I hate Force 9

[wellinghall]

I've got all my old emails back :-)

I've got my old address books back :-))

I can download new emails :-)))

I can't send emails :-(

I've spent 10 minutes trying to find a way through Force 9's phone system, and 20 minutes sitting on hold :-((((

I have tried their online help system, but I know that this will just result in a request for more information.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Have you got your SMTP server (sometimes called outgoing server or sending server) set to relay.force9.net ?

This is assuming that Force9 are supplying your internet connectivity as well as your mailbox.

If someone else is doing your connectivity, you need to find out their SMTP server name and use that.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes. When I try to send an email, it says, "Enter your password on relay.force9.net". I try, and it then says:

"Sending of message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to SMTP server relay.force9.net failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please evrify that your SMTP server setting is correct and try again, or else contact your network administrator."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Have you got the authentication box checked?

You should not need to authenticate with the server if you are using their dialup / broadband, and normally it wouldn't ask.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I haven't; and I have just tried checking it, with no improvement.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It sounds as though your email client isn't reaching the force9 server at all.

I just tried sending email via the force9 SMTP server, and its standard 'bog off' message is different to that, and it won't let me try to authenticate by password.

Can you ping it?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

How would I do that?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

start - > run

then type in box: ping relay.force9.net

and press enter.

You should get a little box that does two-three pings then vanishes again quite quickly. If it says something like 'access denied' or whatever, it's your firewall or router or something. If it pings nicely, it's the email client.

The reason for doing this is it checks that something on your machine isn't preventing all access to that address for some mysterious reason.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... no spaces or odd characters in the server name...?

Try telnet:

start - > run

telnet relay.force9.net 25

enter

If you get a response code starting 220, it's definitely something up with Thunderbird...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I do get a 220 response code.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

You could try increasing the timeout time in Thunderbird

Tools> Options>Advanced

Just in case it's timeing out before the server responds.

If not that, then I'm stumped, sorry. :-(

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

sally_maria has solved it! I needed to change from relay to relay1 - which I know remember Force9 telling me last time I tried to set up Thunderbird, but which I haven't seen anywhere on their website. As I said, I hate Force 9! :-(

Many, many thanks for all your efforts, though. I like Live Journal ;-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It pings nicely.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Outgoing server is relay.force9.net, port 25.

Many thanks for your help, both of you. I'll wait and see what Force9 come up with.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

'nother thought: are you using IMAP or POP3?

[sally_maria]

Did your set-up work with Thunderbird and Force 9 before, or is this a new set-up? The reason I ask is that I found when I started using TB I needed to connect to a different server, than when I was using Outlook Express.

I had to look at the instructions for connecting from Netscape. Of course, it may be nothing to do with that.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

This is essentially a new set-up. I had - somehow! - trashed my TB, and started again from scratch.

[sally_maria]

It might be worth checking whether you've got the address exactly as Force 9 specifies for Netscape (or it might even mention Thunderbird) - I had to change from relay to relay1 but since I'm on a different ISP that may not be relevant.

Bunn sounds like he knows a lot more of the technical details than I do, it's just it sounds like the same problem I had when I set up TB for the first time.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

That's it!!! sally_maria, you're a marvel!!!

*goes off to check sally_maria's Christmas wish-list ... *

Bunn sounds like he

Bunn was a she last time I looked; but admittedly that was about ten years ago! ;-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh it's fixed! Excellent!

[sally_maria]

I'm glad I was able to help - I remember how frustrating it was not being able to get things set up properly.

My apologies to Bunn for the mix-up, it's strange, anywhere else on LJ I would have assumed she, but the TS people I know have a much higher proportion of guys.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't mind, I'm not proud!

[sally_maria]

Thank you - I don't like annoying people by mistake (on purpose, that's different ;-) )

I must bookmark this post - you've given a lot of useful technical information that might come in handy sometime.