Problem sending mail resolved - any explanations would be appreciated.

[HowardH]

Yesterday, as usual, I used Outlook to access via IMAP my main email account with BT. I experienced no problems receiving and sending email. As is customary, some time in the afternoon I put the PC to sleep while Firefox and Outlook were running.

At around 16.20 there was a power cut. It lasted barely one minute.

I waited until the Smart hub had reconnected and then powered up the PC. It restored the desktop, with Firefox and Outlook running.

I was soon back to receiving email via the IMAP account in Outlook. However, when I tried to send an email, up popped the box I see when my password is being rejected by the mail server. This problem persisted, so I checked out web mail and receiving and sending mail was normal for me.

I went back to Outlook and the password problem remained when trying to send an email message. I had stripped this down to a simple email test message to myself - worked as expected in web mail, password problem in Outlook/IMAP.

I checked this forum. I saw no message from anyone expressing a similar problem.

More testing, no joy. I even retyped the password and as I expected it made absolutely no difference.

I gave up some time in the evening and shut down the computer.

This morning when I checked out IMAP in Outlook sending mail worked perfectly. Whatever the problem was had been solved, but I had done absolutely nothing other than what I have attempted to describe here.

Again, I checked this forum and could find no current relevant post, suggesting this problem with the email server and my password for outgoing emails was unique to me, which rather surprised me.

My question is: does anyone think they know what was the cause of my problem, now happily resolved?

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

It would appear that the problem, what ever it was, stemmed from your computer not being closed down correctly and would appear to have been an Outlook or Windows problem rather than a BT server problem.

The "error" message you received is a generic message that invariably pops up when ever Outlook or any other email client can not send emails.

When a Windows PC is switched off with a power cut it can cause data loss, software corruption and hardware damage. Software corruption, which may have been the case here, can often be sorted with a shutdown and restart of the computer but I suspect that you will never find exactly why the email would not send.

[HowardH]

Many thanks for your reply gg30340, that is more than sufficient to satisfy my curiosity.

[hind]

I have experienced this problem on many ocassions.  BT always blames the use of Outlook, EM client etc on the home PC.  I have tried changing passwords, protocols, switching my VPN on & off.  I still get conflicts with friends advising they never received my emails.  I am convinced that conflicts occur at the BT server end possibly due to their ongong maintenance issues and their massive push to full fibre broadband.  I say this because I have no problems when I send from my Gmail account, still using EM client for email production.  Interestingly if I prepare emails on-line at BT I never have a send problem.  I am seriously thinking of just doing emails from EM client and my Gmail account.