Can't send e-mail when traveling...

[BobT.]

Help! I must have some box checked somewhere that's causing this to happen
but I can't find what or where! I send and receive e-mails from my Outlook
application from my home network with ease. But if I travel - to Texas, to
North Carolina, to Illinois, to anywhere - and I am using someone else's
network (a hotel's, a restaurant's or even at my sister-in-law's home), I can
never send e-mails out of Outlook. I receive e-mails just fine in Outlook,
but I can't send them. My ISP at home is Charter. Of course I use whatever
ISP the hotels and restaurants and my sister-in-law may use when I'm
traveling. If I log on directly to my individual e-mail accounts on the
Charter Web site and I can send e-mails from there no matter who's ISP I'm
working on...but I can't send e-mail from Outlook. What do you think I'm
missing? I use Windows XP Pro SP3 as my OS and Office Outlook 2003 - big
Outlook, not Outlook Express - (11.8217.8221) SP3. I'm really frustrated by
this and want to send e-mails from Outlook (where I pull my several e-mail
addresses into in the first place)! Help please!

 

[VanguardLH]

Help! I must have some box checked somewhere that's causing this to happen
but I can't find what or where! I send and receive e-mails from my Outlook
application from my home network with ease. But if I travel - to Texas, to
North Carolina, to Illinois, to anywhere - and I am using someone else's
network (a hotel's, a restaurant's or even at my sister-in-law's home), I can
never send e-mails out of Outlook. I receive e-mails just fine in Outlook,
but I can't send them. My ISP at home is Charter. Of course I use whatever
ISP the hotels and restaurants and my sister-in-law may use when I'm
traveling. If I log on directly to my individual e-mail accounts on the
Charter Web site and I can send e-mails from there no matter who's ISP I'm
working on...but I can't send e-mail from Outlook. What do you think I'm
missing?

What is missing? The error message that is displayed when Outlook
complains about trying to use the specified SMTP mail host.

- Do NOT describe an error message.
- Do NOT summarize an error message.
- Do NOT paraphrase an error message.
- Do NOT truncate an error message.
- Do show the ENTIRE message (but munge/star out personal info,
like your username).

I use Windows XP Pro SP3 as my OS and Office Outlook 2003 - big
Outlook, not Outlook Express - (11.8217.8221) SP3. I'm really frustrated by
this and want to send e-mails from Outlook (where I pull my several e-mail
addresses into in the first place)! Help please!

Configure the e-mail account that you defined in Outlook to authenticate
to the SMTP mail host. You are off-domain when trying to use that SMTP
mail host. As such, it has no information to verify that you are
authorized to use it. So authenticate to it.

 

[BobT.]

VanguardLH - Unfortunately, I'm not traveling now and have never copied down
the error message. Will do so if this happens again in the future. But for
now, just how do I go about "authenticat(ing) to it" as you suggest?

 

[VanguardLH]

VanguardLH - Unfortunately, I'm not traveling now and have never copied down
the error message. Will do so if this happens again in the future. But for
now, just how do I go about "authenticat(ing) to it" as you suggest?

Go into the e-mail account that you defined in Outlook and configure it
to authenticate to the SMTP (outbound) mail host. I still use OL2002
and navigation through config settings may differ in OL2003, but finding
it should be really easy just by looking at the options available when
editing the e-mail account defined in Outlook.

 

[N. Miller]

Help! I must have some box checked somewhere that's causing this to happen
but I can't find what or where! I send and receive e-mails from my Outlook
application from my home network with ease. But if I travel - to Texas, to
North Carolina, to Illinois, to anywhere - and I am using someone else's
network (a hotel's, a restaurant's or even at my sister-in-law's home), I can
never send e-mails out of Outlook. I receive e-mails just fine in Outlook,
but I can't send them. My ISP at home is Charter. Of course I use whatever
ISP the hotels and restaurants and my sister-in-law may use when I'm
traveling. If I log on directly to my individual e-mail accounts on the
Charter Web site and I can send e-mails from there no matter who's ISP I'm
working on...but I can't send e-mail from Outlook. What do you think I'm
missing? I use Windows XP Pro SP3 as my OS and Office Outlook 2003 - big
Outlook, not Outlook Express - (11.8217.8221) SP3. I'm really frustrated by
this and want to send e-mails from Outlook (where I pull my several e-mail
addresses into in the first place)! Help please!

You are facing two potential issues:

Does the third party network you are using block port 25 outbound to
off-network SMTP message submission servers? If so, you will need to be able
to access your SMTP message submission server on an alternate port.

Does Charter allow connection to their SMTP message submission server from
outside of the Charter IP network? If not, and you attempt to connect from a
wireless hot spot with a non-Charter IP address, you will not succeed in
sending.

I am not sure that Charter will allow you to access their server as you
describe. Not all ISPs allow it.

 

[Robin TN Cyclist]

I had this problem with Outlook 2003 under Windows XP and found two
solutions. Sometimes the hotel where I was staying would actually know its
ISP and I configure Outlook 2003 to use that ISP's SMTP server. A more
elegant (foolproof) solution is to determine what ports your ISP wants you to
use from your notebook computer. My ISP is Comcast and by configuring the
ports for my POP and SMTP servers, I know longer have to rely on someone at a
hotel knowing their ISP or having that ISP provide an SMTP server. Good luck!