Eclipse email with Outlook 365

[Graham J]

Trying to help a friend with his Eclipse internet connection and email.
Eclipse is now Kcom - see:

https://business.kcom.com/contact-us/

His internet connection works OK.

About 4 weeks ago one of his email accounts stopped working. Finally he
contacted me and I find that the problem is with the SMTP settings.
Information from technical support at Eclispse says the settings should be:

SMTP server: = smtp.eclipse.co.uk
Port: = 25
Authentication: = none
Encryption type: = none

This is where the computer connects via Eclipse. They apparently have
no facility for an authenticated connection so if you are away from your
home connection you are supposed to change your settings to use a
different SMTP server, either associated with the connection you are
using or with a third party service.

However when trying to configure Outlook 365 it fails when connecting to
the SMTP server. In principle I could test with a third party SMTP
server but in Outlook 365 there does not appear to be any mechanism to
specify the username and password for the alternative SMTP server
(whereas earlier versions of Outlook did have this facility).

Curiously my friend has another email account with Eclipse that
continues to work, and that is configured to use the settings that
Eclipse have told me. So the problem appears to be with Outlook 365 in
that the test it runs before saving the account details now fails.

So either Microsoft has changed something with Outlook 365 or Eclipse
have changed something.

Has anybody here seen this and been able to correct it?

TIA

--
Graham J

[Richmond]

Graham J <gra...@invalid.com> writes:


> However when trying to configure Outlook 365 it fails when connecting to the
> SMTP server. In principle I could test with a third party SMTP server but in
> Outlook 365 there does not appear to be any mechanism to specify the username
> and password for the alternative SMTP server (whereas earlier versions of
> Outlook did have this facility).
>

Are you saying it fails when away from home?

Maybe he is not connected using eclipse, e.g. maybe he has a mobile
connection? You have to be using an eclipse IP address to connect to
the smtp server.

(I am with eclipse but never use smtp away from home. You have to watch
out if you use the gmail smtp because it puts the gmail email address on
the outgoing message regardless of your client configurations).

[Graham J]

I have resolved this now.

When configuring an account using Outlook 365 the dialog allows you to
specify:

IMAP server: mail.eclipse.co.uk Port: 143 SSL: No
SMTP server: smtp.eclipse.co.uk Port: 25 SSL: No

... and the last step is where Outlook 365 tests the configuration
before saving it. Here it fails, simply saying the test of the
connection to the SMTP server failed.

I found an old laptop running Outlook XP (from about 2002), configured
it with the same parameters, and the connection worked correctly. So
the parameters as specified by Eclipse are correct.

If I review (using the "repair" option, but cancelling without saving
any changes) a different email account on Outlook 365 that does work shows:

IMAP server: mail.eclipse.co.uk Port: 993 SSL: Yes

*** However *** if I close Outlook 365 and use Control Panel | Mail to
edit or create an email account, I can specify the parameters required
by Eclipse and the final step which tests the settings does work.
Further, the existing different account actually showed "Port: 143 SSL:
No", contrary to the values previously seen within Outlook 365.

I then run Outlook 365 and it sends and receives email as expected.

So my conclusion is that Outlook 365 now (since an upgrade about 6 weeks
ago) expects you to use SSL, and the inbuilt account management tool
says "Microsoft Outlook 365 knows best" and changes the parameters I
provide.

The other issue with the SMTP server provided by Eclipse is that they
have no mechanism to accept an authenticated connection; they rely on
the fact that you are sending from one of their IP addresses. So when
away from home you would have to reconfigure your email client to use a
third party SMTP server and provide whatever authentication is required
by that server. This is clearly stupid, but Eclipse are evidently
discontinuing support for domestic customers (without actually telling
them). Presumably business customers could buy the use of an Exchange
Server or other more sophisticated mail service from Eclipse, and an
authenticated SMTP connection (also requiring SSL) would be available.

--
Graham J

[Richmond]

Graham J <gra...@invalid.com> writes:

> clearly stupid, but Eclipse are evidently discontinuing support for domestic
> customers (without actually telling them). Presumably business customers
> could buy the use of an Exchange Server or other more sophisticated mail
> service from Eclipse, and an authenticated SMTP connection (also requiring
> SSL) would be available.

What do you mean by support? Their telephone support was pretty good the
last time I called them. But if you mean making changes and enhancements
for the benefit of home users only, well that probably won't happen
because they aren't accepting any new home users, they are just waiting
for us die hards to die, or wander off in confusion.

If you are away from home you can use webmail. But the eclipse email has
very little space on the server (I think maybe 250M) so I use gmail instead.

--
~

[Graham J]

Richmond wrote:
> Graham J <gra...@invalid.com> writes:
>
>> clearly stupid, but Eclipse are evidently discontinuing support for domestic
>> customers (without actually telling them). Presumably business customers
>> could buy the use of an Exchange Server or other more sophisticated mail
>> service from Eclipse, and an authenticated SMTP connection (also requiring
>> SSL) would be available.
>
> What do you mean by support? Their telephone support was pretty good the
> last time I called them. But if you mean making changes and enhancements
> for the benefit of home users only, well that probably won't happen
> because they aren't accepting any new home users, they are just waiting
> for us die hards to die, or wander off in confusion.

Exactly - that's what I meant by support. Also knowing that their
non-SSL configuration will give problems for an inexpert user trying to
configure Outlook 365. It may well be that in due course M$ will change
Control Panel | Mail so it forces the use of SSL, in which case the
Eclipse service will stop working with a mainstream email product.

This is for my brother in law, so I will be recommending an alternative
mail provider.

> If you are away from home you can use webmail. But the eclipse email has
> very little space on the server (I think maybe 250M) so I use gmail instead.

Many ISPs who provide a mail service limit the capacity of their mail
servers to a similar figure.

--
Graham J