Some Outlook Express (6) help.

[Kael]

Hello all.

I've been trying to find this all over the place, but with no success. I have the following problem:

A friend uses an earthlink email account that resulted from an earthlink internet connection established at his parents' house. He's now moved in with me a state away from home and his email won't send at all from outlook express, and only receives some of the time, stating for both:

"The connection to the server has failed. Account: 'his_account',

Server:'mail.earthlink.net', Protocol:SMTP, Port: 25 [or 110, depending on direction], Secure(SSL): NO,

Socket error: 10061, Error Number: 0x800ccc0e"

He's got winXP sp2 on a standard toshiba laptop (probably about 3 years old), and i'm running the house on a low-security wireless network.

the really weird thing is that,when he goes home, he can connect fine. i assume that it had to be because earthlink didnt detect their connection, so i tried some telnet experiments (and i dont know much about that at all, so id gladly try some more), and i found that i can connect to the earthlink mail server from any other computer on the network using "telnet mail.earthlink.net 25," but not on his. it says simply, "cannot connect to server...." i did a netstat -an, but it didn't show port 25 (or 110) at all. however, i did the same thing on my own windows machine (which does connect to the mailserver through the telnet method), and my netstat listing is almost identical to his.

i just can't figure out how to make ports 25 and 110 available on his computer, or why they wouldn't be available to begin with.

by the way, i've also tried "opening" port 25 on his windows firewall (though i haven't a clue as to why that would really do anything), but i haven't tried messing with his antivirus software yet, because it's out of date and i'm not sure it's even running anymore (dangerous, i know). if the problem is in his computer (with ports and such), why does it work when he's at home?

any help is appreciated.

-kael

[Scarecrow Man]

Let me see if I understand this, because I have a similar problem...

He can connect to the Mail at home, while connected via EarthLink. He cannot connect to the mail from anywhere, connected to a different service (another service provider).

I have the problem as follows:

I have Sympatico dial-up.

If I am connected via dial-up or my home network which shares the dial-up connection. I can send and recieve e-mails.

If I am connected to my school network, a friends wireless, or any other server. I can only recieve.

I believe what is happening is Sympatico, or in your case EarthLink, is using some type of filtering mechanism to block external proxies or IP addresses.

I was told by one of my professors, that he had to use a VPN to connect to his home network to be able to send e-mails.

Perhaps your friend should contact EarthLink and see if there is something he can do about this. Another suggestion, does EarthLink provide WebBased e-mails? If so, you should be able to send and recieve from there just fine.

Hope this helps

[Hex]

To open the required ports id take a look at this.

(Taken from Microsof windows help online)

Click Start, and then click My Network Places.

2. Under Network Tasks, click View Network Connections. (Or, right-click My Network Places on the desktop, and then click Properties.)

3. Right-click the connection that you use for the Internet, and then click Properties.

4. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings.

Note If the Settings button is unavailable, ICF is not enabled on this connection, and you do not have to open any ports (because they are all already open).

5. Click Add to open a new port.

6. In the Description box, type a friendly name. For example, type File Sharing : Port 445.

7. In the Name or IP address of the computer hosting this service on your network box, type 127.0.0.1.

Note You can specify the IP address of an internal computer. But you typically will use 127.0.0.1.

8. In the External port and Internal port boxes, type the port number. Generally, this number is the same.

9. Click either TCP or UDP, and then click OK.

10. Repeat steps 1 through 9 for each port that you want to open.

[Kael]

i tried the above procedure and i still couldn't telnet it. it produced the same errors - nothing changed at all.

scarecrow man:

what i don't get is that, when i telnet from a similar windows machine on the same network, i can get through to earthlink fine. i type "telnet mail.earthlink.net 25" in a command prompt and get a message indicating an extremely limited connection (but a connection nonetheless). when i do this same thing on my friends computer, it simply says "could not establish a connection to mail.earthlink.net." nothing more. if earthlink was denying access based on connection, then i shouldn't be able to get through on my computer, by i can.

any more ideas anyone? i suppose we'll have to get on with tech support.... 3 hours down the drain to establish that, yes, i'm running windows xp. i love tech support. wish me luck!

-love kael