Email Set Up - Common Problems
So, you've logged onto your computer, as normal, opened your e-mail program, just like you do every day, and it's not working. You've checked your settings, and everything seems to be correct, and you can't remember changing anything, but you still can't send or receive e-mail. Why?
There are a wide range of things which can cause problems with e-mail, so this is by no means an authoritative guide, but below is a checklist of the most common e-mail problems we've encountered over the years:
Incorrect Settings
You'd be surprised how often we see this. You can be as careful as you like, but often a small typo or a trailing fullstop will prevent you from receiving your e-mail. Therefore, it's always a good idea to double-check your settings. We've provided guides to do this for most common e-mail programs here
Even if you're sure you haven't changed anything, it's best to check things, as other programs or users can often modify your mail settings without your knowledge
AntiVirus / Firewall Problems
AntiVirus programs and firewalls are wonderful things. They protect you from a wide range of Internet nasties, and give you a certain level of confidence when logging on.
However, these programs, like anything, are not perfect. As well as blocking viruses and hackers, they are capable of blocking legitimate traffic - such as your e-mail.
Therefore, if you're unable to receive e-mail, you should always check your firewall to make sure port 110 (incoming e-mail) and port 25 (outgoing e-mail) are not blocked.
It's also a good idea to check AntiVirus settings, and even to briefly disable e-mail scanning as a test - if you still can't send or receive once e-mail scanning has been disabled, you can confidently rule it out as being a problem. Obviously, you'll need to excercise caution when doing this, but the risk of infection when performing a test of this kind is minimal.
If you're unsure of how to check/disable settings in your AntiVirus, you should check with the company which produces them. Many AntiVirus companies have support guides on their websites. We have provided links to a few of the more common ones below:
E-mails with large attachments
This is a problem which relates mainly to dial-up customers rather than those with broadband connections.
Imagine trying to push an elephant through an average sized funnel. In fact, go and try it. Not so easy, is it? This is about the equivalent of trying to pull down a 5 MB e-mail using a 56 kbps dial-up connection. Not only are you attempting to pull a large file down a small 'pipe', but the longer you stay connected to the mail server, the more chance there is that your mail program will time out and the transaction will be terminated.
The obvious solution to this problem is to upgrade to broadband , but of course this isn't an option for everyone. If you are attempting to download your e-mail and you experience lengthy delays and/or timeouts when downloading, you can logon to ICONZ Webmail and check whether there are any large e-mails waiting in the queue.
If you don't need the e-mail, you can delete it and solve the problem. If you do need to receive the attachment, you can attempt to download it from our Webmail site, which is often more reliable than using your e-mail client, and allows you to track the progress of the download using your web browser
If you have any questions or issues which aren't covered here, please don't hesitate to give us a call on 0800 THE NET (843 638 ) - option 3 - or e-mail (if you can) help@iconz.net and we'll be happy to help.