Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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Welcome to another casualty in the war against spam. ISPs are starting to use various techniques to limit the use of their mail servers to only their clients.
Depending on what your ISP allows, you may be able to reconfigure. On the other hand, while it wasn't the last straw, it's one additional reason that my former ISP is my former ISP.
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The techniques ISPs use fall into a few buckets:
- They may only accept mail for sending if you are connected to their mail servers on their network. For example only if you are connected via the dialup or DSL connection that they provided you.
- They may only accept mail for sending if the "From" address is on a domain that the ISP hosts.
- They might intercept attempts to send mail through other mail servers, and redirect through their own - and them impose restrictions.
- They might require a separate login in order to send email.
There are probably other techniques in use as well.
I'm going to assume from the question that you can receive email on both accounts, so I'll limit myself to sending issues. With all those possibilities, and with all the possible ISP combinations, it's difficult to present The Answer. But I can at least go over a couple of things that I'd try.
The normal configuration might be to have each account send email using the SMTP server provided by that account's ISP - by that I mean your Verizon mail account will use Verizon's SMTP server, and the Comcast account would use the Comcast server. Instead, try configuring the problem account to use the other accounts SMTP server.
For many years sending email via SMTP required no authentication. Especially when you're connected via the ISP's provided lines such as dialup or broadband, that was enough to "authenticate" that you are authorized to use the ISP's servers. Many still operate that way by default but impose some simple restrictions such as requiring that the "from" address be something that the ISP controls. Quite often the ISP will lift restrictions as long as SMTP authorization has been successfully used. Try configuring the account that's not working to use authentication - either "same as receiving account", if that's an option, or with explicit account/password information.
And it's even worth combining those two approaches: try sending using the "other" accounts mail server, and try adding authentication to that configuration as well.
If efforts so far have been unsuccessful, it might be worth asking one of your ISPs if they even support what you are doing. Some might allow you to send using a different port - something other than the SMTP standard port 25 - or they might have alternate approaches. Or they might not help at all, and you'll know it's time to find another ISP.
Article C2523 - January 17, 2006 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
June 13, 2010 7:07 AM
i cant send no email from my face book i have not done thaing fix thank you im upset
July 22, 2010 10:01 AM
I've found that SMTP client sends are a perpetual problem.
You can see Corp Doctorow talking about it, too, at http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2010/07/cory-doctorow-what-i-do/.
All these approaches work -- more or less. But the most-reliable thing I've found to do is a little tool by Loa Corporation at www.loapowertools.com.
It's a tiny little local server you put on your hard drive. You sign up for a Loa account, then point all your mail accounts at your local server, and just let it run. The Loa local server collaborates with Loa's infrastructure to send out your email, and it works just about everywhere.
I've been using it for the last 2 years and outgoing SMTP mail issues are thing of the past.
March 6, 2011 2:26 PM
Just thought I would share this, you can check if your ISP is blocking outbound port 25 at http://port25.icannotconnect.com
November 20, 2011 3:11 PM
Why does my ISP "South Central Communications" block all my outgoing emails to my own address list? (ie: by the ccc69 error in outlook express) They have told me before they did it. But why? I spend good money I give them on my account so I should be able to send my own emails out to my own buddies.
November 20, 2011 5:06 PM
@Alan
You should ask your ISP why they are blocking you and how you can solve the problem with them. There are specific rules and laws around sending large amounts of email. They should be able to help guide you towards getting in compliance.