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new mail server-- SMTP problems

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by wyldwezl

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Our website and mail just changed to a new server, which is hosted off-premises. The site's up and running, and the mail was ready to change over to the new server's settings.

I changed all the machines that have e-mail to the new server settings-- the only items changed on any of the machines is the POP3 and SMPT settings (e.g. mail.blah.com) and the account log-in names and passwords. Of the 9 I've changed so far, 4 of them won't send. We get the usual "relaying denied 550 7.1 error" onthose using Outlook Express and a returned mail from System Administrator on those using Outlook 98. Oddly enough, the oddball platforms did all this without a hitch-- 2 run ME, 1 NT-WS sp6a, 2 98SE. The ones not sending run 98SE.

Here's a hint, perhaps. If one of the machines that can't send outside of our mail domain sends to someone within it (say, tedd@blah.com sends to bob@blah.com), the mail sends. We're a small outfit so we don't have major firewall intricacies to complicate matters.

We tried setting up one of the non-working accounts on a machine we knew was sending and receiving, and the new account wouldn't send. We took one machine that wasn't working and set up and account on it that we knew was working and it now won't send.

All the machines can receive mail without a hitch. All machines can send to all the others at "blah.com" but only 5 of 9 can send to, say, someone@aol.com

Our ISP is not the host for the site. The webmaster at the host claims everything's fine with the setup-- it must be a problem on our end. I doubt it. Something's amiss and I suspect it's with the mail server since everything worked fine on Monday at a different mail server. Only 3 changes made: mail server settings, log-in account, and password.

What's broke?? We're stumped!

3 replies

by traversetek

Well, aside from the line where you mentioned "We took one machine that wasn't working and set up and account on it that we knew was working and it now won't send.", EVERYTHING you describe points to certain email accounts not being set up @ the webhost. I would do the following:

1) Contact the web host again and verify that, indeed, ALL of your accounts are set up. Make sure that all of them are real accounts, and not just aliases or forwards (Different hosts have different policies on #s of accounts, and it's somewhat suspicious that 5 accounts are working, and 5 is a common limit for # of accounts with many hosting plans). Also, reverify all usernames and passwords and ask if their smtp server requires authentication.

2) Pick a machine that is currently working and set up all nine accounts on one machine, to save yourself the headache of running back and forth to nine machines :-) If some still don't work, but others do (on that one machine) then it's almost certainly a problem w/ the host's mail server setup. If all nine work on that machine, you can start putting them on the machines that will use them.

3) If the accounts work on the testing machine, but not on the machines that will use them, then at this point you can blame the individual machines.

That should get you started.

Good Luck :-)

Joe

P.S. I have assumed that all of your machines at this location connect to the internet using a single ISP and a shared connection. If that is not the case, please add a comment and let us know.

by wyldwezl

I DID try your suggestion of setting up multiple accounts on one desktop with a current version of OE (5.5). All the formerly broken accounts worked quite well.

Turns out that the cranky machines were all using Outlook 98 (as were several of theothers) but the difference was the working machines had fairly new OS installs (or reinstalls) this past year. All of them had IE5.5sp1 applied when I redid them.

How I found out this made the difference was to install it on one of the troublesome machines (this one had like IE5.0 on it) and then retry the setup again. I'm not at all sure of what made the thing start working again, it may have something to do with encryption levels, better mail handling, security patches. That's unimportant to me, except that I need to make sure things stay current. Up to this point, I've taken the position of not fixing something that isn't broken. So, unless I get complaints, I leave things alone. Guess I'll have to spend a few Saturdays in here doing updates in the future.

With that information in mind, I set up the mail at our other plant via Citrix client and PCAnywhere. The newer installs all went well, and the balky older ones got an IE5.5sp1 update and worked fine afterward.

I appreciate the suggestions. Thanks again!

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