Outlook Express

[Bronzetree]

Okay, so I have an e-mail address associated with a website and have it filtering through Outlook Express. It's been working fine for as long as I've had it, until today. I can receive e-mail, but it won't let me send from Outlook Express. I can send from the web, though, so it's obviously an OE problem. Nothing has changed on my end and nothing has changed on the website's end (no host or IP changes of any kind). Seems I'm the only person with an e-mail address associated with the site that's experiencing this problem. The error message I get when I try to send is :

The connection to the server has failed. Account: 'mail.sgtsavage.com', Server: 'mail.sgtsavage.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10060, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E

Any idea whatsoever what might cause this?

[IPrayForSound]

Microsoft causes it. I used to use it and would occasionally run into similar errors (always on the sending end of things). I use Thunderbird (Mozilla) now, and I've never had a problem with it.

[Bronzetree]

Yeah, and once again scouring Microsoft's site for answers, they don't offer one. Not for free anyway. Grrr.

[Bronzetree]

Problem solved. Zoomtown and Fuse blocked all outgoing mail servers not associated with their service because of all the viruses running rampant, and neglected to tell their subscribers. They'll be getting an earful from me very soon. I spent ten hours today trying to fix this fucking problem.

[MissKitty]

I know it sucks that you spent all that time working on a problem that wasn't actually a "problem" but at least they are doing something to combat this stupid sobig-f virus nonsense.

Our company has been crippled by it in the past 24 hours and our poor IT guy will be spending a sleepless night working on the problem. Our corporate headquarters got hammered too, and as a result we can't access our PeopleSoft programs (which all come via corporate), which in turn may keep us from getting our payroll checks on time next week.

Something that everyone may want to do to combat getting hammered with this virus spam crap is to NOT open your Outlook Express at all. Instead, go online to access your email directly, rather than letting anything download into your home email box.

For instance, my internet access is provided by a company in Dayton, and instead of downloading my email into my box via Outlook, I am going online and accessing my email directly from the server. In under two hours I've had 20 virus messages turn up, which I simply delete and then expunge from the server.

Until this is sorted, I am downloading NOTHING into my home email box. Everything will be accessed directly from my server, and by god they better be figuring out a way to stop it from reaching the server at all! At least Zoom/Fuse is trying to combat it. It certainly doesn't appear that siscom is doing it.

[Bronzetree]

I'm appreciative that they're doing what they can to combat the virus, but spending the ENTIRE day trying to figure out a problem that wasn't a problem has me riled. They could have sent some kind of network message or something letting customers know what was up. Instead, they were flooded with thousands of calls, eating more of their resources and time. And the help desk guy I spoke to was rather rude, saying, "I can't believe you people waited so long to call." Well, duh, fucko, I had no idea the problem was with MY ISP. I figured it was the ISP of the site who hosts my e-mail. Seemed much more logical to me than my ISP locking all outgoing mail servers not associated with their service. Calling my help desk was a last resort, hoping like hell I got someone who knew something about OE and wasn't gonna be a dick and not help me with it.

I have pretty good anti-virus software on my PC, so I'm in good shape. It warns me that a virus is coming even before the e-mail hits my inbox. Go me. :) Actually, got a notification this morning. The sender was ronaldtaylor and the subject line was RE: congratulations. Be on the lookout.

[DogStarMan]

On a related note....click (http://bbspot.com/News/2002/01/open.html)!

[RichmondVA]

"Researchers have seen large infection among AOL users and middle managers, the two largest concentrations of naive and inept computer users." :D