Outgoing mail not working

[Atravers]

I receive mail ok but outgoing mail not working - MTN SMTP cannot be reached and times out - took laptop to MTN agent in Midlands Mall and they say my pc looks OK and when they phoned MTN IT guys, they said they have a problem - have not been able to send mail since Sat 7th Feb 2015. It's now Monday 9th - still no go.
What's up guys.
Thanks
Allan Travers

 

[Hamster]

Can't you change it to saix.smtp.co.za or does that not work any ore? Last tried it in 2007 or something.

 

[Atravers]

Thanks - tried saix but also did not work

 

[Atravers]

I wonder if this usb modem is the problem!!

 

[Atravers]

I had some weird prompts over the weekend asking me to re-register my system whatever that mean't - this thing has been working fine for 2 years!!!

 

[sicelo.m]

Well, I don't know MTN's email stuff (I'm with VodaCom), but the general method of checking outgoing mail problems is:
use Telnet to connect to your_smtp_server.domain port 25. On Windows 7, telnet needs to be enabled via additional windows options or something like that, or you can just use PuTTY.

It is no longer common nowadays for ISPs to block outgoing port 25.

By the way, what's your mail provider? MTN? or MTN is just your modem/isp and you have a different mail provider?

EDIT: saix.smtp.co.za does not resolve to an address, so will not work

~$ host saix.smtp.co.za
Host saix.smtp.co.za not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)

 

[Arthur]

Try port 587.

 

[ITCynic]

or port 26

 

[sicelo.m]

lol @ ITCynic.
465 is also a more common port for encrypting mail servers. anyway OP has to give us more info in order to get better help troubleshoothing his problem.