Re: E-mail access

Dear DL,

Thanks for taking the time to read my long and convoluted post. I know that
it was a bit long to take in, but I figured it was probably better to do that
than to go through all that I went through with them all over again.

The problem I am having is not with sending messages - they go just fine.
It is in receiving them. I can go to my mail directly on Comcast and all of
the messages and test messages, etc., are there. It is just that Outlook
will not upload the mail from Comcast. I can send you the screen shots of
the settings. They all seem to be okay. I am really stumped.

Thanks for taking the time for trying to help me with this.

Dan

"DL" wrote:

Your post was a bit to long to take in.
1) Uninstall/Reinstall of OL / Office has no impact on the pst file(s)
2) The pst is a hidden file, you have to search to include hidden
3) What happens if you send a mail to yourself ie any errors reported?

"Dan" <Dan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6B9A363C-5548-408A-9D01-1BD11A588724@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have just spent the last several days working with Comcast on a problem
that they cannot figure out. Because neither of us probably wants to
reinvent the wheel, I am going to cut and paste the germaine portions of
our
interactions so that you can see where we have been and suggest solutions.

I1. really need someone's help. I finally had had it with Incredimail
which I had been using to download my e-mail, so uninstalled it and
proceeded
to try to get Outlook 2002 to download my e-mail. No matter what I try,
it
won't do it! I had no problems getting Incredimail to download - it was
other issues which were the problem - so I know that it is possible. I
have
tried everything. I can log on using my password and read my mail in
Comcast
Mail, so I don't think that it's a password problem. Any ideas? I am
really
frustrated.

Thanks in advance, Dan

Their first response:

Are you using any incarnation of Norton Internet Security? If so, the
Symantec/Norton folks have an article about problems like this, so their
suggestions should be attempted first. They have a troubleshooting routine
you can run from that webpage. If that fails, they suggest removing and
reinstalling Norton.

To set up Outlook, follow these instructions step-by-step:

1. choose Tools
2. choose E-mail Accounts
3. choose "View or change existing e-mail account"
4. choose Next
5. click on your Comcast account to highlight it
6. choose Change
7. enter Your Name (whatever you want to appear on your messages)
8. enter E-mail Address (your full Comcast email address)
9. Incoming mail server is mail.comcast.net
10. Outgoing mail server is smtp.comcast.net
11. enter User Name (your Comcast user ID, the part before
"@comcast.net"
in your email address)
12. enter Password
13. check "Remember password"
14. make sure "Logon using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)" is NOT
checked
15. choose More Settings
16. go to the Outgoing Server tab
17. check "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication"
18. choose "Use same settings as my incoming mail server"
19. go to the Advanced tab
20. check both boxes for "This server requires an SSL-secured
connection"
21. change port number to 465 for outgoing, 995 for incoming
22. bump up the Server Timeouts slider to the high end
23. Click OK, Next, Finish

Turn off whatever email scanning your anti-virus package is doing. Comcast
already scans incoming email for viruses, and your outgoing email isn't
going
to be infected unless your machine is already infected, so there's no
point
checking it all the time.

On your firewall, make sure ports 465 and 995 aren't blocked (if the
software will let you do that).

Don't bother with the "Test" function in Outlook - it often fails for no
particular reason.

Exit from Outlook, then make sure it isn't still running in the
background.
Hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, go to the Processes tab, and kill any occurrences of
OUTLOOK.EXE before launching Outlook again.

2.
The plot thickens. I finally logged onto my Comcast e-mail account
directly
and discovered that all of the test messages I have been sending from the
Outlook set-up dropdown (tools>e-mail accounts>view or change/add new
account>change>internet and mail settings) area have been getting through.
It is not the outgoing which is causing me problems, it is the incoming.
Making it worse is the fact that Outlook Express which I just tried
downloads
my emails from Comcast just fine - ao I am wondering if it is the whole
firewall issue. (While I wait for other ideas, I am going to try again
what
you mentioned above.)

If I could figure out how to do so, I would even download screenshots of
all
the above settings so you could help me figure this out. It is maddening!
I
am getting requests from other Outlook users in my office for meetings
that
are supposed to work with the calendar function in Outlook to schedule
meetings and I cannot even download them.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Dan

---------------------

Well, I tried what you mentioned to do under your first reply. Made
certain
that every setting was correct. Did every step. Even thought that I'd
found
the problem - I had spelled "SMTP" as "STMP" in one place. All to no
avail.
It is weird. Express works just fine - ingoing and outgoing - but regular
Outlook continues to give me the message "The operation failed" no matter
what I do. HELP!!!!! Is there any way of importing Express's settings
into
regular Outlook?

Message Edited by RevMoose on 10-06-200610:08 AM

Message Edited by RevMoose on 10-06-200610:10 AM

Their response:

RevMoose, all I can suggest is to double and triple-checking the settings
I've laid out. There aren't any "better" ones. If you are, in fact,
having
a firewall problem, the way to find out is to turn the built-in WinXP
firewall ON (it never interferes with email), and go into whatever other
firewall you're using, and disable it. You may need to reboot to get the
other firewall to shut down completely (once you've told it not to run on
startup).


3. Forgive what must sound like a very silly question. How do I
determine
wht firewalls I have operating on my system? I know that XPs is loaded.
I
also have Norton Anti-virus installed and don't know if it has a firewall
function. Also, I have a wireless network which connects my wife and my
computer (hardwired) and my laptop (wireless). I think that there may be
a
firewall that is part of that network thingamajig but I have no idea where
to
go to discover all of this.

Thanks in advance for all of your help with this.

Dan


If you have just Norton Antivirus, that does not include a firewall. If
you
have the whole Norton Internet Security suite, on the other hand, there's
a
firewall in there. To find out, there will be one or more icons for
Norton
down in the system tray, in the lower right corner. Double-click on each
one
you see and just do a little looking around. If there's only one icon,
one
that looks like a little yellow computer terminal, that's just the
antivirus
part. That, by the way, is where you would go to shut off the antivirus
scanning of your messages (it's unnecessary) - double-click on that icon,
and
look for a place to change the email settings (I haven't seen it in a
while,
so I can't give you better instructions than that, I'm afraid).

Your wireless network includes a type of firewall (the router acts as a
firewall), but it's very unlikely to be the source of your problems. In
fact, if Outlook Express can retrieve the messages, but Outlook can't,
that
pretty much rules out firewall interference, since those two email clients
usually react the same way to a firewall - they either both work, or they
both fail.

Remember, too, that if you've run Outlook Express, it has downloaded all
your waiting messages to its inbox, so they're no longer sitting on the
server, waiting to be picked up. So, if you now launch Outlook, there are
no
undelivered messages for it to fetch. You'll need to send yourself some
test
messages (don't use the "test" function in Outlook - just address a
message
to yourself and send it).


Their responses:

RevMoose,

Since you mentioned that your email works with Outlook Express but not
with
Outlook, this should mean that your wireless router (the networking device
you use) is not blocking you - unless it has some feature to block certain
applications which most of the residential routers will not do by default
without you setting up a certain rule in the router setup.

As for firewalls on your computer, you mention that you are using Norton -
look down in the lower-right corner of your computer screen where the time
is
displayed and find the icon that represents your Norton program and
double-click on it. This should open the main control panel for norton.
Look around on the control panel to see what features it has enabled on
it.
If it is Norton System Works, you should see some information or links
within
here for firewall controls that you can enable/disable. But if you have
just
Norton Antivirus, you will likely see no links for firewall controls.

But you may want to try simply opening Outlook first, go into
Tools->Accounts->View/Change Accounts and just delete your Comcast account
that you created here. Once it is deleted, try closing Outlook next, then
re-launch Outlook so you get a fresh start. Then go back to the
Tools->Accounts and try adding your Comcast account back in. Once you
have
it added back in correctly (use this FAQ if you need assistance
re-creating
it), give it a try to see if you can retreive your emails without errors.
If
you still get the same error, go back through EarlyOut's suggestions above
to
see if this clears out things. The goal here is to simply re-create the
account in case Outlook has corrupted your earlier setup.

Jason, you mentioned in your post above

"If it is Norton System Works, you should see some information or links
within here for firewall controls that you can enable/disable. But if you
have just Norton Antivirus, you will likely see no links for firewall
controls."

Norton System Works DOES NOT have the firewall included in it, but it does
include Norton Antivirus.
If the poster has Norton Internet Security Suite, the firewall and
antivirus
are both included with this.
Norton also makes their firewall and antivirus as stand-alone programs.


4. Jason,

Is there a way that I can e-mail you some screen shots so that you can see
what is happening? I am really frustrated! I am reasonably computer
literate, but this is really bugging me. I feel that Microsoft has just
**bleep** things up again and I don't know what to do about it. I am not
about to pay Redmond $35.00 per call to have them tell me that they don't
know what the problem is. I have just spent the last hour trying to find
out
how to completely remove Outlook and to try a fresh install to see if that
works. I have searched the MS knowledge base and there is plenty of info
on
how to remove Express, but nothing for Outlook. Now I know that my wife
is
probably correct when I am looking for something in the refrigerator that
I
can look right at something and not see it (a common malady for us males I
am
told), but this is getting really frustrating. Almost enough to make the
pastor (which I am) start swearing!

I am willing to try a fresh install if I need to. I would even uninstall
all of office and reinstall it if I thought that it wouldn't destroy all
of
my files in the process. Can you please help me. That lousy little
"Operation not completed" message is really getting on my nerves. Like I
said earlier, Outlook Express downloads Comcast's mail just fine - but
Outlook just refuses. I have reconfigured using all of the advice found
here
and elsewhere at least 25 times (I am not exaggerating) to no avail.
Outlook
sends messages to both Comcast and Gmail fine - but anything incoming is
an
impossibility. I should be working on a sermon for this weekend but I am
stuck working on this. PLEEEEEEEZE help me.

Thanks, Dan

I don't know what the "bleep" is for. I used a word for what you do with
a
screwdriver, in the past tense, to describe what Microsoft did and I don't
think of that as profanity. Oh well . . .

Message Edited by RevMoose on 10-06-200612:14 PM


Uninstalling Microsoft Office will not destroy your files-they will remain
on your computer-you just won't be able to read any of them until you
re-install Office.
.

Relevant Pages

  • E-mail access
    ... I can log on using my password and read my mail in Comcast ... To set up Outlook, follow these instructions step-by-step: ... choose More Settings ... a firewall problem, the way to find out is to turn the built-in WinXP ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook.installation)
  • Re: Outlook problems, Norton Internet Security Problems - thanks, XP
    ... Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2001 Is Not Compatible with Windows XP ... Microsoft has a firewall you can enable ... How to Manually Export and Import Messages in Outlook Express ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)
  • Re: Cannot Access E-Mail After Security Update
    ... After installing the Outlook security update, the first time I tried to access Outlook, Norton asked me if I wanted to permit Outlook to access the internet. ... When I turn off the Firewall, ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)
  • Winxp.Comcast,No outgoing messages
    ... I talked to Comcast and they found no error on the account setup. ... OE and Outlook 2000. ... SP2, all updates, XP Firewall, and NOD32 Virus checker. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Winxp.Comcast,No outgoing messages
    ... I talked to Comcast and they found no error on the account setup. ... OE and Outlook 2000. ... SP2, all updates, XP Firewall, and NOD32 Virus checker. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)