Help required with outlook

Aquos76

I have been having this problem with my email for the last month or so. Everything is fine with all my accounts for a number of days, then all of a suddenly I open outlook 2003 and I get a host of errors on 2 of my email accounts. One is an iolfree.ie account and the other is an ntlworld.ie account. Both my gmail accounts are fine though.

Now the thing that really baffles me is that if I delete the accounts in question and re configure them again its still the same, but if I reconfigure them on another PC all is fine.

Another thing which I have figured out is that if I restore my PC back a day or two it fixes the problem for about another week or so, but them the same thing happens. I have atached an image of the errors I am receiving.

Would be very greatful if somebody may be able to shed some light on it for me.

Tom Dunne

Aquos76 wrote:

Now the thing that really baffles me is that if I delete the accounts in question and re configure them again its still the same, but if I reconfigure them on another PC all is fine.

Do you have any kind of internet security software running on the PC (such as Norton or Mc Afee)? I'm not talking about virus software, I am specifically talking about security products.

Aquos76

Yeah Tom, I do have Norton internet security 2005 running.

Tom Dunne

Aha, methinks it is blocking traffic to and from the mail server. You will need the name of both the incoming and outgoing mail server. These are usually something like mail.eircom.net, pop.esat.net or smtp.iol.ie.

Right, open up a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd [return]). At the command prompt, type ping <mail servername> (leave out the < and >).

If you get a response, then your PC can see the mail server, something is blocking it, most likely Norton. To remedy this, go into the firewall settings of Notron and ensure it is not set to block Outlook. Or, it may be set to block port 25 (this is the port mail works on, so you need to unblock it).

Post back and let us know how you get on.

Aquos76

Many thanks for your help and advise Tom. At the moment all is fine as I carried out a restore last night. Went back 2 days is all, so I should be fine for about a week before I see the error again. When its happens again, I will carry out what you have advised and see what the results are.

thund3rbird_

tom dunne wrote:

Do you have any kind of internet security software running on the PC (such as Norton or Mc Afee)? I'm not talking about virus software, I am specifically talking about security products.

I think norton may have changed the mail servers to the localhost address (127.0.0.1) - have seen it happen before. even happens after removing the accounts & re-adding.
cannot say for certain tho as outlook does not give the mail server details in error messages unlike outlook express.

also, you will have to make sure the outgoing server on BOTH accounts is that of the isp you are currently using.
eircom / esat / ntl & a host of other isps use closed relay mail servers now.

Tom Dunne

I can't see why Norton would alter another program.

Block it - yes, but actually go in and alter settings? How would it do that?

MunsterCycling

Aquos76 wrote:

I have been having this problem with my email for the last month or so. Everything is fine with all my accounts for a number of days, then all of a suddenly I open outlook 2003 and I get a host of errors on 2 of my email accounts. One is an iolfree.ie account and the other is an ntlworld.ie account. Both my gmail accounts are fine though.

Now the thing that really baffles me is that if I delete the accounts in question and re configure them again its still the same, but if I reconfigure them on another PC all is fine.

Another thing which I have figured out is that if I restore my PC back a day or two it fixes the problem for about another week or so, but them the same thing happens. I have atached an image of the errors I am receiving.

Would be very greatful if somebody may be able to shed some light on it for me.

Hi Aquos76,

You still having this problem? You don't say who you use as your ISP, nor wheither this problem occurs when sending, receiving or both. A screen pic of the settings would help, just don't forget to blank out your login details.

Aquos76

The problem came back on Wednesday again, and this time instead of doing a restore, I uninstalled Norton internet security and when I restarted the PC all was fine. I have now installed zonealarm as a Firewall and I am using AVG 7.1 professional edition and all seems to be fine.

I tried to do as Tom suggested about pinging servername, I did get a response from this, but when I went to the Firewall settings, it was not blocking outlook or port 25. I then decided to uninstall and see where that got me.

Since using AVG though, after its first full system scan, it picked up two trojons on my system which Norton never picked up.

So it looks like that the problem lay with Noton.

Thanks for all the top advise lads.

MunsterCycling

Have heard of lots of probs like this with Norton, surprising they are still in business.