SMTP server help please!

tentickles666

I have only a basic grasp of this as I dont use it myself.

My partner has had a domain and hosting through Fasthosts for a few years, using their smtp servers for mail through Outlook.

He has just renewed for 2yrs and then got an email from Fasthosts telling him that his package no longer gets to benefit from using their smtp server, so he can give them more money to keep using the same service (?!) or use his ISPs smtp

Virgin Media have said that his domain will not work on their smtp server, though the online help 'support' seemed even more confused about it that us

So what are his options now? Move domain and hosting to another provider that supplies smtp access? he would be losing money, but we dont see why fasthosts should get anything extra. Or is there a free smtp he can use?

I tried entering my gmail account details to use the gmail smtp but got the message 'Authentification failed because Outlook doesnt support any of the available authentification methods'

Thanks in advance

psychic_teabag

Any free smtp server would be hit by people sending spam mail through it. People running smtp servers now have to work quite hard to ensure that only authorised clients, sending real email, can use them.

If the authentication problem is outlook's fault, can you use a different client ? Eg you could give thunderbird a go to see if that works (and then decide whether you can bear to switch to it).

If you are able to use gmail's smtp server, I believe it will rewrite the 'from' address to be your gmail account, not the one you actually wanted.

ETA: have seen some suggestions online that you can override the address it uses in the from field - you have to change the default in your 'accounts' setitng, or something. Not sure of the details myself.

esuhl

helenathena wrote: »

Virgin Media have said that his domain will not work on their smtp server, though the online help 'support' seemed even more confused about it that us

I'd be highly suspicious of that. Being able to send email is a pretty fundamental part of an ISP's service.

With other providers, I've had to notify them over the phone of the email addresses I want to send from, with others I had to log on to the ISP's webmail, and then add my domain email address as an "alias" or secondary account.

Cycrow

Outlook (any any mail client) doesn't connect to an SMTP server to receive mail, as it doesn't work like that, which is maybe where some of the confusion is coming from. To pick up mail you need to use with a POP3, IMAP or ActiveSync server.

You can use an the ISP's SMTP server to send mail, using the reply to address to set your own domain. But to receive mail you would need to forward it from your domain into a virgin mailbox then pick it up from there. Most domain hosting places will forward mail to another server. If you want more control over the mail server, ie multiple users/mailbox etc, then you will need to pay for a service to provide this

onomatopoeia99

Cycrow wrote: »

You can use an the ISP's SMTP server to send mail, using the reply to address to set your own domain.

Some ISPs will not relay mail through their customer SMTP servers (aka smarthosts) that has a From: or Reply-To: address that is not one belonging to the ISP (or worse, will re-write it to the customer's address with the ISP), or may require one to register the domain with the ISP in some way before allowing the user to send emails using it.

It tends to be the consumer grade mass-market ISPs that do this. The ISP I am with doesn't, and VM business (that we use at work) don't either.

Cycrow

i dont know if its changed recently, but until a few years ago i was sending mail via Virgin Media and NTL before that without a problem

agrinnall

I'm somewhat surprised to hear about this as my email hosting is done on Fasthosts and my ISP is Virgin, and I haven't had any such email asking for more money. The only difference is that I use Thunderbird rather than Outlook, and my emails are still flowing fine.

psychic_teabag

Just did an experiment with gmail smtp. For reasons I won't bore you with, when my machine connects to google server, it authenticates using a different gmail account from my day-to-day gmail account.

If I use From: usual-gmail-account@gmail.com that is preserved, but it adds a Sender: authentication-account@gmail.com field.

If I use From: me@my-plusnet-account then gmail
renames that to X-Google-Original-From: me@my-plusnet-account
changes From: to be authentication-account@gmail.com

paddyrg

https://sendgrid.com

any help?

System

paddyrg wrote: »

https://sendgrid.com

any help?

That would be an additional $9.95 per month. Probably more than Fasthosts want to allow use of their SMTP server

System

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm somewhat surprised to hear about this as my email hosting is done on Fasthosts and my ISP is Virgin, and I haven't had any such email asking for more money. The only difference is that I use Thunderbird rather than Outlook, and my emails are still flowing fine.

It is down to the email package you have. The OPs sound like basic email that you get with a domain, not an email hosting package