Thunderbird fails to send to BT Email

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

As I have said, it is probably a BT server problem. The best advice when it happens is to do nothing, especially do not change passwords or delete the account from your device as that can cause more problems than it solves.

The first thing to do when it happens is check to see if you can log on to your email account via a web browser. If you can there is obviously nothing wrong with your password or account hence the advice to do nothing.

If the problem did not resolve its self after a day or two or in your instance where you have changed your password you should stop all your devices that you use to check for emails from checking for email. The easiest way of doing that is to turn them off.

Once you have done that, change your email password again by logging onto your email account on a browser and going to "account info"  found by clicking on your username then "Change Password". After doing that check that you can access your email via webmail (on a browser).

If that works you should wait at least an hour to allow the servers to sync and then add the new password to T'bird and check it works. If it does then move onto any other devices that you use to access your email.

When entering the settings, make sure that in the Outgoing server you do not use the "use same as incoming" for the email address and password. Enter them manually and ensure that you are using the correct settings as per this link.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/manage-email-account/manual-settings/what-are-the-settings-for-outgoin...

[Bextonian]

@gg30340 

Many thanks for your advice which proved to be right. I am once again able to send emails from Thunderbird. Thank you.

[sewing1623]

We had this same problem with BT mail.

Could received via Thunderbird, but could not send. Erroring out with that same message.

Checked with BT, made sure server settings were correct. Could access emails,  both receive and send via BT Webmail, all ok.. so checked the settings in Thunderbird again, this time for Privacy and security specifically the saved passwords section..  selected that, asked for it to display the passwords.  and sure enough the IMAP settings were correct for incoming, but the  password shown  for the SMTP server was incorrect, infact displaying a really old one. ? go figure?  So amended this to the correct password. Came out of Thunderbird, went back in and emails now send without any problem. 

Should that same problem arise again in the future, that will now be the first place I look .

Hope this might help others