Suddenly cannot send mail but can receive

Question

Level 1

8 points

Suddenly cannot send mail but can receive

I am having trouble with Mail on our MacBook Air. Mail was working normally when I first started using it this morning. I sent and received a number of messages. Then, in the late morning, I found that I could not send email any longer. However, I continue to receive email. I've tried a number of times and having been getting the same message -

We have an iMac where Mail has the same account settings. We are receiving and sending mail from that device just fine.

Have tried everything I could think of including the last ditch Shut Down and Start-up. But nothing seems to work.

Look forward to a response.

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Apr 8, 2014 10:03 AM

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Answer 1

granitev Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 8, 2014 7:11 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for your advice. I went through all of the steps suggested in the Troubleshooting guide, including rebuilding the mailbox, however we still cannot send email from our MacBook Air.

There also seems to be a broader issue with Mail. As I was trying to figure out what was going on, I attempted to create a new email account for another optonline email address that we use (optonline is the old name for optimum formerly Cablevision). Once again Mail could not connect to the server. I used the same information to log onto the server through the internet and everything worked fine. I then tried to create an account using an old Juno account that my wife still has active. Once again, it failed to connect. Note that both optonline and juno use POP for a protocol. Now it gets interesting. I then tried to set up an account using a gmail address that we have. It worked just fine. The account was established and I could send and receive test messages. Gmail uses IMAP as their protocol.

In my prior post I said that email on our iMac works just fine. It still does. But to further troubleshoot this problem, I attempted to create a new email account on the iMac and I got the following message -

Again, when I logged on to this email account directly through the internet it worked just fine.

Does anyone know if there is generalized problem that Mail has developed with POP servers? Is there a way to solve this myself or should I try to get assistance directly from Apple?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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Answer 2

granitev Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 9, 2014 7:02 PM in response to Linc Davis

I entered the information as per your post, and got the following sequence of code -

I closed Terminal and tried to send an email. Again it didn't work. But I got a slightly different message -

Any thoughts?

Thank you for staying with this.

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Answer 3

PJR

Level 1

34 points

Apr 8, 2014 7:48 PM in response to granitev

I too am having difficulty with my mail accounts. All work except one. When I set it up, it automatically sets up as IMAP vs. POP. All my others are POP accounts and work just fine. I access from iphone and imac. Now I cannot send email from this one email imap account on iphone. I have tried everything and set up according to my email provider. Why would this one set up as IMAP and not allow me to change it, but all my other email accounts are POP. I have compared and tried manually setting to the POP settings and it will not allow me to and still have it work from iMAC. I have multiple email accounts that I access on iphone and imac.

I have tried deleting and resetting it up on both the imac and the iphone multiple times. Comparing what is in the working pop accounts to try to get this one account to work. When I access it via webmail it works just fine.

All of my email accounts are labeled cox.net accounts, except for the one that wont work and that one automatically configured as imap.cox.net. It is the newest of the email accounts.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Apr 9, 2014 7:03 AM in response to granitev

Triple-click the word "telnet" in the line below to select the whole line:

telnet mail.optonline.net 587

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

You should almost instantly get three lines of output below what you entered, the last of which is this:

Escape character is '^]'.

If there's no output within ten seconds, consider that a failure. If you get something different from the above, please post it in a reply. You can then quit Terminal.

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Answer 5

My Grin

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2014 11:56 AM in response to PJR

I am having the same issue with our suddenlink internet email. It also requires POP. I receive email fine just can't send and get a message that smtp cannot connect to the server.

I have been though all troubleshooting steps. NO luck.

Now, I have 2 iMACS and one works fine, the oher no. This is very frustrating. I hope Apple is not going down the windows path.

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Answer 6

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Apr 9, 2014 7:12 PM in response to granitev

From the Mail menu bar, select

Window ▹ Connection Doctor

Click the Show Detail button. A drawer opens. Try again to send a message and post the text that appears—not a screenshot, please. Anonymize any personal information before posting.

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Answer 7

My Grin

Level 1

0 points

Apr 10, 2014 2:44 PM in response to rkaufmann87

OKAY...will do.

Question....is there any logic as to why we have 2 MACS....One with wireless access had no issues. The one on the wire had issues. ODD. This stuff makes me crazy. I thought buying a MAC would solve the craziness.

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Answer 8

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Apr 10, 2014 3:24 PM in response to My Grin

My Grin wrote:

OKAY...will do.

Question....is there any logic as to why we have 2 MACS....One with wireless access had no issues. The one on the wire had issues. ODD. This stuff makes me crazy. I thought buying a MAC would solve the craziness.

No logic to it. This whole process shoudl take less than 10 minutes to do. Some users have issues, some do not. However in my experience most issues are caused by something between the desk and the computer, I'm not saying that what is happening in your case. It's just what I have experienced.

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Answer 9

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Apr 11, 2014 5:50 AM in response to My Grin

My Grin wrote:

Well.....I deleted the mail account and then added it back and it works. I lost some of my sent mail in the process but at least it is working now.

Thanks for your help.

Grin in eastern North Carolina

That indicates the account was corrupt in some way.

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Answer 10

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Apr 8, 2014 10:12 AM in response to granitev

Please carefuly read and use the troubleshooting steps in Apple's OS X Mail: Troubleshooting sending and receiving email messages http://support.apple.com/kb/ts3276

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Answer 11

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,739 points

Apr 8, 2014 7:20 PM in response to granitev

On what port(s) are you trying to connect to the optonline SMTP server? That information is in the advanced settings for the outgoing mail account.

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Answer 12

granitev Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 8, 2014 8:06 PM in response to Linc Davis

Under advanced settings the button next to "Use default ports (25, 465, 587)" is checked. Optonline wants to the port set to 587.

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Answer 13

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,494 points

Apr 9, 2014 12:07 PM in response to My Grin

Go to Account settings and re-input all of them. They may look fne however one may be corrupt, by re-inputting the prefrences this resets them. Give this a try and post back with your results.

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Answer 14

My Grin

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2014 12:47 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks, I'll try that.

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Answer 15

My Grin

Level 1

0 points

Apr 10, 2014 1:26 PM in response to My Grin

When you say re-input, do you mean to actually type each one of them again? And I did check with my internet provider to confirm that com port default 25 was the correct connection.

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