BT Mail Server Encryption

[JukeBox]

I use an Outlook 2019 client to access my BT email on a Win 10 PC. A week ago I started receiving intermittent Send/Receive errors. For the last four days I've been unable to Send or Receive ANY messages. The Outlook error message says "your server does not support the encryption type you have specified". Configuration settings are exactly as specified by BT (IMAP, SSL/TLS, I/C port 993, O/G port 465, etc.) and have been unchanged for years.

I can access my mailbox via Web mail (Firefox and Chrome). It is functioning properly and I can send/receive messages. Incidentally, Ping and Tracert to mail.btinternet.com both time-out (should they?).

BT email tech support suggested removing and re-creating my email account in Outlook. Having removed it I cannot re-create it (when trying I get the same error message regarding being unable to connect to the IMAP server using the BT-recommended encryption method).

Any suggestions? I am resisting the official BT Email Technical Support Group suggestion of phoning Microsoft for now.

[licquorice]

First question is are you  BT broadband customer or paying for Premium Mail? If neither, your account will have been downgraded to Basic Mail which is only accessible via webmail.

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

Depending on your answer to the above:-

If you have a look at the following link you will see that there are plenty issues with Outlook every time that Microsoft carry out an update and it appears to borne out by the number of times that Outlook users post on this forum as against the number of posters of other email clients post.

Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in classic Outlook for Windows - Microsoft Support

The correct settings, which you appear to using are as per this link.

BT Email server settings | BT Help

One thing to try is to turn off your BT Hub for about half an hour and when you turn it back on it should have been issued with a new IP address and hopefully be connected to a different BT mail server which may resolve the problem if it is a BT server issue.

If that does not help you could try downloading and using another email client such as Thunderbird to see if it works and if it does would tend to point to an Outlook issue.

[JukeBox]

I am a "Standard" email user - grandfather rights having been a broadband (and BT email) user for over ten years.

[JukeBox]

Thank you gg30340!  I had begun to wonder if the timing of my problem was pertinent (starting just after the second Tuesday of the month!) and I did attempt some of the Microsoft fixes - none of them worked incidentally.

But your suggestion of turning my Hub off for an hour or so seems to have resolved the issue - I have been able to recreate my Outlook mail account and my Outlook client has downloaded a ton of messages!  Many thanks.

[licquorice]

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@JukeBox wrote:

I am a "Standard" email user - grandfather rights having been a broadband (and BT email) user for over ten years.

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There are no grandfather rights. Unless you are currently a BT broadband customer or paying for Premium mail, your account WILL be downgraded to Basic Mail at some point.

[JukeBox]

Ah, sorry liquorice: I should have said "because I am a BT Broadband user and have been for over ten years" !

[JukeBox]

Unfortunately I was hasty in reporting the problem solved. Twenty four hours later, the same issue reappeared.  I subsequently left my hub powered off overnight and the following morning the problem had resolved itself again (for how long?).

Clearly this isn't a solution going forward as I don't think routers take kindly to being regularly powered off and on.

I am still investigating other resolutions.  Interestingly,  I had forgotten that my wife has a Win10 laptop running an Outlook client with which she occasionally accesses HER BT mailbox (also from our home network, using the same AV software) and she has had no problems whatsoever. The only significant difference between us is that she is set up to use POP and not IMAP.  I don't want to go down that route.