Unable to authenticate to SMTP server...again

[scotter]

Im having problems again authenticating to outmail.f2s.com to send emails.

I have a customer with ten email address :-

ancol01area-example@f2s.com
ancol02area-example@f2s.com
ancol03area-example@f2s.com
ancol04area-example@f2s.com
ancol05area-example@f2s.com
ancol06area-example@f2s.com
ancol07area-example@f2s.com
ancol08area-example@f2s.com
ancol09area-example@f2s.com
ancol10area-example@f2s.com
(remove -example for the real addresses).

all except 08 and 09 can send and receive email. 08 and 09 can only receive email, authentication fails when sending email.

Running my trusty SMTP testing script again here are the results :-

Username : area01ancol-f2s-com
Password : XXXXXXXX

*** TESTING PLAIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth plain XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
<<< 235 #2.0.0 OK Authenticated
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk


*** TESTING LOGIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth login
<<< 334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
>>> YXJlYTAxYW5jb2wtZjJzLWNvbQ==
<<< 334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
>>> YW5jb2wwMWFyZWE=
<<< 235 #2.0.0 OK Authenticated
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Username : area08ancol-f2s-com
Password : XXXXXXXX

*** TESTING PLAIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth plain XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
<<< 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
***** ERROR AUTHENTICATING ***** : 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk


*** TESTING LOGIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth login
<<< 334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
>>> YXJlYTA5YW5jb2wtZjJzLWNvbQ==
<<< 334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
>>> YW5jb2wwOWFyZWE=
<<< 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
***** ERROR AUTHENTICATING ***** : 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Username : area09ancol-f2s-com
Password : XXXXXXXX

*** TESTING PLAIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth plain XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
<<< 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
***** ERROR AUTHENTICATING ***** : 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk


*** TESTING LOGIN AUTHENTCATION ***
>>> EHLO relay.spectrumcs.net
<<< 250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
<<< 250-8BITMIME
<<< 250-SIZE 33554432
<<< 250-STARTTLS
<<< 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
<<< 250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
>>> auth login
<<< 334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
>>> YXJlYTA5YW5jb2wtZjJzLWNvbQ==
<<< 334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
>>> YW5jb2wwOWFyZWE=
<<< 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
***** ERROR AUTHENTICATING ***** : 535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed
>>> quit
<<< 221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The two accounts that fail always seem to pause for exactly one second at the "auth plain" command, before responding with "535 #5.7.0 Authentication failed".

Yesterday I've tried resetting the password via the F2s members area and waiting until 9.30 today (which was a waste of time as I know the passwords right as I can collect email ok!) to no avail.

I've seen this problem time and time again with many of my customers email accounts and usually a call to F2s support magically solves the issue (although they always claim they didn't do anything!) but today I was told to reset my password (which I've already done!) and wait until 9.30am (which I did yesterday!).

Why is it that this keeps happening? I can't be the only reseller experiencing this surely? I'm convinced the SMTP servers authentication mechanism is timing out , hence why there's always an exact one second pause.

[scotter]

I've just tested an account that's working with an incorrect password and I get a one second pause. Maybe the pause is irrelevant?

[Justin]

If your on an F2S ADSL line turn off authentication, as it's not needed:
email down?

[scotter]

The users not on the F2s network, they're connected via Vodafone mobile internet.

Regardless or weather or not authentication is required, it should still work!

[Antonio_f2s]

I had a look for you and all those addresses are not in our system.... can you PM me the account name?

[keithm]

I'm getting an SMTP error from Thunderbird:

"Sending of message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to SMTP server outmail.f2s.com failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your SMTP server settings are correct and try again, or contact the server administrator."


- this is an account that has been working for (literally) years, and just stopped at the weekend. I realised I was running an older version of Thunderbird, so updated to see if that would fix it but it hasn't (it fails in either 2.x or 3.x).

I've also double-checked my settings - I did have a username on the outgoing authentication set, but I've unchecked that box to no avail - it's still not working. I don't have SSL set.

I'm on my home ADSL connection into F2S, so not sure what could be wrong - is anyone else having problems?

Receiving mail (via IMAP) is working just fine.

Keith.

[Antonio_f2s]

Hi Keith,

At the moment we are not experiencing any mail server issues and I can authenticate with my own account and with tests accounts.

Are you able to telnet into the server and then try an auth login?

[keithm]

I'm not at home at the moment - and I'm not familiar with the right syntax to type in to a direct SMTP session but if you tell me what to type I'll give it a go later..

Thanks for the response,
Keith.

[Antonio_f2s]

Hi Keith,

Before trying to telnet could you please make sure that you check the port for the outgoing mail server in Thunderbird? Please make sure that the port is set to 25.

If the port is correct and you stil experiencing problems connecting to the outgoing server then :

1.- open a command prompt.

2.- type telnet outmail.f2s.com 25

You should get the response below:

Trying 212.74.114.25...
Connected to outmail.f2s.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk ESMTP

3.- type ehlo freedom2surf.net

You should get the response below:

250-smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
250-8BITMIME
250-SIZE 33554432
250-STARTTLS
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250 AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN

3.- Type auth login.

You should get the response below:

334 VXNlcm5hbWU6

4.- Now you need to encode your username. You could use http://www.webpan.com/Customers/Email/base64_conversion.htm

5.- Type the encrypted Base64 Username.

You should get the response below:

334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6

6.- Now you need to encode your password. You could use http://www.webpan.com/Customers/Email/base64_conversion.htm

7.- Type the encrypted Base64 Password

You should get the response below:

235 #2.0.0 OK Authenticated

8.- Type quit

You should get the response below:

221 smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
Connection closed by foreign host.

[keithm]

Thanks Antonio - looks like something fairly fundamental is wrong:

C:\Documents and Settings\keithm>telnet outmail.f2s.com 25
Connecting To outmail.f2s.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port 2
5: Connect failed


.. just for info I thought I'd check DNS:

C:\Documents and Settings\keithm>nslookup outmail.f2s.com
Server: th-cache-1.ns.uk.tiscali.com
Address: 212.139.132.5

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: smtp.f2s.tiscali.co.uk
Address: 212.74.114.25
Aliases: outmail.f2s.com, server0011.freedom2surf.net


.. and my DNS/gateway settings:

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 212.139.132.5
212.139.132.21

- unless there's something wrong with my DNS, I can't understand what's going on here..

Note: IMAP is working just fine, as is webmail - my internet connection appears otherwise to be just fine, it's only SMTP..

Thanks for your help,
Keith.

[keithm]

OK this has to be something localised to my PC - I just tried the same thing on my laptop and it's working fine. Maybe it's an errant virus scanner or something.

Sorry for wasting your time
Keith.

[keithm]

Yep, if I stop my virus scanner scanning outbound emails it all works.. *sigh*..

Thankfully I'm switching to a shiny new iMac shortly, so that, at least, should be less of an issue.

Keith.

[Antonio_f2s]

I am glad that you managed to sort it out