Windows Live Mail stopped working

[Druid666]

Unable to send or receive messages for the pop.ntlworld.com account. Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems or a long period of inactivity.

Server: 'pop3.virginmedia.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0F
Protocol: POP3
Port: 993
Secure(SSL): Yes

This is the message I'm receiving. Started happening 4 days ago. I've done nothing to my computor for this to happen. Any help please? Both email accounts are ntlworld.com

[Chris_W1]

Hi Druid666, thanks for the message and welcome to the forums. 

I am sorry to hear that you are having issues with the service 

Does this happen on multiple browsers?  

Does updating the password help? 

Chris. 

[Druid666]

Tried that. Virgin media preventing me from changing it. Not using a browser, am trying to connect via Windows Live mail client, which has been working perfectly since NTL was running things. There is no fault on my end. My inability to download my mail is being caused by Virgin Media blocking the ports my client uses.

[coenoby]

---

@Druid666 wrote:

Server: 'pop3.virginmedia.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0F
Protocol: POP3
Port: 993
Secure(SSL): Yes

There is no fault on my end. My inability to download my mail is being caused by Virgin Media blocking the ports my client uses.

---

With all due respect the error message you have posted suggests the problem is with your POP3 sever settings in Windows Live Mail..

If you check out the settings that VM have been recommending since 2017 ( they are posted here https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Email-settings-change ) you will see that the VM POP3 server uses Port 995 not 993 as Live Mail is reporting in the error message that you have posted.

Port 993 is the one used by the VM IMAP server.

The POP3 server and settings only deal with receiving emails. Outgoing email is handled by the SMTP settings. Therefore if you cannot send  emails using Windows Live Mail you may need to check your SMTP settings as well.

Just for completeness, when any Microsoft email client reports error 0x800CCC0F the two most likely causes are:

• errors in the server settings in the email client      or
• a conflict between the email client and the antivirus or firewall installed on the device that results in the ports that the email client uses being blocked by the security software.

Finally, I have POP3 VM email accounts (virginmedia,com and ntlworld.com) set up in my MS Outlook 365 client and they are all working fine using the recommended settings posting in the above link.

Hope that helps.

Coenoby

[Druid666]

Checked all that. Latest error message: 

Unable to send or receive messages for the pop.virginmedia.com (1) account. Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity.

Server: 'pop3.virginmedia.com'
Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800CCC0F
Protocol: POP3
Port: 995
Secure(SSL): Yes

Using windows firewall, and Avast anti-virus, and have been for the last 15 years with no problems. I have change or amended nothing, all is as it was before.

[goslow]

Are you able to 'pause' Avast temporarily and retry (in case Avast is causing an issue)?

Are you able to access your VM email account via webmail (to confirm you still have access)?

Windows Live Mail support ended something like 6 years ago. You might not be changing your setup yourself but nothing to say updates to other programs or Windows itself isn't going to break something at some point as WLM becomes more and more obsolete.

[Druid666]

Yes, I've tried that, doesn't make any difference.. There are thousands of people out there who are having exactly the same problem as me. Last email notification from facebook was on the 26th of last month. strangely, 5 days after that, windows live mail client started being refused connection.all those computers out there with live mail or outlook on them can't all be buggered at the same time ????

[goslow]

---

@Druid666 wrote:

Yes, I've tried that, doesn't make any difference.. There are thousands of people out there who are having exactly the same problem as me. Last email notification from facebook was on the 26th of last month. strangely, 5 days after that, windows live mail client started being refused connection.all those computers out there with live mail or outlook on them can't all be buggered at the same time ????

---

So you can still access the account(s) OK via webmail?

[jpeg1]

What happens when you log into your VM broadband account? Is the email account still shown as linked to it?

[coenoby]

---

@Druid666 wrote:

Last email notification from facebook was on the 26th of last month. strangely, 5 days after that, windows live mail client started being refused connection.all those computers out there with live mail or outlook on them can't all be buggered at the same time ????

---

As @goslow said in the earlier post, Microsoft ended support for Windows Live Mail in 2016. That means that any bugs that have arisen with it since then  will not have been addressed by Microsoft and that there will have been no security updates to Windows Live Mail since then either. That means it may well have its own internal issues that throw up errors.

"all those computers out there with live mail or outlook on them can't all be buggered at the same time"

They aren't.  My Ntlworld.com and Virginmedia.com email accounts are all working fine with Outlook 365.

The Microsoft error 0x800ccc0f with Windows Live Mail has been reported regularly on the Microsoft Community Forum for years. It can come up on email accounts for all email providers and has always proved a difficult one to solve. People often reported Live Mail just started working again for no apparent reason.

However, you might find this non Microsoft link useful - it goes through the main causes of that error and takes you through a number of trouble shooting steps https://appuals.com/fix-windows-live-mail-error-id-0x800ccc0f/  Edit - Sorry I meant to say, that link has some very useful detailed advice, at the end it suggests that if none of that advice resolves the problem there is some software you can download . I have no experience with that software, it might be fine but I would not advise anyone to download it.

My personal advice would be to let Windows Live Mail go and move to a more modern reliable email client such as Mozilla Thunderbird  https://www.thunderbird.net  (that's what I have started using in preference to Outlook 365) or move over to a later free Microsoft email offering such as Windows Mail.

Coenoby