[mixin visuals]

lately sending mail with Mail is giving me something like "couldn't open port 25" or something.

what can i do to correct this

[mixin visuals]

can anyone help me with this?

[car1son]

Port 25 is used for SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) connections, which is used by almost all mail clients to send eMail, including Mail. This just means the Mail application couldn't connect to the configured SMTP server.

Possible reasons that come to mind:

You SMTP server is down or busy.

You have the wrong SMTP server address configured in Mail's Accounts (possibly your service changed the value, or the account setting was changed?).

You need to use authentication when connecting to your ISP's SMTP server.

You are trying to connect to an SMTP server that doesn't accept connections from outside its own "trusted" network.

You are trying to connect to an SMTP server from an ISP network that doesn't allow you to connect to other SMTP servers.

You have a firewall set up that blocks port 25.

[mmontano]

Originally posted by car1son:
Port 25 is used for SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) connections, which is used by almost all mail clients to send eMail, including Mail. This just means the Mail application couldn't connect to the configured SMTP server.

Possible reasons that come to mind:

You SMTP server is down or busy.

You have the wrong SMTP server address configured in Mail's Accounts (possibly your service changed the value, or the account setting was changed?).

You need to use authentication when connecting to your ISP's SMTP server.

You are trying to connect to an SMTP server that doesn't accept connections from outside its own "trusted" network.

You are trying to connect to an SMTP server from an ISP network that doesn't allow you to connect to other SMTP servers.

You have a firewall set up that blocks port 25.

I'll add one more:

- Your ISP is blocking port 25. Earthlink, for example, won't let you talk to an SMTP server that is not on the Earthlink network (or known to the Earthlink network.)

The result is that you can't send mail using an SMTP server other than Earthlink.

I do recall that they do this only for their dial-up users only. Hope this helps. Drop me a note if you'd need some more help.