Why do my SMTP/IMAP/POP servers keep going offline in OS X Yosemite Mail app?

Worked perfectly for me. Thanks.

I Seem to have a new wrinkle of this problem with my parents' mail. Suddenly their mail won't connect to the servers, but ONLY at their house wifi. It works at my house, with no change in the mail settings. We even have the same brand and model of router and ISP, and I can't see any difference in router settings between the two.

ANyone had similar problems? Is their router blocking the sending and receiving ports or something? It happened with their POP email, but went away, but I made them new IMAP accounts to match their mobile device accounts and now the problem is back, but only at their house! Why?

bre bro wrote:

I Seem to have a new wrinkle of this problem with my parents' mail. Suddenly their mail won't connect to the servers, but ONLY at their house wifi. It works at my house, with no change in the mail settings. We even have the same brand and model of router and ISP, and I can't see any difference in router settings between the two.

ANyone had similar problems? Is their router blocking the sending and receiving ports or something? It happened with their POP email, but went away, but I made them new IMAP accounts to match their mobile device accounts and now the problem is back, but only at their house! Why?

Bre,

See my post above. Noted in that post that the automatic settings of Mail>Preferences>Account have previously been a problem for me (in OS 10.10.1 and earlier). If you use automatic settings, perhaps the router config at parents' house may be blocking specific ports if it works sometimes (on WiFi) and not others (e.g., plugged into a LAN). You might try using/verifying specific IMAP&SMTP port settings and uncheck the Automatic detect setting, if possible. You didn't indicate the specific issues or a type of account (Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, other) nor whether you used automatic settings or manual port settings.

Picture of Gmail settings:

Henry,

The specific issue seems to be an inability to connect to the mail server (using my own domain servers, hosted on Dreamhost) without a timeout error. As I said, it happened sporadically on the POP accounts, bu since changing to an IMAP account, it won't connect at all, but ONLY at their house with he same, exact settings that work in other locations, even with the same router brand and model. I tried unchecking the automatic settings option as well as using different send and receive ports, but none of that seemed o make he problem go away. I have even reset their router to factory defaults, hoping that would clear out whatever is blocking the mail servers only, but no luck. I may end up changing them to a different router.

bre bro wrote:

Henry,

The specific issue seems to be an inability to connect to the mail server (using my own domain servers, hosted on Dreamhost) without a timeout error. As I said, it happened sporadically on the POP accounts, bu since changing to an IMAP account, it won't connect at all, but ONLY at their house with he same, exact settings that work in other locations, even with the same router brand and model. I tried unchecking the automatic settings option as well as using different send and receive ports, but none of that seemed o make he problem go away. I have even reset their router to factory defaults, hoping that would clear out whatever is blocking the mail servers only, but no luck. I may end up changing them to a different router.

Any of these could cause issues. Decide which tests work or don't work, and proceed accordingly:

• Using unusual IMAP ports for some reason on your servers?
• Have you tried pinging specific email ports (usually 993 IMAP, 567 SMTP) from the network?
• Have you been able to make your phone a hotspot and log into your email via an external connection?
• Have you tried pinging the internal IP address of the computer(s) that don't work from another working computer on your network?
• Are the firewalls turned on on the machine(s) in question? What happens when turned off?
• Can you access other email (e.g., iCloud Google, etc.) servers on the suspect computer(s)?

Well, after much time tinkering with settings in Mail and on two different routers, I thought to contact my web host support (Dreamhost) via online chat and found the problem was that my parents ip address had been blocked from accessing their mail servers due to too many failed log ins (my parents forget their passwords a lot) and once the tech removed the block, the mail started working again.

I wish I had though to check that first instead of as a last resort, but I will know in the future to do so now.

Henry, thank you for your help and continued suggestions.

I presume its appropriate to continue this post even though we are well into El Capitan? Please advise if I should be writing under a new post!!

The version of this issue that I am experiencing is different, in that it relates to the hardware product I am using (MacBook Pro Retina), rather than the OSX version.

I purchased a MacBook Pro Retina in Sept 2015 to supersede my two ailing/slow MacBook Pro's (late 2011). Since that time, I have had the opportunity to observe the behaviour of three MacBook Pro's on the same wi-fi network, with exactly the same account settings (note with Apple's support we tried every version of setttings possible), the same three email accounts (1x gmail, 2x third party hosted emails), and exactly the same software updates (initially Yosemite, and now El Capitan).

On the new Retina (while still on Yosemite on all machines) I started getting the IMAP servers intermittently going offline, with incoming server and outgoing server alerts (not always, but several times per day). When those alerts were showing on the Retina, it would take several minutes for emails to send or receive, and emails would sit in the outbox as if they had not been sent. But they would all eventually send/receive. At the same time, the other two MacBook Pro's would show no issues (alerts) whatsoever, and be able to send/receive with no problems at all. Curiously, if I sent an email from the Retina to myself, it may show as being in the Outbox of the Retina, but still be received "instantly" by both other MacBook Pro's. I also had another clearly related connection issue, in that iTunes would regularly bounce up and down with a message “We could not complete your iTunes store request. The network connection timed out” - this is regardless of the fact that I had not purchased anything, and iTunes was shut down.

Apple suggested I wait for the El Capitan update, but exactly the same behaviour. In the end, after lots of Apple Care advice, Apple agreed the issue was restricted to the Retina machine and decided the issue must be hardware related, and so replaced the MacBook Pro Retina in December. For the first three weeks my newest Retina has been perfect (problem solved!!!), but two days ago - the "identical" email/connection issues. Apple tell me "today" that "an issue has come to light with the software that had caused similar issues with multiple users. This is currently under investigation by engineering...keep an eye out for incremental software updates..."

As above, this is the same issue others are experiencing on this thread, but the common link for me is the MacBook Pro Retina. Please advise if that requires a separate thread. In other respects, any thought would be greatly appreciated. Regards

For several years I get problem with Exchange - it goes offline randomly. I found that problem is with connection to my exchange server - to many connections and server rejects connection afterwards. Then I started to check what is using this connection -> changed check my email every 1 and after 5 minutes. Dind't help.

And finally I found - if I write any message, then Apple mail is saving Draft to the server and it makes it very often - several times per minute. For our companies server it was to often. Then I removed checkbox by Save drafts to server and now everything is working fine.

I presume its appropriate to continue this post even though we are well into El Capitan? Please advise if I should be writing under a new post!!

Since you're not the original poster, you've removed the point system as an incentive for anyone trying to help you. Plus, no one likes to read through multiple pages of mostly unrelated comments. And, as time goes by, the number of Yosemite users is decreasing.

If you have an issue, it is always best to start your own post, as opposed to latching on to a old post started by someone else.

Interesting - thanks very much for the post. Reflects what many say, quality of software releases is going downhill.

Can confirm I've also witnessed the same behaviour with iTunes messaging running a 2009MBP/10.10.5/12.3.2.35, although this was a on previous iTunes release, on current version I haven't experience the issue.

If you are unsure about posting on an existing thread, why not post on the thread and create an additional thread. My opinion, creating a new thread for every issue in some way just disguises the number of users with an interest in a particular thread. Average users don't care about points, they just want help and will reciprocate if they can.

Thanks Lanny and mariotheplumber

mariotheplumber - thanks for coming to my defence. But I suspect Lanny has a good point, given no-one has given me any advice on this post! But yeah, I just want help - had no idea the point system was an incentive system - just thought posters enjoyed contributing.

FYI Lanny - I don't think I was being a total twit choosing this post - Apple said they were aware of "similar issues with multiple users", and so I was hoping to connect with them. Of all the posts I found, this is the one! BUT...no-one has responded! I've since reposted - haven't found anyone with the same issue - but have had some useful comments!

Not defending really, just stating a point. I found your post useful in respect of the theme of this thread. Had it been under a seperate thread I would not necessarily have found it.

Everyone has a point, I'm interesting in viewing as many as possible, hence my dislike for hiding them in new threads.

Can you supply the link to your re-post please? Cheers.

Sure mariotheplumber - the link is https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7441756.

FYI - Apple have asked me not to follow the advice given by the forum (do NOT follow steps utilising Terminal commands) - instead they had be do full erase and restore and set up email and nothing else. Unfortunately, the same issue immediately! They want me to bring Retina to genius bar today, so I'll report results back to the new post. Cheers

The addresses for the Google DNS are:

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

Regards

Nathan

I monitor four e-mail accounts from two different ISPs. Running El Capitan 10.11.2.

I have had this issue for a few months when connected wirelessly on my home network (AirPort Extreme + AirPort Express) only on my new 12" MacBook Retina. The IMAP connection on or more of the accounts would go offline every few hours but usually come back after a while. At the same time, I would see messages popping up on my iPad that was sitting next to it, so there's nothing wrong at the server end. iPad/iPhone port and security settings are identical to MB/MBP. This is not the end of the world, since this is my travel laptop, and it doesn't occur when I'm on other networks (!?).

But now since a day or two, it's happening on my primary computer, a 15" MacBook Pro Retina as well. And it happens every few minutes instead of every few hours, on all four accounts, and the only way to get it to connect is to turn off WiFi and turn it back on again. On the other hand, this procedure works every time. Connection Doctor does nothing except tell me that the connection times out. I have turned on and off every imaginable setting in different sequences (to get the settings to stick) but nothing helps.

This is driving me NUTS! I've tried numerous other e-mail apps, but Apple have actually done a good job with a lot of things and I just want it to work...

Are the rest of you also on an Apple AirPort network? Could the issue be with WiFi settings rather than Mail.app? Or with the AirPort hardware?