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Help with using my mail on AOL dial-up

16 comments on Help with using my mail on AOL dial-up

Help with using my mail on AOL dial-up

: Help! I’m in a hotel using AOL on dial-up (ouch!) and suddenly I can’t use SMTP mail for my work and personal accounts. This is NOT about using AOL mail. I use both Outlook and Communicator and neither works on sending. I went into tech support chat with AOL. They had me change my SMTP server to smtp.aol.com and change the port (on Outlook; can’t see where to change the port on Communicator) to 587. Reboot. Nothing. Nada. Crap. Go to the AOL help page they send me to and it’s only about getting AOL mail elsewhere. I don’t want any damned AOL mail. I want to use AOL as an ISP and, of course, AOL SUCKS!!!!!!

Can anybody similarly scarred help?

: I reset all my SMTP settings back to defaults and went online with my Treo PDAnet instead of AOL and was able to send mail that way. But Sprint service up here in the mountains is iffy, so I would like to use AOL to be able to send some frigging email. So I still need the help. Did I say that AOL SUCKS!!!!!?

16 responses to “Help with using my mail on AOL dial-up”

  1. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    I don’t use AOL, but according to the Unofficial AOL Mail FAQ (http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/imap/), their SMTP servers require authentication, so that might be the piece you are missing. In Outlook you should be able to set this up under “Outgoing Server”.
    Actually, I don’t use Outlook either, so I’m not sure why I am offering advice :-).

  2. Scott2 Avatar
    Scott2

    Get a real ISP like Earthlink.

  3. Scott2 Avatar
    Scott2

    If you did not indeed realize that the outbound server requires authentication, Jeffo, are you going to apologize? Virtually every ISP requires server authentication now, so it surely can’t be you didn’t know about it.

  4. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Smell the fresh, mountain air. Go swimming. Relax.
    Take heart amid the deepening gloom
    That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.

  5. Steve Yelvington Avatar
    Steve Yelvington

    I don’t really see why this is AOL’s problem; the issue really is with your mail server, which won’t allow relayed connections from AOL (with good reason). All corporate and personal mail systems should have a webmail backup option to deal with such situations. Try http://www.buzzmachine.com/webmail … :-)

  6. Richard Bennett Avatar
    Richard Bennett

    AOL is using a non-standard port for SMTP, which is pretty retarded.

  7. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Well, Scott2, you can make anything hostile.
    Steve: It very much is AOL’s problem. I can use my own SMTP from every other ISP — e.g., T-mobile at Starbucks, any hotel, any university — but AOL does something NONSTANDARD with its ports and does it INCONSISTENTLY. It worked this morning; doesn’t work this afternoon. My SMTP servers work, as I proved with my Treo and PDAnet. It’s AOL. AOL SUCKS. And I’m a shareholder. So it really sucks. Richard is quite right; this is something that AOL does and it, as always, has terrible customer service.

  8. Joe Sims Avatar
    Joe Sims

    have you tried picking up your AOL email by using mail2web.com? they allow you to pick up your email “from any computer, anywhere in the world. no need to register!” (that’s what the site says, anyhow…)
    apparently, they now can access AOL email, which is new. if only they could pick up mail from exchange servers! give it a whirl, it don’t cost nothin’…

  9. Bart Avatar
    Bart

    Ther is always http://www.mail2web.com

  10. Tim G Avatar
    Tim G

    I have found in my travels using wireless access around town I cannot connect to my own smtp server via other ISPs either. This is a recent phenomenom. Someone said it has something to do with cutting down spam, but it sure makes things very inconvenient. As such, I have switched to using webmail for the most part – which is a far cry from the speed an convenience of Pegasus. Hopefully a solution will evolve in the future.

  11. Rafat Avatar
    Rafat

    seriously, Mail2web is good…and it now supports AOL e-mail…i’ve had the relaying problem sometimes even with T-Mobile at certain Starbucks…

  12. Betsy Avatar
    Betsy

    Thirding Mail2Web – but be aware that you’ll not get access to an outbox or sent mail folder, so you should cc yourself on anything you want to have copies of later…

  13. nospam Avatar
    nospam

    Soemtimes ISP’s block the default port (25) for external SMTP servers to reduce spam. Therefore, many admins setup that wish to have their STMP servers be available over the NEt set them to listen on the standard and a a non-standard port. Port 24 is common. It’s stupid, but give it a try.

  14. John Anderson Avatar
    John Anderson

    Look up NetZero. They have almost as many access numbers as AOL, and you don’t keep paying and paying.. Last time i needed it, I could use four hours free, then pay $10/onth for a (calendar) month (so sgn up on the first, not the twenty-ninth), and I only had to sign up for one month rather than a multi-year contract, and it doesn’t download its own copies of MicroSoft software, and you an use any browser, and you don’t get blocked from sites (my sister’s AOL wouldn’t let her go to CNet! Come on, people!)…

  15. Rick Klau Avatar
    Rick Klau

    Jeff – I had this happen at a Starbucks recently; similar to what ‘nospam’ mentioned above, it is likely a blocked port. Try changing your mailserver port to 26 (also a common alternate port) to see if it will allow you to send mail. Good luck.

  16. Prescription Drugs Avatar
    Prescription Drugs

    Prescription Drugs