Error: Sending failed... smtp.upcmail.ie timed out.

OzCam

I'm new to this forum, so apologies if this question is in the wrong place.

My friend is having trouble with sending emails. The messages actually are sent, but an error message pops up saying that sending failed and the message remains in the Outbox.

Sending of message failed.
The message could not be sent because the connection to SMTP server smtp.upcmail.ie timed out. Try again or contact your network administrator.

Receiving emails works fine. Sending email from both an iPad and iPhone on the same WiFi network works ok.

Thunderbird Version 12.0.1
Windows XP (fully patched up to date)
Dell 3100c with 2Gb RAM, 4 years old

Nice chap in UPC Support tried to help but couldn't identify the problem. We agreed that it looks like a handshake problem, i.e. the SMTP server and the client not agreeing that the message was sent, but that's as far as we got.
Broadband modem is the new white, flat, wide one with two aerials, not the EPC2425.

I've tried asking in the Broadband forum, no replies.

Can anyone help?

unkel

Instead of using smtp.upcmail.ie, did he try using smtp.ntlworld.ie?

The latter works fine for me

OzCam

smtp.upcmail.ie is what UPC told us to use when we converted to UPC from eircom. It worked fine for several weeks, and stopped working properly for no reason I can find.

There were no changes made on the PC around the time it stopped working properly (mails actually are sent, but stay in the Outbox). I don't know whether any changes were made at the UPC end. I assume it's possible that the user's mailbox was moved from one server to another or that something was updated.

I'll try smtp.ntlworld.ie and see whether it makes any difference. Thanks for the suggestion.

unkel

And please report back. Good luck

Alun

They're both the same, i.e. they both resolve to the same IP address, so it seems unlikely that there would be a difference.

Name: smtp.ntlworld.ie
Address: 213.46.255.2

Name: smtp.upcmail.ie
Address: 213.46.255.2

Alun

There's a method for enabling logging of SMTP (and POP and IMAP) traffic in Thunderbird which may reveal what's going on. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Session_logging_for_mail/news

OzCam

I hoped that UPC might be doing some load balancing or routing behind the IP address, but it makes no difference. Same problem: TB says message sent, progress bar cycles for while (in the meantime the message has arrived at it's destination) and then TB times out with the error message.

I'll try that logging suggestion, thanks. It might give some pointers as to what's going on.

Alun

OzCam wrote: »

I'll try that logging suggestion, thanks. It might give some pointers as to what's going on.

At level 5 it gives some pretty detailed information, so hopefully you'll get some joy. Let us know how you get on.

Alun

Did you get anywhere with this?

OzCam

No & it's turning into a headwrecker.

Same problem with Outlook Express. Tried it with the Windows firewall instead of the System Mechanic one. Tried it without any firewall. Only for a second, don't worry. Same problem.

A friend of the owner uninstalled Thunderbird, cleaned the Registry, reinstalled Thunderbird, set up the accounts again. Same problem.

Brought in a Mac laptop and tried using the same POP and SMTP accounts, worked perfectly.

Someone suggested that the firewall in the new UPC modem (Thompson?) might be implicated, so brought the PC to another address with UPC but the older EPC2545 modem. Same problem.

Anyone think the problem could be somewhere in the XP on that machine?

OzCam

Update:

Thunderbird works from the original address and the Thompson router using a Dell laptop. Both with & without the Iolo firewall.

So I think the problem's definitely in the PC somewhere.

I know I might be a bit late here, but nonetheless...

What anti-virus are you running? The AV's internal e-mail scanner could be interfering with outgoing e-mail.

OzCam

It's running the AV that comes with System Mechanic Pro from iolo.

We've tried it with the firewall switched off, but I don't recall if we've tried it without the AV. I'll give that a try tomorrow, but I know of many other PCs with the exact same setup and this is the only one reporting this problem.

Just to reiterate, the messages are actually sent; it's the process of the server and the client acknowledging the sending and moving the message from Outbox to Sent which is not working.

Alun

OzCam wrote: »

Just to reiterate, the messages are actually sent; it's the process of the server and the client acknowledging the sending and moving the message from Outbox to Sent which is not working.

In that case this is all a bit odd.

If you're using a POP3 setup, then copying the sent message from Outbox to Sent is a purely local process to your email client and has nothing to do with the network at all.

On the other hand if it's an IMAP setup, then copying the message to the Sent folder is an IMAP process, involving whatever server you have configured as your IMAP server, and the SMTP server again would have nothing to do with this.

OzCam

I'm sorry, I thought I explained pretty well what's going on earlier in the thread. Apologies if my last post wasn't clear.

POP is working just fine. I know enough about email to know that the client (Thunderbird) won't move the message from its Outbox folder to its Sent folder until it gets an ack from the SMTP server that the message was received for onward transmission.

The messages are sent to smtp.upcmail.ie and delivered on from there. What then happens is a timeout in the cleanup process of UPC and Thunderbird agreeing that the message was sent, so that the client marks it transmitted and closes the SMTP session normally.


(IMAP is not available as an option for this email address, I checked.)

Alun

OzCam wrote: »

POP is working just fine. I know enough about email to know that the client (Thunderbird) won't move the message from its Outbox folder to its Sent folder until it gets an ack from the SMTP server that the message was received for onward transmission.

Sorry, didn't read properly

Anyway, did you try the logging option for Thunderbird I mentioned above? It's well worth a try, with only smtp:1 as the option to start with, and maybe increase the logging level if you don't get too much joy. Level 5 will overwhelm you with info though.

Something like this in a .cmd file will do the job (shut down TB first) ...

@echo off
set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=smtp:1
set NSPR_LOG_FILE=%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\thunderbird.log
"%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe"

(replace "ProgramFiles" with "ProgramFiles (x86)" for 64-bit Windows 7)

Check to see if the SMTP server just doesn't give any reply back at all after the closing "." after the message body, or does it show an error or maybe a non-standard response that Thunderbird isn't accepting somehow.

The usual reply is a "250 ... mail accepted for delivery".