it will say offline. click that and click to "edit smtp". From that page highlight the AOL mail account at the top. Click the "custom port" circle which will uncheck the default port. In the custom port put "587" and check the "SSL" box below. Click okay. You may need to close and restart email, but you'll see that it now says "online" when you go to compose mail.

Oct 12, 2012 6:38 AM in response to Holger Jensen

Do you have OS X Server installed on your machine? After monkeying around with this for a couple of days, I was trying to fix my password in mail preferences per one of these forums; but when I tried to save the settings I got a pop-up stating something about a conflict between two servers.

Last week I purchased and installed the OS X Server with the intent to set up a home server to allow friends access to large file transfers. That's a whole different thread, but for a "quick start" I had no joy. While I kept the server installed, I had all "services" disabled. I don't know how it fixed it; but I deleted the OS X Server from the machine, restarted, and now all three AOL accounts can recieve and SEND! The server problem will have to wait for another day... :-) Good luck!

Flipkay

Level 1

14 points

Sep 14, 2013 2:53 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Yes. This time around I found the problem to be the way AOL interacts with Apple Mail.

I had the same problem and vainly tried almost all of the things listed in this discussion. My problem ended up being I was sending an email to an invalid AOL email address. I found that out when I tried sending the same email through another email provider and it came back as undeliverable. This is not what happens when you try to send it through Apple Mail's IMAP. Via Apple Mail, it gives you an error that seems to indicate that there is a server connection problem, but it also hints at checking the email address you're sending it too.

Unbelievable!

a266

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2013 10:52 PM in response to Holger Jensen

I have had same problem. Can send mail via mac.com server but not aol. Been on help desk twice each time for a long time and no luck. Can get mail but not send via Aol. Tried all above solutions but same problem again.Smtp connection not occurring on outgoing mail

iLogger

Level 1

128 points

Nov 22, 2017 12:48 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Hey what does connection doctor say?

Mail goes "offline" in AOL's smtp settings