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General discussion

Outlook quit working properly this morning

Mar 6, 2005 11:14PM PST

In our office, everyone's Outlook started acting screwy this morning. Three of the people in our office are unable to receive email through Outlook, and two of us are unable to send. Everything was working fine yesterday, but today it's all messed up. Every time we try to send or receive (depending on who's trying to do it), we are prompted for our password, and no matter what we type into the prompt, the password prompt pops right back up again.

We are able to access the server through our web mail, but we are not able to access it through Outlook.

Anyone know if there's something going around that might cause this? Did one of our Microsoft updates possibly break our Outlook functionality? We are all using Windows XP SP2 (we've been on SP2 for a while now, so it's not that), and some of us are using Outlook 2000 and others are using Outlook 2003.

Any thoughts? I've contacted customer support for our hosting package as well, but since it seems to be a problem specific to Outlook, I'm doubting that it has to do with our host.

I should note that the other three accounts I have configured in my Outlook are working just fine (and two of those accounts are hosted by the same provider that's hosting our main account).

Discussion is locked

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It's Not Exclusively Outlook
Mar 7, 2005 12:41AM PST

I have now discovered that the problem must have something to do with our SMTP server. It turns out that our users were not having trouble receiving messages over the POP server, they just thought they were. The real problem with them also was with the SMTP server.

I also tried sending a test message using Thunderbird, and it came back with the same problem that Outlook had.

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Just sharing.
Mar 7, 2005 1:12AM PST

Some ISPs are implementing a new policy of blocking SMTP outbound messages. It is a common source of spam.

If you have your own SMTP server, you may have been shutdown.

Bob

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Re: Just Sharing
Mar 7, 2005 1:32AM PST

Thanks for the info. I have now determined that this must be a problem with our host, so I have contacted tech support again, this time with an urgent priority rating. I guess if that's what it is, they'll let me know soon enough.

Because this turned out not to be a software issue, the admins/mods of these boards can close or delete this topic if so desired.

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Not a software issue
Mar 8, 2005 3:29PM PST

Finding out that something like this is NOT a software issue is just as helpful as finding out that it is, Curt. I hope they don't delete it.

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I won't be the one to delete it.
Mar 8, 2005 8:54PM PST

The story is useful and gives others clues when this happens to them.

Bob