topic Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia in Archive

SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

tjcmorgan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:04:09 GMT

Hi there-

I have two btconnect accounts configured in Mac Entourage that work properly nearly all the time (sending and receiving). Occasionally, one or both of them can't send mail (due to server "authentication" errors) - sometime refusing passwords. Nothing has been changed on the client.

To "fix" the problem, I have either had to enable SMTP authentication or disable it (i.e. the reverse of what worked before).

So, I know how to workaround the issue, but why is it happening in the first place. Is BT changing the SMTP policy?

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:05:40 GMT

its the way that BTs server DONT work.

it seems to happen alot.

i found rebooting the router fixes it alot of the time. something to do with the server not liking the ip address i suspect

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

adrianc — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:14:08 GMT

"...something to do with the server not liking the ip address i suspect"

Close, but not quite. The issue is that mail.btconnect.com is a CNAME for a farm of servers. Most of them advertise that they require SMTP authentication, but some do not. When the client attempts to send mail, if mail.btconnect.com is resolved to one of the correctly configured servers, authentication will work a treat. However, if it resolves to one of the other ones it will not - but only with some clients (Mac Mail and Outlook 2007 being the most common).

Of course, if your PC/Mac/router is caching DNS answers (as it should), you will continue to hit the same server until the expiration of the DNS result (a quick check gives me a 600 second TTL). Rebooting the router will 'fix' the problem as (a) it will eat up a significant portion of the 600 seconds; and (b) it will likely result in a new lookup that might hit a different server.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:22:28 GMT

why do BT have differently configured servers? surely if they knew this was what caused so many people to complain about BTs email service then they would configure them to be the same?

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

adrianc — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:46:28 GMT

That is a question I've been searching for an answer to for a long time. The closest I have gotten to a sensible answer is that is is the result of a migration project that never got completed.

To be fair though, it only causes a problem with clients that treat the AUTH response as gospel, most will try it anyway and will be able to send.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:31:01 GMT

hallelujah!

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

Kirok — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:03:10 GMT

I wondered this myself ages ago anyway short answer - they turned on authentication for some servers because they wanted to see how many customers already had SMTP authentication turned on... and of course its not configured correctly or set to fallback gracefully.

The server pool list is online, I tested them ages ago to see which server supported what but I can't find the text file.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:29:41 GMT

welcome back kirok.

apparently... and this is because i was assisting a family friend that i know this...

BTinternet now only allows email to be sent when authentication is on and their site www.btyahoo.com/smtp (i think its that one) said that in order to combat spam all ISPs will be making everyone turn authentication on. which is fair enough.

wonder when BTconnect are going to start that. and if so i imagine they will then make all their servers require authentication meaning that the servers will be configured the same.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

Kirok — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:27:16 GMT

Cheers, I occasionally pop in and out, or lurk depending on what else I'm doing or how bored I am and if someone else has answered the question.

I know BT Internet run things a bit differently I've even seen them blacklist each other on occasion, further to the SMTP survey explanation my guess is they were seeing if they could move wholey over to SMTP auth without customers complaining, probably because they were being killed by spam.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:07:15 GMT

but.... they CAUSED complaints with non comformity between servers.... how can they judge the effects properly if it caused other issues. o well..

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

spank — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:41:44 GMT

If you are connected with BT Broadband and you have authentication enabled chances are it will error. Expecially with outlook, outlook express works fine.

If you are connecting to another ISP and you try and send mail without authentication you tend to get the same errors.

It's a pain for people who take their laptops home, they have to remove the authentication settings when they connect to the BT line.

It seems to be some sort of problem between the mail servers and certain mail clients.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:53:50 GMT

the point is that you shouldnt have to change the authentication setting on or off regardless. BT cant expect its pc illiterate users to chop and change their settings just because BT cant configure their servers correctly.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

spank — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:47:26 GMT

Indeed, another case of a*** from elbow syndrome.

Message Edited by Andy75 on 12-08-2009 03:47 PM

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

adrianc — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:08:49 GMT

Given that this only (ttbomk) affects people using Outlook 2007 and Mac Mail, I don't think that all the blame can be laid at BT's feet.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:42:03 GMT

BT provides outlook 2007 as the mail client for organise and share so BT should be able to provide a service that allows a product that they themselves hand out to work. surely?

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

spank — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:57:52 GMT

You may have hit on something there 🙂

Organise and Organise and Share customer don't have this problem....

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:17:47 GMT

spank,

thats because org + share uses exchange not a pop3 account. its pop3 accounts that are doing it.

i think

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

spank — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:42:23 GMT

Yeah I mean the reason they're not fixing it, to make users buy advanced email hosting instead. Probably not but you never know.

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

alastair — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:50:28 GMT

the answer is probably the most obvious. Butthole VS Elbow

other ISPs don't have these issues as far as i'm aware

Re: SMTP Authentication schizophrenia

kittyandpolly — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:39:44 GMT

Hi,

I seem to be having the same problem. I receive emails ok, but when I go to send emails, it tries to authenticate and keeps asking me for my password, despite me providing it.

Email was working fine until yesterday but I haven't changed a thing.

How I can best get round this ?Just reboot the router or try something else ?

Thanks,

Paula