Vanity--trouble with Outlook 2003

My computer ^ | October 20 2008 | Me

[Fawn]

Hello....all of a sudden my Outlook 2003 will not download my emails from my Comcast.net server! I can send email to the server, but it will not retrieve it. I also have my Hotmail downloaded to my Outlook and that sends and receives with no problem. I am getting this error message from Outlook.

Anyone know what it could be? I shut down Zonealarm and it didn't help. Also, comcast has recently updated their online mail program like 2 days ago.

[library user]

Are you sure you're logged in?

Somebody had to say it!

[Kevmo]

Check your popmail settings. Your provider will change these without notifying you and you won’t be able to download emails. They would have their latest settings on their website. Just compare them to yours.

[Ramius]

As likely as anything... whatever server you’re on at Comcast is simply down. It happens.

[library user]

Did you try to disable any real-time anti-virus temporarily and see if that does the trick?

[vharlow]

Call them. 800-comcast.net and speak to the tech. This happened to me as well. They had sent me an email about a week before that my address had been a possible spam site, which was not true, and that I should change the port to a different number. I did that. Then after a while, it just stopped sending to me. I checked at the comcast.net site directly, and there was nothing there.

The tech told me that the email had been suspended but there was no reason for it at all, and he set it back to rights for me. Couldn't explain it either. Just apologized for it and fixed it up. Call them.

[library user]

Such as this? I found it by googling.

Duff 8/31/2008 12:38 PM PST

Comcast just started blocking me on port 25 on August 35, 2008. They want
the port changed to port 587, which works fine when sending mail from
comcast.net ONLY. They now block port 25 and port 587 when using any other
email mail server other than their own.

This is a new policy implemented by comcast and comes out the same week that
they have started limiting bandwidth of their heavy users.

[Fawn]

I talked to comcast and we walked through the settings....but he sounded like he was from India so I’ll just check to make sure....thanks...

[Fawn]

But I can send myself new mail and it shows up on their online email service.....could more than 1 server be involved?

[Kevmo]

That sounds like the changed settings to me. Did they tell you they were changing the settings?

[6SJ7]

But I can send myself new mail and it shows up on their online email service.....could more than 1 server be involved?

There are different servers for sending mail and receiving mail. Thus, you might be able to send mail, but not receive. Mail servers do flake out on occasion. Presuming you have not made any recent changes to your PC, it might be best to wait a day (or even a few hours) and try again.

[Fawn]

Ok....I’ll have to do that....I’ve done everythign I can think of....also I should of mentioned I have a router....but it works for everything else...why would it stop email from coming in from Comcast and not hotmail. So I’m hoping it’s their server problem....especially since they went to a new program for their online email...thanks...

[Fawn]

No...they just updated one online program for another....it just has to be their problem...I hope. Thx.

[Ramius]

Yes, they’ll possibly (or likely) have different servers for sending (smtp) and receiving (pop3). The people that said the address for the pop server may have changed... that’s entirely possible. Or the server may be down.

[Fawn]

The server information I have is: Incoming mail server is IMAP and the Outgoing mail server is SMTP. I don’t think it’s POP3?

[Ramius]

From here:
http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/faqdetails.ashx?id=2165

What are the Comcast Mail Server Settings?

The Comcast Mail server settings are as follows:
Outgoing mail (SMTP): smtp.comcast.net
Incoming mail (POP3): mail.comcast.net

[JamesP81]

It looks like, from the error message, that your Outlook 2003 is configured to retrieve mail using IMAP4 protocol, which is a little unusual but not unheard of either. If your Comcast email server is POP3, that would be a problem as far as downloading emails.

Also, comcast has recently updated their online mail program like 2 days ago.

That's probably your culprit. Something has changed with their email server settings and you'll need to re configure Outlook to work with those new settings. Without having the technical data in front of me on those settings, I can't tell you what to do. You'll have to call Comcast to get that information.

[qam1]

Bills Gates wants you to go to the crappy office 2007

The latest Windows F&^!@ Vista update totally screwed up my Office 2003

[Ramius]

IMAP is a little odd, but possible. They do appear to support both. According to another FAQ it appears that they use mail.comcast.net for either IMAP or POP mail.

[CriticalJ]

This doesn’t help with your problem. I am just posting it as aside that you can think about.

I ditched outlook and thunderbird. I use gmail for my roadrunner account (and several other web-based emails). It’s nice to be able to access my account from anywhere. Plus, you get 7+ gb of storage in the account.

I finally convinced my wife and best friend to do the same. Both can’t believe it took them so long.

Finally, you can set up gmail to leave the mail on the server so that you just check the mail, but your home computer can still be the final repository.

Good luck with the connection issues.