Office 365 upgrade and Thunderbird 12

Androsupial · ‎02-05-2012

Just a little clarification for anyone migrating from the old BT Connect email arrangements to Office 365 and using Thunderbird. I completed this transition today using Thunderbird 12.0.1 and found that BT's online instructions are not quite 100%, so here are my comments. For serious Thunderbird users, I have set-up Thunderbird to send/receive via the single Local folder, not via account-specific folders, but I think most of this applies one way or another. In case it is relevant, I have two email accounts and BT Connect is not the default.

General comment: In its guidance for the Thunderbird migration, BT uses the words 'server name' to describe what Thunderbird (and the rest) call the port number! Go figure.

Incoming (POP) settings: In Thunderbird, go to Tools/Account Settings and check each mail Account's 'Server Settings' entry. I found that Thunderbird had already defaulted to the correct port 995 on both my accounts, including BT Connect, so I just had to change the BT Connect POP server from pop3.btconnect.com to pop.outlook.com and check that the security protocol was SSL/TLS.

Outgoing (SMTP) settings: Still in Tools/Account Settings scroll down and look for 'Outgoing Servers', which is where SMTP settings are managed for some reason. As my non-BT account is the default, Thunderbird had already given it port 587, with port 25 allocated to BT Connect. I didn't touch this (I could always come back to it), changed the BT Connect server from mail.btconnect.com to smtp.outlook.com, and checked that the security protocol was STARTTLS. I then OK'd my way out.

Comment: At this point my POP settings were as recommended, and SMTP was also correct except that the port number for BT was 25 and not the recommended 587. I sent my newly configured BT Connect account a test email, and it worked! I sent one from it, and again it was fine. I concluded that the SMTP port number is not critical. However, (a) Thunderbird does advise that it prefers you to use only one outgoing server, and (b) Thunderbird appears to allocate port 587 to the default account. Putting the two together - and if you get a problem related to this - you can opt to use just one outgoing server in Thunderbird, and it won't even have to be the BT one! (Even so, I am using two happily, but this is just a home office.)

Passwords: For some bizarre reason, Thunderbird stores email passwords in Tools/Options/Security/Passwords (not Tools/Account Settings) and you cannot directly update passwords to reflect the new BT server details, even though the passwords themselves are the same. Happily, the first emails you send and receive via your upgraded BT Connect account in Thunderbird will cause it to pop-up a password request window: you enter your password, check the relevant box to memorise it, and the job's done: do this for the first send and the first receive, and your password(s) will be added to the Passwords store with the updated server names. You can then delete the old BT Connect Password entries.

Hope this helps.

mithcd · ‎02-05-2012

Port 587 is for users to send out emails on. Port 25 is for servers to relay messages to one another. That way ISPs can block outgoing SMTP on their networks but still allow users to send email to any mail server through port 587.

The original one was port 25 for SMTP.

Androsupial · ‎03-05-2012

As of this morning I ran another email test on the Office 365 setup for BT Connect in Thunderbird. I had to re-enter my POP password. This was a bit suspicious, so I went to my Password list and found that the saved POP setting there was pop3.btconnect.com. It still works, but I am not sure what happened to pop.outlook.com! The whole point of what I wrote yesterday was to try to clarify the process for anyone who tried to follow BT's not totally correct advice for Thunderbird ... but now I am rather adrift myself. It works, and that's the main thing, but it doesn't seem completely in line with what BT said. I see from the earlier comment that the reason my BT SMTP setting is port 25 is that it is using that to process my emails via my default email service on port 587. Smart stuff, eh? If only 'they' would tell us about this sort of thing! Still, a lesson learnt there and thanks to mithcd for the info.

LizHowlett · ‎15-05-2012

Since upgrading to Office 365, my Thunderbird 12 is no longer working properly. I can receive emails fine, but when I try to send them I get the message "Sending of message failed.
The message could not be sent because the connection to SMTP server smtp.outlook.com timed out. Try again or contact your network administrator."

Strangely, the messages are not stored in the Sent folder, but do arrive at the recipient's address. However, I have no verification of whether they always get received, which is risky, and no history of any e-mails I have sent. BT has remotely accessed my computer 3 times and cannot resolve the problem. Can anyone help? I am getting a bit desperate because I'm not very computer-literate, but rely on it for my business.

Thanks

shaunarkinstall · ‎03-07-2012

Finally sorted this one. It was driving me mad as well. So frustrating as it used to work perfectly before BT so called "upgraded our service" but were unable to explain why it never worked correctly after

Change server name to; pod51014.outlook.com port 995
Connection security to ; SSL/TLS
Authentication to ; normal password

and for outgoing
server name to ; pod51014.outlook.com port 587
Connection security to ; STARTTLS
Authentication to ; normal password

I find it works fine now and sends much quicker

shaunarkinstall · ‎03-07-2012

Finally sorted this one. It was driving me mad as well. So frustrating as it used to work perfectly before BT so called "upgraded our service" but were unable to explain why it never worked correctly after

Change server name to; pod51014.outlook.com port 995
Connection security to ; SSL/TLS
Authentication to ; normal password

and for outgoing
server name to ; pod51014.outlook.com port 587
Connection security to ; STARTTLS
Authentication to ; normal password

I find it works fine now and sends much quicker

hindmasj · ‎20-01-2013

This had been frustrating me all morning and this post has solved it for me. The key thing was I was setting the SMTP security setting according to this page: http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18514/kw/18514/c/2048,3433,3902/ which says I should use SSL/TLS, but this is wrong and should be as you say STARTLS.

Will link this post as solution to my post.

spiderfreak · ‎03-03-2013

It took me ages to get this sorted this evening - very frustrating!

The other thing which I had to do was add "@btconnect.com" in the UserName field of the Server Settings and Outgoing Server Settings within Thunderbird. Previously I'd just had the first part of my email address, without this.

After that it worked ok with the settings quoted above, using pop.outlook.com and smtp.outlook.com.