REGARDING EMAILS NOT SENDING OR SENDING AFTER A DELAY

It seems that AT&T has been making changes to their outgoing email system. From what I can tell (and understand, talking to people in India) their outgoing mail server now examines the "FROM:" value of outgoing emails and checks to see if the address is on a list of allowed senders. Previously, the server simply asked for a username and password which was pc-specialist@sbcglobal.net/password.

It is not unusual for an outgoing mail server to require the sending program to authenticate. Authentication must be done to limit the amount of traffic that passes through a server, including spam. And there are several methods of authentication. INCOMING email servers almost always authenticate based on username and password. Your email program (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.) remembers the password.

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One method of authentication may be called "receive-first" authentication. In that method, if your program successfully logs into the incoming server, then it is allowed to send mail through the outgoing server for a period of time, maybe two minutes. Seanic webhosting authenticates in this manner. If you have a domain hosted by Seanic, you can change the outgoing mail server to www.yourdomain.com as detailed in the next paragraph. If you do NOT have a Seanic hosted domain, you will either need to contact your domain hosting company to determine how to set up the outgoing email server, or, knowing your AT&T (formerly SBCGlobal) username and password, you will need to add your alias email address to the list of approved senders. In scenarios where the domain host does not allow sending email through their servers, I can provide outgoing mail server settings for you. I should also be able to help you determine the username and password for your AT&T account.

FOR SEANIC HOSTED ACCOUNTS: The steps for changing the outgoing mail servers are slightly different based on which version of Outlook or Outlook Express you are using. First, get to the email accounts by clicking Tools, then Accounts or Email Accounts. You may need to select "View or change existing accounts". You may have to click on the "Mail" tab. Change the properties for each email account. You may have to click on the "Servers" tab. Change the outgoing server from smtp.att.yahoo.com or smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.com to www.yourdomain.com, substituting your domain name for “yourdomain”. Note: if the outgoing mail server is anything other than the two examples given above, please cancel all changes and call me. Now you will need to find the location for outgoing mail server authentication. There may be a "More Settings" button, or you may simply have to CLEAR the checkmark in front of "My server requires authentication", or there may be an "Advanced" button, but the correct setting is NOT to have outgoing mail server authentication selected at all. One more setting and we're ready to test - you need to make sure the port for the outgoing mail server is set to 587. Before you proceed, make sure you understand that you will be checking or changing the OUTGOING port ONLY. The INCOMING port will be set at 110 - DO NOT CHANGE IT! You may have to click on the "More Settings" button. Click the "Advanced" tab. Find the OUTGOING email server and make sure there is NOT A checkmark in front of "This server requires a Secure Connection" and that the port is set to 587. Unchecking the “SSL” box may set the port to 25, so make sure you uncheck the box before changing the port number to 587. Now click OK's, Closes, and/or Finishes until you are out of the settings section - do not click Cancel or your changes may be lost. Repeat for each email account. Send a test email. Please note that any email that is "stuck in the outbox" may not send and may prevent new emails from sending - you may have to delete messages in the outbox and reconstruct them using the new outgoing server settings.

As always, I will assist you if you need it, although my schedule may at times be quite full. If you do need assistance, please install CrossLoop before calling me. You can find it at www.crossloop.com. When setting it up, just click right through all the screens. When it launches, it will offer to log in or create an account. Simply close that window by clicking on the red X in the upper-right corner. I will be able to use that program to connect to your computer.

I apologize for any and all the inconvenience that this issue has caused. Let's work together to get beyond it.

-Ken