Can't connect to outgoing mail server

Question

Can't connect to outgoing mail server

Whenever I'm at home my iPad won't connect to the outgoing mail server and I get this message, "The connection to the outgoing server "cwmx.com" failed". Whenever I'm at work however it seems to connect just fine and without changing any settings. My Mac Mini uses the same mail account and it also works fine over my home Wi-Fi network.

I also have an iPod Touch that never has a problem at home but it is connected to another mail account (Apple Mail). I don't understand why the connection always seems to fail at home but at work this problem doesn't and why my Mini never has this problem either. I've looked over all the settings and they are correct so what am I missing?

Thanks for any help.

Posted on Apr 28, 2011 8:46 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 28, 2011 8:55 PM in response to Charles Branch

I had a very similar problem and was finally able to solve it after a huge amount of aggravation. My ipad could receive emails but not send them- only at home, though, not at work. It turns out the problem was not with the email provider, but with our ISP (optimum online). They (and most major ISPs it seems) have all these security features to prevent their wifi networks from being misused, but they allow their customers to use the optimum smtp server to send emails using other accounts. All the incoming settings stay the same, but I changed the outgoing smtp server to mail.optonline.net on port 587 (25 is always blocked). I also had to enter my userid and password (i had forgotten i even had these). Problem solved.

I've seen a ton of discussions online about this problem, with almost none of them providing any solutions. I'm pretty sure this is the solution people are looking for, though the specifics will depend on your ISP.

To sum up, the problem is not with the ipad or the email provider, but with the ISP and its security measures.

Hope this helps.

edit: forgot to mention that i also had no problem sending emails at home with my laptop over wifi, but that was because i was using webmail, which uses the normal http port (80 i think) which is not blocked.

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2011 10:39 PM in response to Charles Branch

cwmx.com is an AT&T server. What is your home ISP? Chances are, AT&T is rejecting your connection to cwmx.com from your home ISP because they don't allow mail relay from outside IP addresses. This is a common problem so what I do is use Gmail to send email. It requires user authentication, but it allows me to send email to it from any ISP regardless of whether I'm connecting from my home ISP, work, or on the AT&T network.

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