Can't send messages from an AOL mailbox through Thunderbird

[rogerstevencorke]

this morning, two of my new AOL mailboxes suddenly stopped working properly. They will receive emails but not let me send them. However, if I log onto www.aol.com I can go onto my accounts and send emails from there.

The mailboxes were fine yesterday. Two more mailboxes I set up for my wife at the same time are working fine.

I've deleted the main mailbox I've been using, reinstalled it with all the (same) port settings that AOL advise and still no luck.

I thought I might have been doing wrong when I was using my main AOL box but the same problem has occurred to a second AOL mailbox of mine (which I haven't opened since i set it up a week ago) whilst both my wife's AOL email boxes can send and receive mail just fine.

Anyone else had this problem?

Roger

[DanRaisch]

If you have changed nothing in Thunderbird it seems pretty clear that something has changed or is broken on the AOL side. Have you contacted that provider to report this problem?

[tanstaafl]

What is the full text of the error message when you try to send a message? If it includes a email address please replace the username with something generic.

Does the problem only occur if you try to send a message to somebody who is not using AOL?

"two of my new AOL mailboxes suddenly stopped working properly."
Does that mean that you have some older AOL accounts and they don't have this problem?

Are your mailboxes related in any way such as all being managed by a master account in webmail? I'm thinking of how some email providers let you create additional email addresses for an account, that are managed by the creating account.

[sfhowes]

Tools/Account Settings, select each account in the left pane and make sure each server in the Outgoing Server (SMTP) box in the lower right pane is the one with the same user name/password as the incoming server, not a Default server.

[rogerstevencorke]

The settings are different - and keep changing.
I just deleted and added back on one of the email addresses that's not working to both my computers, a Mac and a Macbook side by side on the desk. I then clicked on the name of the mailbox in Account Settings on the Mac and then went down to the Outgoing Server. It said it was "AOL Mail - smtp.aol.com (default)" and, when I clicked on "Edit SMTP server..." it said it was in Port 465 with the default 587.

Then I deleted and tried it again. This time, the outgoing server was described as "AOL Mail - smtp.aol.com" with no default and, when I clicked on "Edit SMTP server..." it said it was in Port 465 with the default 587.

The I went to the Macbook and looked at the settings of the address there. This time it came up with "AOL Mail - smtp.aol.com" with no default but the port was 587 and the default is 587.

The mailbox won't let me send emails on any of these settings.

If I go to the mailbox of my wife's that works, her outgoing server is also"AOL Mail - smtp.aol.com" with no default but the port was 465 and the default is 465.

Figure that one out! Any thoughts?

[rogerstevencorke]

I get the same result if I try to email an AOL box - it still doesn't work.

For my next experiment, I removed and added the mailbox again. When I let it do it automatically, it put me on an "AOL Mail - smtp.ao.com" server with no default, and a 465 port and says that 587 is the default. Bizarrly, it didn't create a "Sent" folder.

When I tried to send an email, it comes u with the error message "Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.aol.com was lost in the middle of the transaction. Try again." I try again and notit doesn't work, of course.

Then I tried changing the server to another "AOL Mail - smtp.aol.com" server with no default in brackets after the server name. There are several in the drop-down list. The next one comes up with a 465 port and a 465 default, which are the settings on my wife's working AOL email box. I tried sending another email.

It fails but this one comes up with a different error message. It says that "Login to server smtp.aol.com with username roger.corke failed" and, at the bottom, it says it is connected to the smtp.aol.com.server, which I guess makes sense because I am receiving emails. I just can't send them.

I'm sure there's a really easy way to fix this but I can't thin of what it can be

[tanstaafl]

I think you only answered the first question in my last post.

[rogerstevencorke]

Sorry, tanstaafi, for not answering your question. No, I set them up as completely autonomous mailboxes. They have the same passwords, as it happens, and were set up one after another but they are not linked in any other way and have separate identities.

[rogerstevencorke]

I've solved the problem!

When you add an AOL account to Thunderbird and you choose to manually configure it, you are told that the method of authentication for the outgoing SMTP server is OAuth2.

You then add the mailbox and you're ready to go...except that on the mailbox that wouldn't let me send emails Thunderbird defaulted to a different authentication setting. When I went to Tools/account settings/click on the name of the mailbox in bold/then clicked on Edit SMTP server, a new window comes up and I noticed that under the heading Security and Administration the authentication method was Normal Password.

I changed that to OAuth2 and the mailbox works.

Flushed with success, I then emailed the guy at AOL who had been completely useless. When his first suggested solutions didn't work, he'd trotted out the usual old "we don't support third party apps" excuse. I told him I'd solve the problem and would he like to know what it was. I'm still waiting for a response.

[tanstaafl]

Great!