email not sending from Outlook 2003

[Dennis]

I can't send any email since 12/28. Receiving fine. Server email is working
fine. I've uninstalled Norton as per their instructions. I did a system
restore to a week before the problem started. My last update for Outlook 2003
was on 11/12, much before problem started. For the last several days I've
tried much of what has been discussed on forums, but nothing is working.
Windows XP Home Edition.
BTW, I noticed that I have some Office 2007 updates installed starting
earlier in the year, but I don't have Office 2007 installed under the heading
"Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system". Don't know why they're
there. Should I remove them?
Thanks

 

[Peter Foldes]

12\28 ?? Which year. It reads like Dec 28 which is not upon us yet. Was it last year
?

Update was on 11\12 ??? Come on guy get things into perspective

Post back with correct info and not mumbo jumbo as you just did

 

[VanguardLH]

I can't send any email ...

How do you know that you can't send e-mail?


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reproduce it.

 

[Dennis]

Sorry for the typo, meant 11/28/2009, last Saturday since Outlook stopped
sending. Last Outlook update date 11/12/2009.
Dennis

 

[Dennis]

I found about a dozen emails, some written on Saturday, in my Outbox on
Sunday 11/29/2009. I've since kept them in the Draft folder. To be more
specific, that's where they went when I closed Outlook. I have tried sending
just a few of them every time I make a change, but they're still there.
I also checked by sending an email to another address of mine; it didn't
arrive. And again, I'm receiving emails just fine.
thanks

 

[VanguardLH]

I found about a dozen emails, some written on Saturday, in my Outbox on
Sunday 11/29/2009. I've since kept them in the Draft folder. To be more
specific, that's where they went when I closed Outlook. I have tried sending
just a few of them every time I make a change, but they're still there.
I also checked by sending an email to another address of mine; it didn't
arrive. And again, I'm receiving emails just fine.
thanks

Is "there" the Drafts folder where you moved the e-mails? They don't get
sent if they are in that folder. When you send, the e-mail goes into the
Outbox folder. If it doesn't go into the Outbox folder then it won't get
sent.

Is Outlook configured to send immediately? If not, Outlook isn't going to
send until its next scheduled mail poll (if you left the scheduling enabled
to poll every N minutes). If Outlook is not configured to send immediately
and you exit Outlook before it is scheduled to run its next mail poll, just
how is Outlook going to send the e-mails if it is no longer running? If you
don't send e-mails immediately or you defer them to send later then Outlook
has to be running so it can send them at the next mail poll or when they are
deferred to send.

When they are in the Outbox folder and you do a mail poll (by hitting the F9
key or using the toolbar button), do they disappear from the Outbox folder
(and, by default, get moved into the Sent Items folder)? Or do you get an
error message? Or does the mail poll finish but the items remain in the
Outbox folder? If they remain in the Outbox folder, do the recipients still
receive a copy of those e-mails that you were trying to send?

Yet tried disabling the e-mail scanning feature of your anti-virus program?

 

[Dennis]

Is "there" the Drafts folder where you moved the e-mails? They don't get
sent if they are in that folder. When you send, the e-mail goes into the
Outbox folder. If it doesn't go into the Outbox folder then it won't get
sent.

Is Outlook configured to send immediately? If not, Outlook isn't going to
send until its next scheduled mail poll (if you left the scheduling enabled
to poll every N minutes). If Outlook is not configured to send immediately
and you exit Outlook before it is scheduled to run its next mail poll, just
how is Outlook going to send the e-mails if it is no longer running? If you
don't send e-mails immediately or you defer them to send later then Outlook
has to be running so it can send them at the next mail poll or when they are
deferred to send.

When they are in the Outbox folder and you do a mail poll (by hitting the F9
key or using the toolbar button), do they disappear from the Outbox folder
(and, by default, get moved into the Sent Items folder)? Or do you get an
error message? Or does the mail poll finish but the items remain in the
Outbox folder? If they remain in the Outbox folder, do the recipients still
receive a copy of those e-mails that you were trying to send?

Yet tried disabling the e-mail scanning feature of your anti-virus program?
.

Dear VanguardLH,

Recipients do not receive a copy. As I said, I've sent emails to another
(AOL) address of mine as a test. They remain in the Outlook Out Box. The
AOL account didn't get any. I've also not gotten any indication from other
addressees that they've received my emails to them. These emails are not in
the "sent items" folder.

For 100% of the time before this incident, emails stayed in the Out Box only
briefly unless there was an attachment. Yes, Outlook is configured to send
immediately. There are no attachments in the current emails.

To recap what I've already stated, I've tried sending one or two of the
emails in the Drafts folder at a time, either by opening and sending, or
placing them into the Out Box and hitting "send all" from the menu. The bulk
are in the drafts folder until I resolve this problem. I'm well aware that
they'll stay there unless I open them and click "send". Since Sunday, when I
discovered the problem, I've attempted to send emails in the Out Box by
either hitting "send" from the email itself or clicking "send all" from the
menu. I've repeated this several times a day.

As I stated before, but perhaps not clearly enough, I've removed Norton Anti
Virus software from my computer. I haven't re-installed. And just in case
you missed it, I did a system restore to two weeks back, about a week before
the problem started.

Thanks for your patience. I've checked for typos, I hope I haven't included
any "mumbojumbo", and that I've answered all your questions clearly.
Dennis

 

[Peter Foldes]

Any error message (s) shown? Are you scanning your emails (in and outgoing) with
your AV

 

[Dennis]

Peter,
As I stated earlier, I've uninstalled Norton Antivirus software from my
computer. I have not re-installed it. There is no other Norton product
installed.
Before Saturday, Norton and Outlook were a happy couple.

When I do a test, here's the send test email message that I get:
"The specified server was found, but there was no response from the server.
Please verify that the port and SSL info is correct........"
The other message is:
"Outlook could not connect to the outgoing mail server (SMTP). The problem
could be the server neam or port, or your server may not support SSK. Verify
......"
Thanks for asking, but I'm only guessing that everything is
correct/verified, since I haven't changed anything.
Dennis

 

[VanguardLH]

As I stated before, but perhaps not clearly enough, I've removed Norton Anti
Virus software from my computer. I haven't re-installed.

Sorry, I missed that you UNinstalled the Norton product(s) (and presumably
anything else that interrogates your e-mail traffic). To ensure that all of
Norton's stuff is off your computer, Symantec has a cleanup utility to
ensure all remnants of their software get uninstalled. Rather than dig
around Symantec's web site, I just did a Google search and found:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/Norton-Removal-Tool.shtml

If you don't want to get the copy from Softpedia, their download page has a
link to Symantec's FTP server to get the removal program.

Since you never mentioned seeing an error message, I'll have to assume there
never has been an error message during an send operation.

At this point, you might have to enable the troubleshooting logs in Outlook
to see what gets listed in the mail session between it and the mail server.

Defining a new mail profile might work, too.

 

[VanguardLH]

"The specified server was found, but there was no response from the server.
Please verify that the port and SSL info is correct........"
The other message is:
"Outlook could not connect to the outgoing mail server (SMTP). The problem
could be the server neam or port, or your server may not support SSK. Verify
....."

So did you configure the e-mail account defined within Outlook to use SSL?
Does the mail server support or demand the use of SSL to connect to it? You
need Outlook to match the settings used by the mail server. If the mail
server doesn't support SSL then you can't use it in Outlook. If the mail
server supports SSL and *if* you choose to use it then you need to use the
correct port. When SSL is supported, a different port is used to listen for
those SSL-enabled connections. If the mail server demands that SSL must be
used to connect to it (e.g., Gmail) then you must enabled SSL in the e-mail
account that you define within Outlook.

If SSL is being used, the time on the client and server must be with a
minute, or so, of each other. The handshaking involved before an SSL
connection is established has a timestamp within it. That handshaking will
expire if it takes too long. If the clock is off on either the client or
server (actually if the time is too different between client and server)
then it makes appear that the handshaking has expired and the session is
aborted. Check the clock on your host has the correct time and the timezone
is correct.

 

[Dennis]

Well, I ran that Symantec cleanup utility, and the result was the same,
unable to send emails. I also made sure that SSL was unchecked, and it was,
always has been. HOWEVER, for the outgoing server (SMTP), I changed the
number to 2525 from 25, and, for now, it's working again. Very strange. If
you can illuminate me as to what happened there, how the number might have
changed on its own, I'm all ears.

So, I'll be re-installing Norton Anti Virus (nothing else), and we'll see
what happens. Any warnings I should pay attenion to when re-installing
Norton AV?
Thanks again for your suggestions.
Dennis

 

[VanguardLH]

Well, I ran that Symantec cleanup utility, and the result was the same,
unable to send emails. I also made sure that SSL was unchecked, and it was,
always has been. HOWEVER, for the outgoing server (SMTP), I changed the
number to 2525 from 25, and, for now, it's working again. Very strange. If
you can illuminate me as to what happened there, how the number might have
changed on its own, I'm all ears.

So, I'll be re-installing Norton Anti Virus (nothing else), and we'll see
what happens. Any warnings I should pay attenion to when re-installing
Norton AV?

Looks like Norton change the port so your e-mail client would connect to
their local proxy. I have never heard of an e-mail provider using port
2525. So Norton changed your e-mail account settings but didn't change them
back when you uninstall it. Reinstalling Norton will probably have it alter
your account settings again so e-mail traffic goes to their local proxy.
However, most AV programs no longer interfere in this manner and instead use
a transparent proxy to intercept your e-mail traffic. That means your
account settings in your e-mail client are not altered, especially since the
AV programs only understand a few common e-mail apps to know how to change
their account settings. Is this a really old version of Norton, like on or
before 2003? That was the last time I used Norton stuff and, as I recall,
they had already switched to using a transparent proxy.

By the way, while port 25 might work, many ISPs and e-mail providers are
changing to port 587. Port 25 was meant only to communicate between MTAs
(mail transfer agents, like SMTP mail hosts), not for MUAs (mail user
agents, like your e-mail client). Back in 1999 an RFC was ratified to
change MUAs to use port 587. ISPs and e-mail providers have been slowly
migrating to that recommended port number. Also, many ISPs will block
traffic over port 25 since trojan mailbots on infected hosts use that port.
So check if your e-mail provider also listens on port 587. If they haven't
yet switched, they will eventually. As always, you have to match on
whatever settings your e-mail provider tells you to use.

 

[Dennis]

It's Norton AV 2009, staying on top of updates. Now I'm remembering I may
have had a similar problem a few years back with McAfee on another system.
I'll ask my email provider if port 587 is OK. I'll let you know what
happens after I install Norton AV.
Thanks, Dennis