SMTP fails since Dec, 2023

[Ray]

I have four Charter POP accounts. About the middle of Dec, 2023,
smtp.charter.net stopped working. After "send", I get a box "Connected
to smtp.charter.net" and a progress indicator. After about a minute it
times out.

I talked to Charter. I told them I was using TB because I thought it
more likely they might have heard of it rather than SM. She said the
problem must be the TB server. Is there such a thing?

smtp.gmail.com still works. I have a Charter IMAP account, so I can
send from the POP accounts using mobile.charter.net. That is a minor
nuisance but is functional for my primary Charter account because the
sender name is the same for both accounts. But it would give the wrong
sender name for the other three accounts.

I created one charter and one gmail IMAP accounts just to see how they
functioned. Having my mail stored in the cloud, for me, would be
crippling. I get about three hundred messages per day. And I don't
always have access to the cloud. I need to be able to download when I
can, and review when I have time.

Anyone have any idea what might have happened to smtp.charter.net in mid
Dec, 2023?

TY
Ray

[Nuno Silva]

On 2024-02-06, Ray wrote:

> I have four Charter POP accounts. About the middle of Dec, 2023,
> smtp.charter.net stopped working. After "send", I get a box
> "Connected to smtp.charter.net" and a progress indicator. After about
> a minute it times out.

Do you still need assistance with this issue or has it been solved?

> I talked to Charter. I told them I was using TB because I thought it
> more likely they might have heard of it rather than SM. She said the
> problem must be the TB server. Is there such a thing?

Not that I know of.

> smtp.gmail.com still works. I have a Charter IMAP account, so I can
> send from the POP accounts using mobile.charter.net. That is a minor
> nuisance but is functional for my primary Charter account because the
> sender name is the same for both accounts. But it would give the
> wrong sender name for the other three accounts.
>
> I created one charter and one gmail IMAP accounts just to see how they
> functioned. Having my mail stored in the cloud, for me, would be
> crippling. I get about three hundred messages per day. And I don't
> always have access to the cloud. I need to be able to download when I
> can, and review when I have time.
>
> Anyone have any idea what might have happened to smtp.charter.net in
> mid Dec, 2023?

It's always possible they changed settings that previously allowed
certain types of connection. If you were using settings that were not
the same as the official ones, it's possible they changed something
which blocked access for your configuration, and did not document or
announce the change because it was not used in their advertised mail
client configuration. It's also possible they changed something for such
alternative configurations without realizing.

I mean things like connecting on a different port or using a different
encryption option.

But a time-out while sending should not affect your ability to read/move
messages. Is IMAP also not working? (Just making sure I understand which
parts are not working for you.)

--
Nuno Silva