Email Authentication issues

[cakesmith83]

My ntlworld.com email addresses are not receiving mail today :-

Unable to send or receive messages for the Ntlworld (nnnnnn) account. An incorrect password was entered. The next time you send or receive messages, you'll be asked to enter your user name and password for this account.

Server Error: 0x800CCC90
Server Response: -ERR [AUTH] Authentication failed.
Server: 'pop.ntlworld.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC92
Protocol: POP3

Port: 110
Secure(SSL): No

I have changed nothing. Using Live mail on Windows 10.

Webmail works O.K..

Any ideas?

[ravenstar68]

---

@Jonathan_E_68 wrote:

Thank you very much, Graham

I have two further questions:

First, is this reversible? In other words, if I do as you have suggested and if it doesn't work, can I just return to the earlier settings?
Yes the changes are reversible, but POP3 has worked on Port 995 SSL enabled since at least 2009 and has actually been the internet standard since around 1997.

Why should you change? - Because your username and password are sent to a pop3 server in clear text on a great many email systems.

+OK Virgin Media server ready.
user t**.*******@blueyonder.co.uk
+OK
pass **********
+OK Logged in.
list
+OK 251 messages:
1 69623
2 97756
3 101380
...

If you use port 110 with no encryption then anyone sitting between you and the destination can intercept your traffic and read you email address and password.  On the other hand, if you use port 995 encrypted, anyone intercepting the traffic can no longer read it.

Second, as you can see I have only just joined this community and this is my first attempt at seeking advice. I see from your signature that you do not work for VM. Will someone from VM be along shortly to confirm what you have suggested and/or to contact me directly to talk me through the process? I am here because I could not get a sensible answer from the VM telephone service and I am concerned that nobody from VM has explained why e-mails suddenly stopped being received on our iPhones with no warning. Where is the VM help team? Where is their customer service?

On this Forum most users rank is based simply on the number of posts they have made, not how useful their posts have been.  The VIP program (formerly Superusers) is a program set up by Virgin Media to recognise community members who provide quality assistance to users.  I personally have my own domain and my own email server.  I will certainly vouch for the information Graham has provided.

Jonathan

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n the subject of "Will the mail client redownload my mail if I change the server name?"

It very much depends on how the client has been programmed.

To tell whether a mail has been downloaded already the POP3 client needs at least two pieces of information.

• Unique ID number (UID) of the email.
• One other piece of information - preferably email address

I remember the old defunct live mail client used the server name as the second piece of information,  Most other clients appear to use email address though, as if you change the server name, the mail is not re-downloaded.

I'll delete my IMAP account and change it over to POP3 on  Outlook and see if a change in server name causes mail to be redownloaded.  But it might not be done tonight.

Tim

[Jonathan_E_68]

Thank you very much, Graham and Tim

From what you have said, I think my Outgoing Mail Server settings are fine currently and it is just the Incoming Mail Server settings that need changing.

Incoming Mail Server
Host Name: pop3.blueyonder.co.uk [I will keep this as is for the time being]
User Name: recent:LLnnnLnnnn (i.e. recent: and then some letters and numbers that bear no relation to our e-mail address) [I will delete "recent:" but keep the jumble of other letters and numbers as is for the time being]
Password: ........ (8 dots which represent the password I cannot see and cannot recall and which has not been changed for many, many years: I think this password was created by VM and is not the same as my VM account password) [I will keep this as is for the time being because I cannot see what this password is, just the 8 dots]

Outgoing Mail Server
SMTP: smtp.blueyonder.co.uk [I will keep this as is for the time being]

(Advanced) Incoming Settings: 
Use SSL: off [I will turn this on]
Authentication: Password [I am not sure what this password is but hopefully it will be the one represented by the 8 dots mentioned above]
Delete from server: Never [I will keep this as is]
Server Port: 110 [I will change this to 995]

I am nervous about making these changes as I hope it will not result in Drafts being deleted and thousands of e-mails being re-downloaded on our home Mac or on our iPhones.

Jonathan

[Graham_A]

@Jonathan_E_68 

Please note that the SSL port no for the SMTP settings is 465.

The format of the blueyonder username that you describe predates the NTL/Telewest merger that led to Virgin Media.  If the proposed changes cause issues we may need to go into more detail about blueyonder email usernames, but that is best dealt with a new thread, if necessary.

[Jonathan_E_68]

Thank you, Graham

My Outgoing Mail Server settings are:
Host Name: smtp.blueyonder.co.uk
User Name: my e-mail address @blueyonder.co.uk
Password: 8 dots
Use SSL: switched on
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 465

I am not having problems with outgoing e-mail messages on any devices using the Mail app.

Jonathan

[ravenstar68]

@Jonathan_E_68 

I've run a test starting with the server as pop3.blueyonder.co.uk port 995 SSL/TLS and downloading my mail.

I then changed server to pop3.virginmedia.com port 995 SSL/TLS and did a mail sync again.  The only new mail that was downloaded was the test mail sent when verifying the account settings.  Mail was set to be left on the server.

No duplicate mail was downloaded after changing the server hostname.  I would always recommend you have all your server hostnames and IP addresses to the current recommended settings.  You shouldn't be using out of date settings.  If VM do decide to sunset the old servers, you won't have any issues unless you are using the old out of date settings.

Finally I do recommend you update your outgoing server as well.  smtp.virginmedia.com port 465 SSL and in outgoing server tick my server requires authentication and use same settings as incoming server.

Tim

Edit.  P.S.  If you're using POP3 the drafts folder is a local folder on each device.  Changing hostname would not delete the Drafts folder contents.

[Jonathan_E_68]

Thank you very much, Tim

[ravenstar68]

A final aside.  The username you mentioned is the inital email address you are given.  When the account is created you are given the option to create a friendlier email address as an alias of the original default one.

As far as POP3 and IMAP are concerned you can use any of the blueyonder aliases as the login username

thus if I have an account with the aliases

jb17289h@blueyonder.co.uk (I've made this up)
joebloggs@blueyonder.co.uk
joey@blueyonder.co.uk

Any of the above three addresses can be used as the account user name.  The password is the same in each case.

Tim

[Jonathan_E_68]

Update: I have been brave enough to try changing the settings on my iPhone.

So far, I have just done what I said I would do a few posts ago. I have now received the missing e-mails only (268 of them). The problem definitely arose for me between 14:03 and 14:11 on Wednesday, 9 June 2021 because the last e-mail that had downloaded on my iPhone on 9 June was at 14:03 and the earliest missing e-mail that has just been downloaded on my iPhone was at 14:11 on 9 June.

I will try updating the servers on my iPhone in a few days time.

Many thanks to Graham and Tim as I could not have done this without your help. 

Cheers,

Jonathan