Sending non-VM address e-mails from VM blueyonder

gardenlover · 05-04-2008, 15:13

My apologies if this is not the correct forum for this query, but I'm new to this.

Ever since I subscribed to Telewest blueyonder / Virgin Media broadband some years ago I've used my existing e-mail address to send and receive e-mails. I use Netscape, and had the outgoing server set as smtp.blueyonder.co.uk, and the incoming POP mail server set as mail.which.net for my e-mail address which is in the format surname.which.net. I've had no problems with this for many years, until a few days ago.

Last week I discovered that some e-mails that I had sent to people hadn't arrived. It wasn't every e-mail, and it was hard to keep a check on because it was intermittent. So I decided to bcc every e-mail to myself, just to check that they were going through OK. I started this on 1 April, and then on 2 April our Virgin Media broadband and TV went down as part of a general outage across North London. On the morning of 3 April I wasn't able to send e-mails at all, ie they wouldn't leave my computer, so I contacted VM using the contact form on the website. Their response was that they didn't support third party e-mail clients.

When I next tried to use my e-mail the system asked me for my blueyonder password which I provided. Since then the e-mails have been leaving my computer, but they haven't been received by anyone to whom I've sent them! So I haven't been able to send any e-mails using POP3 via my computer since yesterday morning - 4 April. I can receive them via POP3, and I can both send and receive using webmail.

My partner, who has a secondary e-mail address on my which.net account in the format firstname.surname@which.net (the same surname), has been able to send and receive e-mails using this secondary account without any problems.

I contacted VM again last night via the website contact form to point out that the problem isn't with a third party e-mail client, but so far I've not even had an acknowledgement.

Can anyone suggest to me what the problem is likely to be and what I can do about it? Thank you.

chickendippers · 05-04-2008, 15:44

You're trying to use the Virgin Media SMTP server to send an email via a which.net email address? That looks like it could be the problem.

Interestingly enough the which.net nameservers are NTLI.NET. A domain name which in itself has stoped resolving. Perhaps someone changed a setting and forgot about ntli.net.

gardenlover · 05-04-2008, 16:11

Thank you for the reply.

I've been using smtp.blueyonder.co.uk as my POP outgoing mail server for my which.net e-mail address for years, and that's what my partner's e-mail is still doing.

Something's happened / changed, and affected my outgoing e-mail, but I can't work out what.

caulkehead · 21-04-2008, 12:48

Hi - have you managed to sort this out ? As a current VM broadband subscriber I've got a VM e-mail account with a number of VM e-mail aliases that have all worked fine - but as I may shortly terminate my subscription (for poor service and sharp practice) I have set up my own e-mail domain and as an interim measure have attempted to send/receive e-mails via Blueyonder - but whilst I can receive e-mails to the new accounts any outgoing messages just get bounced. Can the Blueyonder SMTP server be configured to process e-mails that I send from a third-party account

Richy99 · 21-04-2008, 13:49

if you have your own domain name dont they provide you with an smtp server?

caulkehead · 21-04-2008, 14:21

Not that I can find - however I've just checked and they do give instructions on how to set up the (non-Blueyonder) e-mail account settings in Outlook - including the advanced settings for SMTP - and this seems to have worked - well 2 out of three anyway. I've set up three different e-mail aliases for the domain and two are now completing all the Outlook tests but one isn't (still failing to send the test medssage) which is a bit weird. Oh well - I guess it's progress of sorts.