$%)(&^ email problem
Last night, I was emailing away, everything was working fine, and then an email I sent came back with an error; my Macintosh Mail program couldn't log on to the ranchocurioso mail server. The server no longer likes the password.
So, for now, I can read email, but I can't easily send it (I can, but it involves an icky web interface).
I tried another computer, same problem.
I checked Doni's email account, she can send just fine (same machine and setup, different account and password).
I re-entered the password at both ends (client and server), no fix.
I opened a service ticket with ranchocurioso's web host; we'll see what they say.
So if I don't reply to email for a couple of days, you know why!
Whether such a problem is mine or (often) an acquaintances, don't assume I fix things!
Just because I'm a software engineer doesn't mean I'm an information technology troubleshooter. I like programming (and even debugging software), but I really hate troubleshooting these kind of problems.
So, for now, I can read email, but I can't easily send it (I can, but it involves an icky web interface).
I tried another computer, same problem.
I checked Doni's email account, she can send just fine (same machine and setup, different account and password).
I re-entered the password at both ends (client and server), no fix.
I opened a service ticket with ranchocurioso's web host; we'll see what they say.
So if I don't reply to email for a couple of days, you know why!
Whether such a problem is mine or (often) an acquaintances, don't assume I fix things!
Just because I'm a software engineer doesn't mean I'm an information technology troubleshooter. I like programming (and even debugging software), but I really hate troubleshooting these kind of problems.
posted by Jim at 8:13 AM
7 Comments:
I fixed the email problem, but it involved lots of experimenting, ultimately deleting and re-creating my account on Mac Mail, then importing all my old messages (which I had saved before deleting the account), guided by a helpful person at Apple Support.
Now I have to do it again on the other computer. I still don't know what triggered it.
Jim,
I've had that same sort of problem and a couple of things did work without all the deleting and recreating.
Sometimes my mail client (granted I'm on pc but ya never know what works with both and which doesn't) refuses my stored password. So I shut down the mail client and open it back up again. For some reason this works most of the time.
The next step if it doesn't is to close out everything and restart the entire machine. Then restart your mail client and see if that sets things a-right again.
LOL, I know this assumes it's on your machine rather than the server but it's worth a try, easier to try than all that saving and recreating.
Hi Vivage,
Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I left out lots of steps (I worked on this problem for about 4 hours), but one of the first things I did was restart the client and then reboot the machine. I also did that after every step that failed, since I can't be sure of what the mail software or the operating system are caching in memory. It turned out to be on my machine, but I'm still mystified why the problem hit on both machines at almost the same time. If it were running Windows, I'd suspect a virus. But I don't know of any Mac viruses that come close to doing anything like reconfiguring mail accounts (yet).
Check this out: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/electronic-threats/dn6576
Might just be a good idea to see if your machine has been hit. Maybe you've logged onto to both machines as Administrator?
Oh yeah, and I should have known you'd have done all the research before you had to call into tech support. :-)
Wow, Virginia,
thanks for the heads-up on that virus.
Turns out the problem wasn't on both machines, I must have gotten confused somehow. But anyway, just to be on the safe side, I've installed a virus scanner (clamX; freeware) from the Apple site. No infections so far.
I hope you never ever get a worm, virus, malware, any of that nasty stuff.
Glad you have some defenses up just in case tho. :-)
I looked into that virus a little more, and the security hole that it exploited has been closed.
Thanks again for your help, V.
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