Hi guys,
I'm setting up a user's e-mails to download to a laptop, the e-mails download but are unable to send e-mails.
I've tried every setting I could find but it will not send still.
This is on a MWEB account as well as a Telkom account.
The problem is, I'm having the same issue with a Telkom account on the same PC.
In the same house, another user has setup her e-mail on Gmail and it works (sending and receiving)
On the router which is a ZyXEL P-2602HWL-D1A there is a Telkom account setup.
Any suggestions?
Are you trying to connect to the Mweb SMTP server from a Telkom ADSL account, because that won't work.
If you want to send E-mails from your Mweb E-mail account, you'll need to use an Mweb ADSL account/connection to connect to the Mweb SMTP server.
The same goes for the Telkom E-mail account, where you have to use a Telkom ADSL account/connection to connect to the Telkom SMTP server.
This is one of the reasons why you should rather stick with an E-mail address/account that is not linked to an ISP account.
Apologies for re-opening a very old thread, but the topic is still relevant. Hopefully this might help other people struggling with the same issue.
As background:
ISP's will generally allow a user to connect to an incoming mail server (eg a POP3 server) and download mail from pretty much any network, provided of course that user properly authenticates himself to the server. However they are a lot more cautious about allowing a user to connect to an outgoing (SMTP) server and send mail, especially when that user tries to connect from a "foreign" network (ie not the ISP's own network).
This is in line with the increased precautions to curb spam mail, phishing and general abuse of outgoing mail servers.
To guard against this, the ISP's have introduced various safety measures, including:
1. Requiring authentication to send email.
2. Using an encrypted connection for submission of mail.
3. Using "unusual" IP ports for submission of mail.
4. Disallowing connections from any network other than the mailbox owner's "home" ISP.
Referring to point (3), the "proper" port for
submitting mail to an SMTP server is port 587. Although port 25 is actually designated for use
between SMTP servers, it is very common for ISPs to use port 25 for mail submission as well. In that respect, and even though it's not the "correct" port, port 25 has almost become the "usual" port used for email submission to an SMTP server.
It's point (4) that tends to cause most problems. When you're sending via your own ISP's connection (eg using MWeb ADSL to send mail on
smtp.mweb.co.za), there's no problem. But - to use the same MWeb example - when you try to connect from a "foreign" network (eg MTN 3G, or Telkom LTE), you can't access MWeb's SMTP server. Trying to connect in this way is referred to as "relaying" (I think).
As a mail user, the usual way of handling this is to use a different SMTP server depending on how you are connecting, eg
smtp.mweb.co.za when you connect from MWeb, or
smtp.telkom.co.za when you connect from Telkom. This is a major Pain In The Ass.
(
PS: Read a bit more about the background to SMTP and ports on Wikipedia
here. )
Now to the specifics for MWeb:
MWeb's SMTP servers use the "correct" port for mail submission (port 587). They also provide a "relay" server which handles mail requests that are directed at the MWeb SMTP server, but which originate from non-MWeb networks. This relay server is at
relay.mweb.co.za and mail sent there is forwarded to
smtp.mweb.co.za after scrutiny. (I
think the relay server also handles mail that has been submitted on port 25 and relays that to port 587 on the SMTP server, but I'm not 100% sure of this).
So, if you can't connect to
smtp.mweb.co.za from a "foreign" network, try connecting instead to
relay.mweb.co.za using port 587. It works for me for sending mail via MWeb from a variety of non-MWeb networks.
In practise, I find that mail sent to
relay.mweb.co.za sometimes takes a little while to get sent, and the server itself is sometimes offline for a few minutes at a time (can't honestly say if it's more (or less) frequent than the normal MWeb SMTP server). I assume that's because mail placed there is subject to more rigorous scrutiny than normal. But it always gets where it needs to go.
