MSN
Posted September 20th, 2003 @ 10:04pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I was attempting to set up a client's email account today, and he was having trouble. He connects via MSN dial-up, and though he could receive mail through his account (at his own domain, hosted on a server of mine), he could not send email. He kept getting a message about the server terminating the connection.
I've created his account on my machine, and my friend has on his (a Windows box), and we don't get this error. We changed his SMTP server to an MSN one (smtp.email.msn.com) and he got two errors (the first was that MSN was rejecting his FROM address, no surprise there).
What's required to send email through an MSN dial-up account with your own domain name/account? Specifically like this:
Name: Joe Schmoe
Email: joe@mydomain.com
POP: mydomain.com
SMTP: mydomain.com
Account: myaccount
Password: **********
If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. The client is using Outlook Express in Windows XP. The server authenticates when checking mail and adds the IP address to the list of allowed relays when a check is performed, so no password is needed to send mail - just a valid FROM address (one on the same server, which hosts multiple domains).
If you can help, please do. It's a 90-minute wait for MSN's tech support.
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Posted 20 Sep 2003 at 10:53pm #
I bet the SMTP server isn't even getting the connection. A lot of ISPs block access to third-party SMTP servers in an attempt to prevent their customers from sending bulk spam. I vaguely recall MSN being one of those ISPs, but I could be wrong.
Posted 20 Sep 2003 at 11:01pm #
That was my guess, and also why we tried using smtp.email.msn.com (an SMTP server turned up by a Google search). If they're going to block him, they suck. But the again, what else can I expect from MS?
Posted 20 Sep 2003 at 11:05pm #
I had a similar problem with my folks' G4 Cube using the local telco's DSL -- my Mom couldn't send messages with her address using SBC's mail servers, and didn't know her password for her school's SMTP server, which required auth -- but she couldn't wait for school to begin again to start sending outgoing mail.
My folks were rockin' OS 9 then, so I put SIMS [free] on their machine, made it a startup item, and edited its Allowed IPs list to include only its local address. Then I directed Eudora to use it as its SMTP server, and told my Mom to make sure SIMS was running whenever she tried to send messages [she's had a computer for a while, that kind of thing is easy for her to do, thank goodness].
We upgraded my folks' machine to Jag a couple of weeks back, and she hasn't reported any problems, but if she does, I'll probably just install Postfix or qmail and repeat the above.
I know it's probably not the solution you were looking for for your client, but it's better than saying "can't help ya, buddy."
Posted 20 Sep 2003 at 11:07pm #
Right, doesn't help at all given that the guy is on XP. 🙂 But thanks for the info!
Posted 21 Sep 2003 at 12:04am #
MSN is probably blocking port 25 the same way Earthlink does. He could use his domain's SMTP server using port 2525, that's the way some hosts (pair Networks, notably) get around the problem... i.e. smtp.domain.com:2525 or whatever.
Posted 21 Sep 2003 at 9:50am #
It sounds like they are blocking port 25, and they are also not allowing a "From:" header that does not have a MSN address in it.
Have you tried using his MSN account instead of his domain in the "From:", and does that work? If so, you could try using that and setting the "Reply-To:" header. It isn't the cleanest solution, but most e-mail clients will be able to deal with it properly.
The other thing you might be able to do (not sure if LookOut supports this) is set up an SMTP server on a different port (say 2525). Also, SMTP over SSL is usually run on port 465, so if you can set that up, his mail client should be able to deal with that.
Or he can get a more decent ISP. But that's more of a long term solution. I use an ISP called Panix and highly recommend them (a shell account will get this guy everything he needs, and he can still use MSN as his local dialup).
Hope this helps.
Posted 05 Nov 2003 at 5:53am #
I'm using msn 6.0 . But there's some problems... I can't use my webcam, the screen turns black in the "webcamwindow" . And i think its becuse im behind a server. Its a server using windows98.
Think it can help if i know what port msn use.
Posted 28 Dec 2003 at 11:02pm #
i need help trying to down load msn and msn 6 i have no clue what to do...please help me
love
me
Posted 24 Apr 2004 at 8:04pm #
i want an msn addess.