Apple Mail blocks Charter email, which blocks Apple mail

Try deleting all mail accounts (write down all settings for all accts) Then try using connection doctor one account at a time, test each as it completes, this should show the offender.

I went to the apple store for the same issue. We spent over an hour messing with the settings for apple mail and - upon seeing your post - decided to try something different. If the two are not talking, we thought "why not try another mail program?" So we downloaded Thunderbird (from the makers of firefox) and installed in on our mac. We have had no problems since then getting our mail. It's unfortunate that Apple's program is not supported by Charter, but at least with Thunderbird we are not timing out or losing email. If you hear from Frank, it would be great if you could let the rest of us know so we can go back to apple mail. It's a nicer format in any case.

I may have spoken too soon. I had a good day of e-mails but now we are seeing the old issues again. Do you think change to a g-mail account would avoid this issue? We would still use Charter as our internet service, but the e-mail accounts would be gmail.com. or is there another free e-mail address that is better?

We have 4 Charter accounts that have worked fine for a long time. For the last couple of months we've been having same issues as you originally reported. Since Charter has switched to IMAP accounts, we tried changing two accounts to IMAP, but left the other 2 as POP accounts. They all have the exact same problems. Intermittantly receiving mail, Charter offline when we try and send mail. It may take all day to finally send mail, then sometimes people are getting more than one copy of mail. Problem receiving mail only happens on Charter accounts, iCloud account working. Using "take all accounts on line" doesn't change anything (even if I take them offline first.) Much time on the phone with Charter with no resolution. When we asked what's the next step, they said "there is no next." We also have been unable to sign in with Safari to email at Charter's website to access mail directly (couldn't sign in on Firefox or Chrome either). I did recently upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion, so I don't know if that is a factor. I'm on a MacBook Pro, but we're having same problem on our other Apple computers.

Any ideas?

Thanks for your quick reply. I didn't delete the old POP account, but I disabled it then created a new IMAP account. I think my husband deleted, then created new account. The IMAP port is 143 and SMTP is checked "use default ports (25, 465, 587). I tried custom port 25 with no difference. Do you know about whether SSL should be checked? It doesn't seem to help either way.

All the Charter accounts have a gray circle with triangle and exclamation point in the middle until it mysteriously and randomly will work for a bit. It will not receive mail when the circle is there. AOL, Gmail and iCloud accounts do not have this circle.

I was able to send from my iPad using Charter, but I don't know if that was one of those random moments.

I've been having exactly the same trouble with my Charter E-mail Accounts.

I first use two of my existing Charter E-mail Accounts (which I have never used in years!). Set them up in Apple Mail (Snow Leopard 10.6.8, on my MacPro 4.1) as POP Accounts!

They did work sometimes, but now I can only receive mail.

Set up a new Charter E-mail Account, and used that to Set Up in Apple Mail as IMAP Account. It does NOT work at all, period, either way.

I've been on the phone with Charter Tech Support many, many, many times, for many hours, but nobody has a clue. They tell me to check their webpage for Set Up, which I don't need because I've been through the Set-up Procedure so many times already.

Then they tell me to call Apple Tech Support, which I cannot afford.

So, now I'm back to using my old DreamHost E-mail Accounts, which work just fine, after their Tech Support helped me to resolve some issues. They had me open Terminal, then Keychain. I tried all three Keychain Methods, which resolved the issues with DreamHost E-mail.

I'm going to try setting up my G-mail Account in Apple Mail and see what happens .....

This is all on Charter.

I have tried everything and Charter has no clue.

Tried everything they suggested, went to the website and read everything, nothing works.

Mail will not recieve mail........UNLESS.

Do this test:

send yourself a test mail.

You won't be able to recieve it.

Open mail prefs > select the account you sent mail to

> go to advance tab

> check or uncheck use SSL

save changes to account and the mail shows up.

Try the above again and the mail won't show up until you go back into the account and do the opposite with the check box on SSL.

This is no solution as it is a pain but it shows a communication problem on the servers side.

For some reason Mail quit connecting to my Charter email few days ago. But this only happens on my iMac (27" late 2009 OS ver 10.9.4). I can connect fine on the MacBookAir downstairs and on my iPad. On my iMac I am told that imap.charter.net cannot be contacted on ports 143 and 25.

This is weird because I received emails without interruption for years on this and previous iMacs on this Charter account. The failure happened the same day I connected my office macs to Charter Business - on a separate account. I do not know how this could be related but it seems like more than a coincidence but it could be.

Has anyone successfully resolved this Charter-Mail issue?

Yeah the only solution is to use thunderbird and it S....ucks.

Eliminate Mail by testing in Postbox and MailMate. Both have demos.

http://www.postbox-inc.com/

http://freron.com

Setup in MailMate is super easy since it imports your account info from Mail. MailMate supports IMAP only.

Postbox interface is more user friendly. IMHO

I'd like to know if they ever called you to say they've fixed it. Your message is posted with a date of 2012. Well, it's 2014 now and they still haven't fixed the problem apparently since I cannot connect.

This is why people bad-mouth Charter. They say they'll do something and they don't. The only thing they have done consistently is raise their rates.

But their service isn't especially good. The fact that almost two years later they've still not fixed this problem proves that much.

Sorry, but if I didn't have have cable internet, I'd drop Charter in an instant.

clang wrote:

We also have been unable to sign in with Safari to email at Charter's website to access mail directly (couldn't sign in on Firefox or Chrome either). I did recently upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion, so I don't know if that is a factor. I'm on a MacBook Pro, but we're having same problem on our other Apple computers.

Any ideas?

I have Charter for internet also, and have Charter email accounts that I don't use very much. However I have had no issues connecting via Safari to read Charter email, simply logging in at Charter.net to read email via their browser interface. This works (for us) on Macs running 10.6.8, 10.7.5, and 10.9.4 (just updated the 10.6.8 one to 10.9.4 and charter email via Safari web browser interface has worked fine on all these OS's).

Lots of folks use Apple Mail for GMAIL, so that's another option.

This same problem has plagued me as well. Here's what I did (using Yosemite) after trying everything you all tried:

1. In Mail preferences, go to your Charter account and open the Advanced tab.
2. Remove the checkmark from Automatically detect and maintain account settings.
3. Leave IMAP Path Prefix blank.
4. Enter 143 for the Port and uncheck Use SSL.
5. This one hurts a little. Check Allow insecure authentication.
6. And, of course, save your changes when exiting preferences.
7. Right click the Charter inbox and bring the account online.

Good luck. In a Galaxy far, far away I used to work for Charter. Be kind to the person on the phone. They've likely only been with Charter for a few weeks and probably won't last the month.