What are your server settings?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1336913

Are you trying to connect through a non-WOW network?

1. No, I am not trying to connect through a non-WOW network (as far as I know).

2. Regarding the link you posted to previous issue I was trying to resolve in the past SENDING emails, so far I have not resolved that and that has been on my to do list every day recently but I hadn't focused on it. That was only a problem sending. Eventually everything will send after many attempts or sometimes it sends fine on first try. After trying various suggestions from this forum I also got several sets of instructions from my email provider, WOW, but none of them worked perfectly. Even the recommended one still had issues so I reverted back to what the settings had been. So I need to focus on that also to get to the bottom of that issue. But at least it works, even though it is a time waster when having to retry multiple times at times before it will send. However RECEIVING emails on the desktop stopped today. I can send and receive fine using WOW web mail.

3. Here are the server settings in Thunderbird. (for the POP Mail Server) None of this has ever changed as far as I know:

Server Settings Server Type: POP Mail Server Server Name: pop3.mail.wowway.com Port: 110 User Name: (my user name)

Security Settings Connection security: STARTTLS Authentication method: Normal password

Server Settings (checked yes) Check for new messages at startup (checked yes) Check for new messages every 10 minutes (checked yes) Automatically download new messages (not checked) Fetch headers only (checked yes) Leave messages on server (checked yes) For at most 14 days (checked yes) Until I delete them

Message Storage (not checked) Empty Trash on Exit Message Store Type: (greyed out: File per folder (mbox) Local Directory: C:\Users\acerlaptop\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\sz1lakmd.default

The recommended settings shown in the other topic suggest the security should be 'none' on port 110 for the incoming POP server with authentication = password, transmitted insecurely and User Name = email address.

OK, thanks I'll try that. Although I wonder why the settings I have had for years have been working fine until today for receiving email. (or perhaps it stopped sometime last night sometime after 7:50 PM). Has there been an update to Thunderbird in the last day or so?

Bingo, that worked for receiving the messages on the desktop! Now I am going to look closer and see what needs to be done to remedy that issue I have had for months of not being able to SEND emails first time every time, but rather having to retry over and over and come back later to retry, etc. before they will send.

Check the Updates History in Preferences/General.

For the outgoing, try smtpauth.mail.wowway.com on 587, connection security = none, authentication = password, transmitted insecurely, User Name = email address. If that doesn't work, try port 25.

Regarding updates history, the last one was October 23rd, so nothing recent like last night. Maybe there is no relation to that and new behavior as of last night.

I made the update to the SMTP server you advised. And initial testing indicates that it is working the way it should! (that is emails are sent when the send button is clicked, rather than getting a time out error.)

I am cautiously optimistic, and will wait a day or so before declaring total victory, since when working on that issue 5 months ago it looked to be corrected initially but then stopped working correctly. However if that is the case currently, I also have your suggestion to change to port 25 as another step to take in effort to resolve the issue.

Regardless, thank you so much for your swift and knowledgeable help!!!!!

Hmmm. maybe not out of the woods yet regarding sending emails. They send right away now, which solves the problem of not always going immediately due to time out errors. However, now when I send messages to my wife's yahoo email account they are blocked. The connection will not be accepted from the IP address "because the ip is in Spamhaus's list..." So now I get that message after making the changes to the smtp settings. I am not entirely clear whose IP address is being blacklisted, but I think that is my provider, not myself, but need to better understand that. Before making the smtp settings change I didn't get that message, although my emails would go into my wife's spam folder in the past. Now they fail.

I see this on Spamhaus's web page regarding why a 553 error may occur:

"Outbound Email policy of The Spamhaus Project for this IP range

This IP address range has been identified by Spamhaus as not meeting our policy for IP addresses permitted to deliver unauthenticated 'direct-to-mx' email to PBL users.

Important: If you are using any normal email software (such as Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.) and you are being blocked by this Spamhaus PBL listing when you try to send email, the reason is simply that you need to turn on "SMTP Authentication" in your email program settings. For help with SMTP Authentication or ways to quickly fix this problem click here."

According to that I need to turn on SMTP Authentication in my program settings. Is there some setting I should change? Should I first try using port 25 as suggested earlier? ...I guess not, at least I read on spamhause.org not to do. "Is the port number in use correct? For SMTP Authentication to function correctly, the port should be 587 or 465, not 25."

I see this on Spamhaus's web page regarding why a 553 error may occur:

"Outbound Email policy of The Spamhaus Project for this IP range

This IP address range has been identified by Spamhaus as not meeting our policy for IP addresses permitted to deliver unauthenticated 'direct-to-mx' email to PBL users.

Important: If you are using any normal email software (such as Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.) and you are being blocked by this Spamhaus PBL listing when you try to send email, the reason is simply that you need to turn on "SMTP Authentication" in your email program settings. For help with SMTP Authentication or ways to quickly fix this problem click here."

According to that I need to turn on SMTP Authentication in my program settings. Is there some setting I should change? Should I first try using port 25 as suggested earlier? ...I guess not, at least I read on spamhause.org not to do. "Is the port number in use correct? For SMTP Authentication to function correctly, the port should be 587 or 465, not 25."

You are already sending authenticated mail (password, transmitted insecurely), at least as far as wowway is concerned, but the error from Yahoo might instead be due to sending on a non-secure connection. There's no setting you can change, as wowway doesn't offer alternatives. One way to work around the limitations of a legacy provider is to add an account with e.g. gmail and set the wowway account to send through the authenticated and secure gmail smtp server. By adding the wowway account as a registered sender in gmail webmail settings, the recipient sees the messages as sent from the wowway account.

The security on port 587 is usually STARTTLS and on 465 it is SSL/TLS. Authentication is a separate setting, but what they imply is that for it to work 'correctly', the security can't be 'none' as it is on port 25. Wowway doesn't offer STARTTLS on 587, whereas most up-to-date providers do, or they offer SSL/TLS on 465.

Thank you for that insight about the limitations of the WOW settings, and possible work around. Right now I cannot successfully send to a yahoo account, but I can send to a gmail account. Maybe you are right that the Yahoo 553 error about the IP being on the Spamhaus Policy Block List may be due to a different reason. (Even though the 553 error message seems to indicate the error is due to the ISP IP address being on the Policy Block List.) I had contacted my email provider, WOW, and the rep said they had been getting calls today starting at 11 AM about email problems and have been relaying that info to their engineers, and that there was an outage. I don't know if that is related to this "emailing to yahoo accounts" problem or not. It may explain why I couldn't receive email today until I changed my POP settings, since I don't know what else changed that would have stopped receiving email today. I'll check with WOW tomorrow and see if the "outage" they have had today (she gave me an outage number) is still an open issue or has been resolved. And if resolved if that clears up my email problem or not.

Regarding the explanation that "Wowway doesn't offer STARTTLS on 587, whereas most up-to-date providers do, ..." From what I see WOW does offer STRTTLS on 587. Am I misunderstanding something?

When I look at Tools>Account Settings>Outgoing Server (SMTP) and click edit, the Connection Security field drop down has 3 options: None or STARTTLS or SSL/TLS. Right now it is "None" and as a result the Authentication Method field results in "Password, transmitted insecurely" If changing the Connection Security field to "STARTTLS" the Authentication Method field results in "Normal password" If changing the Connection Sercurity field to SSL/TLS the Authenitcation Method field results in "Normal password"

I provided a link to wowway settings in my 2nd reply:

https://www.wowway.com/sites/default/files/2021-05/pop-imap-settings.pdf?sfvrsn=78ffdfaf_6

If they offer STARTTLS on 587, it's not documented on their site.