Troubleshooting email
From Online Business Wiki
Click on + to expand the category
Here you will find the troubleshooting steps that lead you through troubleshooting your email in case you can not send or receive mail or both.
If we host your email, these will be your details:
- POP3 or receiving server: mail.yourdomain.com (where yourdomain.com is your domain name)
- SMTP or sending server: mail.yourdomain.com
- Email address: you@yourdomain.com
- Username: you@yourdomain.com
- Password: password you have chosen when that account was created.
Contents |
Step 1 - Make sure that your have all the correct settings
Check user's email settings
You need to make sure that the email address you are adding to your email client is correct i.e. that it matches the email address in Admin -> Manage Users and also that you have a correct password. Most importantly you need to make sure that the POP is enabled for the address you are troubleshooting.
Check domain name settings
You need to go to Admin -> Manage Domain name and click on the domain name you are troubleshooting the the email address for and you have to make sure that you have the following options selected:
You need to have your domain name redelegated to us if we are hosting your email. If you are using external email provider please see hosting mail externally.
Step 2 - Check the MX record
To check the MX record you can use one of the DNS services. The most popular are:
In this example I have used http://member.dnsstuff.com/pages/tools.php to look up the MX record for catfishdesigns.com.au.
First, type in the domain name you want to look up and select MX from the type dropdown.
You will get the result that looks something like this:
In the above image you can see that mail. has been appended to the domain name a prefix. This will be the case with your domain name. Also, you will notice that the IP address that MX record points to is 203.134.157.115. That will be true for your case also.
If you are not getting the above values you need to make sure that you have added a domain name to the site in Admin -> Manage Domain Name (see Step 1) and you need to make sure that you have redelegated your domain name properly.
The above results only apply for those customers that are using us for their email hosting. Click here if you are using external email provider.
VIDEO - Looking up a domain name using dnsstuff.com[1]
Step 3 - Check if you can log in into webmail
A part of our email service is a webmail. Webmail allows you to send and receive email through your browser. You can log in into your webmail by opening your browser and typing http://mail.yourdomain.com (yourdomain.com is your domain name in this case) into the address bar and pressing enter.
You will then get the following login box in which you have to enter your email address and your password. Naturally, this email address needs to be the email address you have enabled POP for. Please see the Step 1 if you are not sure if you have enabled the POP for this email address or not.
Click the login button and wait until the webmail application loads. You should see the the screen like the one below this text. If you you can not see this screen and you have made sure that all the above steps are correct you need to contact the support team and pass your login details onto them for investigation.
If you can see the screen below, then please go to Step 4.
Step 4 - Check the settings in your email client
By the time you get to this step you should already know that you have the correct settings on your site in Admin -> Manage Domain Name, that the POP is enabled for your user account, that your domain name is properly redelegated, your MX record exists and points to the correct IP address, that you are able to login into the webmail with those account details. If you can not do these things then please go back to the previous steps.
Now you need to make sure that your email client is properly setup. Please click on the name of your email client below for instructions on how to set it up.
- Setting up Microsoft Outlook 2003
- Setting up Microsoft Outlook 2007
- Setting up Mail v3.2 for Mac
- Setting up Outlook Express
I can receive but CAN NOT SEND mail
If you can receive POP email but not send it, then it may be that the problem is related to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) blocking the access to our SMTP server. Some big ISPs, such as Australia's Bigpond and Optus are known to do this, but the practice is not uncommon. These are the precautions they take to prevent spam email being sent from their networks.
In this case please use your ISP's SMTP server for mail sending. Contact your ISP your to get your SMTP server's address, or visit their website and search for "setting up email." Once you have the correct details (it should be something like smtp.yourisp.com or mail.yourisp.com), you need to change the appropriate settings for sending emails in your favourite email client (Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird) and the problem will be resolved.
- Note: An alternative solution is to use SSL for your outgoing mail server. "mail.worldsecuresystems.com"
My E-mail Mailbox keeps going over its limit
Each mailbox in the system has a 100mb limit. If you tend to get alot of e-mail with attachments, then you may find this ends up filling up somewhat quickly. Here are some quick tips to help manage your mailbox size.
- If using Microsoft Outlook, turn on the autoarchive function. Experiment with the time settings to find what works for you best.
- If using Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc. create local folders and drag e-mails from your server inbox into these local folders to "archive" them. This will remove them from the server but keep them on your local machine.
- Setup your client to delete messages from the server after downloading them.
