Email problems

vorlon24 · 13-01-2005, 16:35

I am having problems trying to send an email with a 2mb attachment. I called Tiscali and all they did was give me another telephone number to call to check basic settings.

I don't know about you, but I object to calling an 0906 number to check basic settings, settings that have not changed in months, when these same settings have been sending files as large as 10mb!

The error message I am receiving is as follows:

Quote:

Task 'Andy (Armchair) - Sending' reported error (0x8004210B) : 'The operation timed out waiting for a response from the sending (SMTP) server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem might be?

The only thing that has changed is that I have upgraded my Auntie Virus on Monday, so I am wondering whether this is the cause of the problem.

I don't want to turn it off and try and send it as I am being attacked (or viruses are being detected) every few minutes.

Any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated

entwisi · 13-01-2005, 17:30

This sound like it could be one of a few things.

First check that small emails go OK. If not then it is likely to be a firewall issue. You can check that you can connect to the email server(SMTP is the protocol used to send email, POP is what is used to collect it) by trying to 'ping' it. In a MSDOS box type 'ping smtp.xxxxxxx.com' where this is the server name you have in the settings. You should get a reply. If it times out then there is a general connection issue.

If connectivity is there then the next thing to do is check you can logon to the server. I can do this for you if you like as it is a bit more involved than most non techies would probably want to get into. Or I can talk you through it over MSN.

If it failed to ping then I would start considering the local machine settings. Check that you haven't changed any other settings (SP2 for example is known to change quite a few settings).

What ISP settings are you using and what ISP are you sending to? Try sending something to me. My email addy is in my profile. Depending on these you could actually take Tiscali out of the loop by running your own SMTP server. There is a very good one for Windows called Mercury32.

Let me know how you get on with checking the things above.

Ian