Forum Discussion

Mikeburtie's avatar
Mikeburtie
Tuning in
7 months ago

I'm a confused tech savvy person.....

I've been using Outlook for my email client for many years (currently I have Outlook 2007 set up on my desktop) and, until a couple of weeks ago, it worked perfectly.

Then, inexplicably, I was able to receive emails to my ntlworld (pop3) email account (I have been a, now, Virgin Media customer for 20 odd years, hence the NTL world email), but I am unable to send any using my (smtp) Outlook program. I don't seem to have any issues with either sending or receiving emails using my iPhone/iPad native email apps and have changed nothing on those settings. 

I have read both the posts on these forums and Virgin's advice in respect of "app" passwords when using a client such as Outlook, but using the revised settings seems to do nothing other than to continually bring the "Enter Network password" pop up box onto the screen.

Can somebody please point me in the direction of where I need to look to resolve this issue, before I just give up and use my phone/tablet to send emails in future, copying in my own email address so I get the copies appearing on my desktop ?

cheers
Mike

  • Mikeburtie's avatar
    Mikeburtie
    Tuning in
    7 months ago

    Hi there ! Thanks so much for coming to help me, yep, my settings (albeit in different boxes because of using Outlook 2007) are the same as those in the link - I've also tried changing the password to both the "app password" detailed by VM and then back to my previous one, but all to no avail, sadly...

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta
      7 months ago

      Are you just trying to set up the one ntlworld email address on Outlook?

      • Mikeburtie's avatar
        Mikeburtie
        Tuning in
        7 months ago

        Yes, just the one, main, email address as it would appear to have stopped receiving emails now (as well as not allowing me to send any...) - it is currently set up with a POP protocol, rather than IMAP for receiving, which I know means I can't "manage" my inbox from my phone or ipad, but I'm cool with that, the desktop "backup" has worked fine for a number of years.

  • Mikeburtie's avatar
    Mikeburtie
    Tuning in
    7 months ago

    Yep ! I know its working as a "test" email I sent from my hotmail account (from my iPhone), is there @ 19:43

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    7 months ago

    So must be something within the setting of Outlook then that still need changing/checking/re-entering?

    You may well have done this already (not entirely clear from above so apologies if you have already done it) but it is all of the server settings updating to match those in the section 'Connecting your Email to a Client App'

    https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account

    (host names need updating too to match the above info along with all the other settings to match)

    Username is the full ntlworld email address and the password is the app password generated from within 'My Virgin Media' for the mailbox

    • Mikeburtie's avatar
      Mikeburtie
      Tuning in
      7 months ago

      Thank you for your help, sorry to be a bit slow to respond, been busy today....

      OK, I thought I might have misentered the "app" password, so reset it and copied it from the screen into my clipboard this time. I also deleted the ntlworld email entry from my Outlook accounts (just in case "editing" it was creating a problem), and started afresh, even going so far as to manually enter the incoming/outgoing mail server info (pop3.virginmedia.com & smtp.virginmedia.com), I've also entered my username both with & without the ***@ntlworld.com info - none of this is proving fruitful in my quest to get the Outlook 2006 client on my desktop up & running again....any ideas ? 

      • Mikeburtie's avatar
        Mikeburtie
        Tuning in
        7 months ago

        Just a thought...do I need to wait awhile before Virgin's servers recognise the "new" app password ? Happy to wait but I would have thought it would have been pretty much instant ?

    • Mikeburtie's avatar
      Mikeburtie
      Tuning in
      6 months ago

      Thank you for presevering with me....I can't, unfortunately, get Outlook to play nicely with Virgin when I use POP3 for my incoming mail server, but, if I change that to IMAP, it appears to receive my mail ok (in the mailbox at the bottom of my email folder list). I then just need to move them from that inbox to the "traditional" (pop3) inbox and then manage the emails in the usual way by moving them into the folders I've already set up in my "old" pop3 mailbox. It might actually work ok, as I can "cull" all the unwanted (IMAP) emails using my iPhone/iPad and then just move the "useful" remaining ones in my desktop Outlook prog to the folders I want them to be in (eg. I have an "energy bills" folder in my desktop Outlook, so I can simply do a 3 step process of locating them in the IMAP inbox, move them to POP3 inbox (on my desktop) and thence to my "Energy bills" folder on my desktop Outlook. Might sound convoluted, but I reckon it's a workable compromise for the time being...  

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    7 months ago

    Running out of ideas, unfortunately.

    What error(s) is Outlook reporting when you try to send/receive?

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    6 months ago

    Not sure I have understood your workaround but that's not too important.

    If you want to use email across multiple devices you would use an IMAP connection. That way the mailbox is fully synchronised across all those devices so they hold the same information whatever device you are using. The difference between IMAP and POP3 is explained below.

    https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account#48322eb1-7679-4e11-b7ea-f643dcd3784b

    There is probably not too much point further trying to wrestle with VM's email system or change your existing VM setup. Further effort in that direction is probably just wasted effort as VM's system and support is so poor.

    If it has not happened to you yet, at some point VM is likely to ask you to set up a third party email account (such as Gmail, Outlook etc.) to run alongside VM's email mailbox for 'security' reasons.

    If you only have one VM account to deal with, I think you might be better off setting up a third party email address as IMAP across all of your devices and on your main desktop client email app. Once done, then begin the process of migrating all of your email requirements/contacts away from the VM email address over to the new third party email address so the VM email address eventually becomes redundant.

    There will be an investment of time to do that but you will end up being totally detached from VM's hopeless email system and fully synchronised across your devices on the new email address.

    You might also like to think about updating your email client if you decide to go through this update process. Support for Outlook 2007 ended in October 2017. Whilst it might still continue to work, there is always a danger that you run into some kind of technical/support issue in the future or, potentially worse, some kind of security flaw which is no longer fixed by MS. You could maybe update to the current version of Outlook (which would be at a cost) or use a free email client if you decide you want to do any of the suggested changeover tasks above.

    • Mikeburtie's avatar
      Mikeburtie
      Tuning in
      6 months ago


      Thank you for taking the time to do such a comprehensive reply to my banal issue "goslow", I do have 2 "external" accounts (hotmail and gmail (plus a completely separate gmail one for managing my US iTunes account..), and my hotmail account was already set up as the recovery account for my main VM email account, so I think I'm pretty much ok now - funnily enough my wife moaned at me today, as the secondary email from our VM account that she uses to send emails from her phone also stopped working as the password I had set up in her phone was obviously now incorrect, so perhaps every cloud has a silver lining, as it was the work of a moment to get the new "app" password and replace the existing one with the new one, now that I understand how it all slots together (I had to create a recovery email option for hers, but I just used one of the said other emails I already have, so it wasn't too bad). As you say, I think we need to look carefully at addressing the desktop email program before we are forced into a situation by actions beyond our control. The world is obviously and increasingly now looking at the cloud for storage and, whilst I understand the logic and sensibility of that, I cling to the comfort of having our email correspondence held locally, especially when outages as happened on Friday still occur and sods law will mean it happens at the most inconvenient time possible. Cheers once again and I cant tell you how much I appreciate the time you took to help me, a complete stranger, out and increase my knowledge of the organisational changes that occurred whilst I was looking away for a moment ! cheers and kind regards, Mike