Intermediate Mail Delivery Error 0x800ccc0e

G

Guest

We are a small office running Outlook 2000 on a XP, 2000 Pro and Win 98. Another user is running Entourage on their Mac and is not having this problem - which makes me think it is Outlook related

After an initial boot-up or re-starting Outlook e-mail is downloaded normally. After an indefinite period, every machine receives the error "Unable to connect to the server. (Account: 'Account Name', POP3 Server: 'mail.mailservername.com', Error Number: 0x800ccc0e)." I have multiple e-mail accounts and the error occurs sometimes on single or multiple accounts, across a wide variety of mail hosts. All outgoing e-mail sends fine

The only way to clear the problem in the short term is to restart the machine or Outlook. This is not only very frustrating, for a small business, but I have also tried every possible avenue to solve the problem. My ISP, domain host, firewall manufacturer and anti-virus publisher have all checked and verified that everything is fine with their part of the chain and no-one else has complained.

However, it seems that several other users have posted an identical problem to ours on this discussion group (D Wilson on 12/15 for one) and nobody from Outlook Development has managed to provide an answer yet - why is this? I believe that this problem began after installing an Outlook security update, which Confused and Dazed also thought was the problem on his post of 11/15

Can someone at Microsoft please look into this and reply to myself and other sufferers of this annoying problem? A patch to solve this is desparately needed

Your

Frustrate
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

When one of your machines starts hitting this problem, could you try
telnetting to the POP3 server from that machine? To do so, start a command
prompt and type (without the quotes) "telnet mail.mailservername.com 25",
where mail.mailservername.com is the full name of your POP3 server. If
telnet fails to connect, the problem is somewhere in your network, not in
Outlook (the fact that all the network-related vendors said it wasn't there
problem doesn't mean it isn't - this is typically either a firewall or
anti-virus problem). If you can connect with telnet and Outlook continues
to have this problem, we'll try doing some Outlook diagnostics.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


Frustrated said:
We are a small office running Outlook 2000 on a XP, 2000 Pro and Win 98.
Another user is running Entourage on their Mac and is not having this
problem - which makes me think it is Outlook related.
After an initial boot-up or re-starting Outlook e-mail is downloaded
normally. After an indefinite period, every machine receives the error
"Unable to connect to the server. (Account: 'Account Name', POP3 Server:
'mail.mailservername.com', Error Number: 0x800ccc0e)." I have multiple
e-mail accounts and the error occurs sometimes on single or multiple
accounts, across a wide variety of mail hosts. All outgoing e-mail sends
fine.
The only way to clear the problem in the short term is to restart the
machine or Outlook. This is not only very frustrating, for a small business,
but I have also tried every possible avenue to solve the problem. My ISP,
domain host, firewall manufacturer and anti-virus publisher have all checked
and verified that everything is fine with their part of the chain and no-one
else has complained.
However, it seems that several other users have posted an identical
problem to ours on this discussion group (D Wilson on 12/15 for one) and
nobody from Outlook Development has managed to provide an answer yet - why
is this? I believe that this problem began after installing an Outlook
security update, which Confused and Dazed also thought was the problem on
his post of 11/15.
Can someone at Microsoft please look into this and reply to myself and
other sufferers of this annoying problem? A patch to solve this is
desparately needed.
 
G

Guest

Dear Jeff

Thanks for responding. I have tried telnet while getting the error message and it appears to connect. Please advise of your progress on diagnostics.

Kind regards

Adam
 
G

Guest

Dear Jef

My apologies - please ignore the previous post to your reply. The error has come up on a few other accounts. When I try to telnet them they fail to connect on port 25. What would you recommend as the course of action that will solve this problem

Thank

Adam
 
G

Guest

Dear Jeff

I have uninstalled the antivirus software and disabled the firewall and the problem is still occurring.

3-com who manufacture our firewall said that the fact that it works on the Mac and initially when we boot up, it is extremely unlikely to be the firewall. The firewall will either block everything or nothing.

As our problem gets progressively worse, i.e. more e-mail accounts produce an error message, then this would also point to a software issue.

I've tried telnet and pinging the pop accounts; they can all be pinged when there is an error message, and one fails intermittently with Telnet.

Can you look into this?

Thanks

Adam
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

I'm afraid that there's not a lot I can do to help - I have yet to encounter
an instance in which Outlook is the cause of this problem. From Outlook's
standpoint, it just gets the IP address of the server (from DNS) and tries
to connect; the error results from not being able to establish the
connection. Two possibilities to look into:

1) There may be some bad DNS A records for the server to which you're
trying to connect - if Outlook is given an invalid IP address for the
server, it will fail to connect. Perhaps the intermittance comes from
round-robinning through a set of A records, some of which are bad.
2) Do you have proxy servers between you and the Internet? At one point
here at Microsoft, I was having a problem similar to yours. The cause was
that a few of the proxy servers here were blocking port 25, and I'd
periodically connect to one of those servers.

The cause of your problem is at the network level, not in Outlook. Good
luck in tracking it down!

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


Frustrated - read this one said:
Dear Jeff

I have uninstalled the antivirus software and disabled the firewall and
the problem is still occurring.
3-com who manufacture our firewall said that the fact that it works on the
Mac and initially when we boot up, it is extremely unlikely to be the
firewall. The firewall will either block everything or nothing.
As our problem gets progressively worse, i.e. more e-mail accounts produce
an error message, then this would also point to a software issue.
I've tried telnet and pinging the pop accounts; they can all be pinged
when there is an error message, and one fails intermittently with Telnet.
 
G

Guest

Dear Jef

I have looked into this further and consulted two independent IT professionals neither of whom think that the fault lies with DNS A server records. For starters the Apple Mac is able to receive e-mail without a problem and it is connecting through the same network / firewall to the same mail servers as everyone else. The only difference is the Pop mail software being used on the Mac is Entourage, whilst on the PCs it is Outlook

Also, I access five different e-mail accounts from three different mail servers run by completely different companies. After 10 years of using e-mail with a pop3 mail package like Outlook, all of a sudden the mail servers of three different companies have miraculously become corrupted at exactly the same time and are causing a mail delivery error across 7 pcs using a variety of Win 98, Win 2000 and Win XP

I'm afraid your response is not satisfactory. I believe that one of the recently downloaded updates from Microsoft has caused this problem. I would appreciate it if you could look into this further and make some concerted effort to solve this infuriating problem. Our business efficiency is severely suffering and no-one is taking responsibility

Your

V. F. Frustrated
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

I totally understand your frustration, but if (as you said in a previous
post) you can't telnet to port 25 of the server when this occurs, the
problem lies outside Outlook. While I know the POP3 and SMTP code for
Outlook, I don't know how to go about determining what is blocking that
port - I'm not even close to being a networking expert. I'm not sure of the
best place to turn for help on that - I've offered up the usual suspects
(firewalls and anti-virus) that we've seen in this forum, but beyond that
I'm essentially clueless. Sorry.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


Frustrated said:
Dear Jeff

I have looked into this further and consulted two independent IT
professionals neither of whom think that the fault lies with DNS A server
records. For starters the Apple Mac is able to receive e-mail without a
problem and it is connecting through the same network / firewall to the same
mail servers as everyone else. The only difference is the Pop mail software
being used on the Mac is Entourage, whilst on the PCs it is Outlook.
Also, I access five different e-mail accounts from three different mail
servers run by completely different companies. After 10 years of using
e-mail with a pop3 mail package like Outlook, all of a sudden the mail
servers of three different companies have miraculously become corrupted at
exactly the same time and are causing a mail delivery error across 7 pcs
using a variety of Win 98, Win 2000 and Win XP?
I'm afraid your response is not satisfactory. I believe that one of the
recently downloaded updates from Microsoft has caused this problem. I would
appreciate it if you could look into this further and make some concerted
effort to solve this infuriating problem. Our business efficiency is
severely suffering and no-one is taking responsibility.
 

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