Eircom email server

tombrown

Hi

I have Sky broadband, but still retain my eircom email account. I have outlook setup for thsi & have been succesfully using it for the last 2 years. Since last Wednesday I have stopped receiving emails, though I can still send them. I get a timeout error (0x8004210A)

Have there been some changes to the eircom incoming mail server that I need to make. Currently I use incoming server webmail.eircom.net. and POP3 port 110

my3cents

Check you AnitVirus, disable it then try and download your mail with the old settings. I had the latest AVG free block my mail for a week or two before I spotted what was going on. Can't be sure of the issue as I have just reloaded my main system and its working fine with latest AVG free?

tombrown

unfortunately that doesnt work

my3cents

Can you telnet to the mail server? You might need to load telnet as Windows doesn't always have it by default. Then Run>CMD>telnet webmail.eircom.net 110
If you don't get a response then your email client (outlook) won't either.

tombrown

Tried that -

COS window went blank, and then, after about 60 seconds I get

+OK POP3 Ready 78.16.122.128 0001ac5e

Used USER & PASS commends to login & got

+OK Server Ready

Then logged out using QUIT

What next?

my3cents

tombrown wrote: »

Tried that -

COS window went blank, and then, after about 60 seconds I get

+OK POP3 Ready 78.16.122.128 0001ac5e

Used USER & PASS commends to login & got

+OK Server Ready

Then logged out using QUIT

What next?

That means you can can connect to the mail server and from your current IP address which is the one listed.

That tends to indicate a problem with Outlook

tombrown

The thing is - I have my own & my wife's eircom email accounts on the same PC (separate Windows logins) and my wife's account on a separate PC and they all fail the same. But they were all working up until last Wednesday

Accessing email via the net works OK, so the accounts are fine

my3cents

tombrown wrote: »

The thing is - I have my own & my wife's eircom email accounts on the same PC (separate Windows logins) and my wife's account on a separate PC and they all fail the same. But they were all working up until last Wednesday

Accessing email via the net works OK, so the accounts are fine

While the telnetting to the server proves you can make the connection have you done something as simple as restarting your router recently?

tombrown

my3cents wrote: »

While the telnetting to the server proves you can make the connection have you done something as simple as restarting your router recently?

Actually, yes. We had a lightening storm last week & had to restart the router after that - and that woudl probably coincide with the problem

I just rebooted it & unfortunately the problem persists. All other connectivity is fine (web, outgoing email server, my work VPN & email etc). Is there something I should be checking in the router config now?

my3cents

tombrown wrote: »

Actually, yes. We had a lightening storm last week & had to restart the router after that - and that woudl probably coincide with the problem

I just rebooted it & unfortunately the problem persists. All other connectivity is fine (web, outgoing email server, my work VPN & email etc). Is there something I should be checking in the router config now?

I've come across stranger things happening after lightening so I'd be considering a new router do a factory reset on it first.

If you want further tests then you can check if you are logging on to your mail server correctly with a really old mail client that still works with Eircom (just tested it to be sure) "Popcorn" get it at http://download.cnet.com/Popcorn/3000-2367_4-10048048.html only a 150kB download. Installing it won't mess up your outlook but might download your email so check it online (webmail) first. Configure an email address and see if that works? On the mail settings page I think unchecking the safe download and delete check box leaves the mail on the server.

my3cents

Forgot to say Popcorn keeps a small log of the last 100 lines of actions (Action log 8th button along on the menu) which give a little more info if things don't work.

tombrown

my3cents wrote: »

Forgot to say Popcorn keeps a small log of the last 100 lines of actions (Action log 8th button along on the menu) which give a little more info if things don't work.

Thanks for the advice; here's an update :-

I downloaded & used popcorn per suggestion, and it still fails to receive email. The error dialog that appears states "Popcorn has timed out while waiting to receive data from the POP server"; the command log shows "CONNECT: Connected to host webmail.eircom.net" at 18:39:51 and then "POP REPLY : Server command/data-receive timeout" at 18:40:54

So it seems I connect to the email server OK, but it times out the request to receive email.

Couple of other things I checked :-

1) I connected the laptop via a hotspot on my mobile phone & got the same results (should rule out a router issue)
2) I checked the kids' email on the laptop (they have Gmail accounts), using Outlook, and that worked OK

Alun

tombrown wrote: »

Tried that -

COS window went blank, and then, after about 60 seconds I get

+OK POP3 Ready 78.16.122.128 0001ac5e

60 seconds is waaaay too long, and is probably what is causing the timeout.

The eircom mail server is attempting a reverse DNS lookup on your IP address and is failing. You may have received a different IP address recently if you've rebooted your router for whatever reason for which Sky have not (yet) created a host name.

78.16.122.128 above is your IP address, and if I do a nslookup on it (using either the UPC or Google DNS servers) it returns it as unknown.

When I telnet to the same server from my UPC connection it comes back immediately with the same response but with a host name in place of my IP address.

You could try and escalate it with Sky, but if I were you I'd just reboot my router and see if you can pick up a new IP address that returns a valid host name and then leave it on 24/7.

tombrown

Alun wrote: »

60 seconds is waaaay too long, and is probably what is causing the timeout.

The eircom mail server is attempting a reverse DNS lookup on your IP address and is failing. You may have received a different IP address recently if you've rebooted your router for whatever reason for which Sky have not (yet) created a host name.

78.16.122.128 above is your IP address, and if I do a nslookup on it (using either the UPC or Google DNS servers) it returns it as unknown.

When I telnet to the same server from my UPC connection it comes back immediately with the same response but with a host name in place of my IP address.

You could try and escalate it with Sky, but if I were you I'd just reboot my router and see if you can pick up a new IP address that returns a valid host name and then leave it on 24/7.

Thanks, but I have rebooted the router a few times in the last 24 hours & no joy

Alun

tombrown wrote: »

Thanks, but I have rebooted the router a few times in the last 24 hours & no joy

Did you get the same IP address each time? If so, try leaving it switched off for a good while before switching it on again.

If it's really waiting 60 seconds every time to return the Ready response there's definitely something wrong.

tombrown

Alun wrote: »

Did you get the same IP address each time? If so, try leaving it switched off for a good while before switching it on again.

If it's really waiting 60 seconds every time to return the Ready response there's definitely something wrong.

No it looks like i have a different IP address - the one on the router config page is 78.16.x.y (not the same as the one above)

I can give the full IP address, just not sure how wise that is on a public board

tombrown

tombrown wrote: »

No it looks like i have a different IP address - the one on the router config page is 78.16.x.y (not the same as the one above)

I can give the full IP address, just not sure how wise that is on a public board

However - do note I had the same problem (with Outlook) when connecting via a hotspot on my phone; which would have an IP address within the Vodafone domain, so not sure that is the issue.

Admittedly I haven't tried telnet with my phone as the hotspot, as it requires me to drive 15 minutes form home to pickup a decent 3G signal :S

Alun

Ah OK, didn't see that. It'd be really unlucky if both IP address ranges were giving the same problem.

If you telnet to the server as you did before and then once logged in do a LIST or STAT command what does it say?

tombrown

Alun wrote: »

Ah OK, didn't see that. It'd be really unlucky if both IP address ranges were giving the same problem.

If you telnet to the server as you did before and then once logged in do a LIST or STAT command what does it say?

STAT returns :-

+OK 306 10784718

LIST returnes two columns of numbers, the first column is integers up to 306 (I assume it starts at 1, but can only scroll back to 9, which is, I assume, the max the telnet session buffer can hold); the second column are (seemingly) random 4 or 5 digit numbers

Alun

That looks OK then. You have 306 unread messages totalling about 107 MBytes! The figures in the second column for the LIST command are the lengths of each individual message in bytes.

The RETR command followed by a number will retrieve that message and print it. Does that work, i.e. RETR 1 ?

tombrown

Alun wrote: »

That looks OK then. You have 306 unread messages totalling about 107 MBytes! The figures in the second column for the LIST command are the lengths of each individual message in bytes.

The RETR command followed by a number will retrieve that message and print it. Does that work, i.e. RETR 1 ?

Yup RETR worked

Then BINGO! I went into my email account settings & changed the server timeout to 4.5 minutes (from 1 minute) and outlook started working again, albeit painfully slow to get going.

I am not sure if it receives real time email, or if I have to pull it using send/receive, but at least I am up & running (after a fashion).

It looks like the problem is on the eircom server ... not sure what I can do about that

Alun

Yep, there's something odd about that 60 second pause at the beginning. BTW I tried it tethering to my phone, also on Vodafone, and it worked perfectly with no delay.

If you try to look up your current IP using nslookup in a CMD prompt what happens?

swoofer

I checked who is my ip and it worked ok for that ip. And have you tried logging in using the eircom webmail facility. You might have a full inbox.

And have you any other email addresses that are working? I have seen this problem with eircom mail in lots of postings. You could check sky as well as they may have a ban on using other email clients that are web based.

Alun

OK, should have said above that you should use eircom's DNS servers in the nslookup, i.e : 213.94.190.194 or 213.94.190.236 as eircom's mail servers should be using their own DNS.

If I do that here your original IP gives a timeout after 2 sec (standard value for nslookup) whereas using UPC or Google gives an immediate error. Maybe that's the difference, i.e. the mail server is doing the lookup but with a 60 second timeout instead and it's that that's upsetting Outlook.

tombrown

@Swoofer - I have two separate eircom email accounts (my own & my wife's) and they both have the same issue (that only started occurring a week ago), so I dont think its down to an oversized inbox. I have checked both via the web too. Also as I had the same issue using a tethered phone (i.e. not with Sky BB) I doubt it is Sky blocking it (unless they somehow link the fact I am using Sky for outgoing email and Eircom for incoming ... :S)

@Alun

Tried the nslookup - wasnt sure which order to put my IP and the Eircom server IP, so tried both, but with the same results :-

DNS Request timed out.
Timeout was 2 seconds
Server : unknown
Address : 213.94.190.236

(With my IP replacing the eircom IP when I swapped the order)

shanec1928

Have you tried using mail1.eircom.net instead of webmail.eircom.net?

Avada

shanec1928 wrote: »

Have you tried using mail1.eircom.net instead of webmail.eircom.net?

Just about to say this, mail1.eircom.net is the incoming server, webmail is the outgoing one.

tombrown

According to eircom (http://support.eircom.net/article/e-mail-settings) :-

Mail server type: POP3
Incoming mail server: webmail.eircom.net
Outgoing mail server*: mail1.eircom.net

Nevertheless I tried mail1, and get identical results

Gadgetman496

Having the same issue with all my eircom address for a little over a week now.

It's hit and miss with me, sometimes it works & others it gives this guff.....

Alun

Random_Name wrote: »

Just about to say this, mail1.eircom.net is the incoming server, webmail is the outgoing one.

No it isn't, it's the other way around.

You can also use the much more logical smtp.eircom.net for the outgoing server, they both resolve to the same IP address.

Alun

tombrown wrote: »

Tried the nslookup - wasnt sure which order to put my IP and the Eircom server IP, so tried both, but with the same results :-

DNS Request timed out.
Timeout was 2 seconds
Server : unknown
Address : 213.94.190.236

(With my IP replacing the eircom IP when I swapped the order)

You need to set eircom's DNS to be used for DNS lookups within nslookup. Just enter nslookup /? to get a brief summary of the command line options, but to look up a host using a specific DNS server other than your default one it's ...

nslookup host server

Try using 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) for the server field, you should get a different result, i.e. an immediate failure rather than a timeout.

tombrown

What I did was

nslookup myIP 213.94.190.226

and

nslookup 213.94.190.226 myIP

from your description the first one was the correct one to use & gave the results shown. I can try the Google one tonight when I am back home

Alun

Yes that's right, although it should be .236 (assume that as a typo )

I've just checked my own IP with both eircom DNS servers and it also gives a timeout, although when I telnet to webmail.eircom.net it comes back immediately with the correct hostname in the Ready reply. Very odd.

tombrown

Yup it was a typo

Suspect an eircom issue, especially given gadgetman's comment ... maybe they got the lightening strike

Sundance_Kid

Hi

Seem to be having a similar issue receving emails since last Friday.

Have an eircom.net email address - always accessed via Microsoft Outlook on desktop pc.

Until 3/4 weeks ago was with Eircom broadband but moved to Sky broadband.

Anyway left incoming server as pop.eircom.net and outgoing server now at smtp.tools.sky.com.

Issue is that emails dont come in until the next day or a few hours later and the send/receive bar is always "in progress" when it comes to receving mail.

Rang Sky on Sunday and the IT guy said they had a few people with eircom email addresses with the same issue.
Said he would ring back later which he did saying they didn't know when it was going to be fixed.

Still having the same issue.

Is it eircom/sky or whose issue?

tombrown

Pretty sure it is an eircom issue, as the kid's gmail works fine on Sky, plus i see the same issue whether I connect on my Shy broadband or via Vodafone 3G.

BTW - I assume you figured out the need to configure your outlook to login to the Sky outgoing server using a separate Sky email address? That one got me for ages when I first moved over

Sundance_Kid

tombrown wrote: »

Pretty sure it is an eircom issue, as the kid's gmail works fine on Sky, plus i see the same issue whether I connect on my Shy broadband or via Vodafone 3G.

BTW - I assume you figured out the need to configure your outlook to login to the Sky outgoing server using a separate Sky email address? That one got me for ages when I first moved over

Are eircom customers with eircom email addresses having the same issue?

Is it worth posting in the Talk to...Eircom section of the site?

Yes had to set up a Sky Yahoo email address to ensure emails were set up correctly - luckily after a couple of days I rang Sky and spent 45 mins on phone with IT setting it up. Nightmare.Wouldn't have copped it on my own.

my3cents

I remember now setting up email for a mate who moved to sky and it was a pain (OMG mention of smtp.tools.sky.com brought it back to me). I also remember that while their eircom email would eventually download if the PC was left on all day any attempt to download mail by clicking Send/Receive in Outlook failed with a time out.

So I think Alun is right about the reverse DNS lookup failing leading to the time out.

tombrown

Sundance_Kid wrote: »

Are eircom customers with eircom email addresses having the same issue?

Is it worth posting in the Talk to...Eircom section of the site?

Done - http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057391107

kippy

Might be worth setting up a gmail account and setting up gmail to pull in your Eircom mail.

java

OP

Sky need to set up reverse DNS on the ip addresses they are giving out. There is none for 78.16.122.128.

Presume if you are a Sky BB customer you are using their outgoing mail server to send. You won't be able to use the eircom one.

tombrown

java wrote: »

OP

Sky need to set up reverse DNS on the ip addresses they are giving out. There is none for 78.16.122.128.

Presume if you are a Sky BB customer you are using their outgoing mail server to send. You won't be able to use the eircom one.

It is not a SKY problem. I see the same issue when connecting via VF 3g. plus the email was working fine until a week ago

It works now, in that it connects to the eircom email server & downloads the email, its just it takes so long that it times out with the default timeout set to 60s. Resetting it to 270s fixes the problem, albeit with a frustrating delay

Alun

tombrown wrote: »

It is not a SKY problem. I see the same issue when connecting via VF 3g. plus the email was working fine until a week ago

It is partly Sky's fault though in that if they had bothered to allocate DNS names to their client IP addresses the problem wouldn't occur. I've also just checked my phone and it appears that VF actually issue a private IP address to phones, in the 10.x.x.x range, presumably some kind of proxy, and these will never resolve against a public DNS server either, so I imagine that's why the same thing is happening there.

However, there's clearly something odd about the way the eircom mail servers are attempting to do the initial reverse DNS lookup on connection which is causing an enormous timeout to occur, rather than just returning an immediate error.

I'm on UPC, and have no problems with any of the 3 eircom email accounts I still have at all.

java

tombrown wrote: »

According to eircom (http://support.eircom.net/article/e-mail-settings) :-

Mail server type: POP3
Incoming mail server: webmail.eircom.net
Outgoing mail server*: mail1.eircom.net

Nevertheless I tried mail1, and get identical results

The rest of that url says:

*Note: If you are NOT using an eircom net connection, you MUST use your internet provider's own SMTP

presumably you are using the Sky smtp outgoing server?

Alun

java wrote: »

The rest of that url says:

*Note: If you are NOT using an eircom net connection, you MUST use your internet provider's own SMTP

presumably you are using the Sky smtp outgoing server?

His problem is with receiving mail, not sending it!

BTW mail1 used to also be the POP3 server for the old-style email accounts before they migrated to their new email infrastructure.

tombrown

Yes my email is setup correctly, including the SKY server for outgoing email & all the complications of having to login to the SKY server using a SKY email address.

As I said this was working flawlessly a week ago, so do you guys think SKY decided to remove "reverse DNS" last Wednesday?

XxMCRxBabyxX

I'm not sure that this is necessarily a sky issue. We've been having problems with our eircom email on our eircom broadband since last week. I haven't tried the fixes here yet but will give them a go tomorrow

Sundance_Kid

tombrown wrote: »

Done - http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057391107

I see someone from Eircom and another user responded to your post - he said it is Sky's issue.

There is a Talk to... Sky as well on here

Will give it a day or two and may contact Sky on here and link them to the threads.

tombrown

I am really not convinced it is a SKY issue - other folks are now reporting the same issue at other ISPs in both this thread & the Ask Eircom one; plus, as I said, gmail works fine using POP on Outllok via Sky

Alun

tombrown wrote: »

As I said this was working flawlessly a week ago, so do you guys think SKY decided to remove "reverse DNS" last Wednesday?

No. I think it's a change on the eircom side in the way they're doing their reverse DNS lookups.

Just toe be sure, I take it when you connect via telnet as we discussed earlier that it's only the establishment of the initial connection that takes ages? I.e. all the other commands, USER, PASS, STAT, LIST, RETR etc. come back instantly? If so, it can only be a DNS issue as far as I can see.

tombrown

Thats correct - connection takes forever (couple fo minutes is forever in my book ), after that the response are instantaneous

Similarly on the email connection with Outlook - once the incoming email starts downloading it comes in quite quickly (as normal) its just there is a 2-3 minute pause when I open Outlook or hit Send/Receive before it starts.