Having recently updated my os to 10.4.3 i have lost the ability to send messages in mail, receiving is no problem, i have two accounts and know that the info on both is correct,l anyone with any ideas?

what are the accounts? (BT, hotmail, gmail ect...)

did you upgrade from 10.3.9 to 10.4.3?

Try the "Connection Doctor" that is in Mail.app's "Window" menu.

Are you receiving error messages about not being able to send, or no alarms pop up but you know the messages aren't going out?

If like the previous poster asked, you are upgrading from 10.3.x, and you had some extensions/add-ons installed in Mail, some of those may have broken and affected mail delivery. For example, I had MailPriority under 10.3.x Mail, and when I went to 10.4, it kept email from going out. No alarms or warnings, but I realized after a day or so that mail was not actaully reaching the recipients.

I have used the connection doctor, also i have removed mail prefs from the library and i have setup up a new user account to see if anything in my account was corrupt, all to no avail. The message i receive looks like this

"Cannot send message using the server smtp.freeserve.com

Use the pop-up menu below to try a different outgoing mail server. All messages will use this server until you quit Mail or change your network settings.

Message from: Andrew Kingslow <andrew@kingslow.fslife.co.uk>"

i bought my titanium in april with 10.3.9 installed but received the upgrade dvd free, all software updates have been done via software update online.

I think the critical part with the upgrade question was: is this your first foray into Tiger-land, or did the breakdown occur with e.g. an incremental upgrade from 10.4.2 to 10.4.3?

Also, this might sound silly, but is there a ports problem? Do your email accounts use secure authentication or secure sending (these can be two separate things)? If either one, do you have the proper options checked or not, as well as the proper ports specified?

I have SSL (secure) sending on my email accounts, but the authentication is simple "Password" - not secure. SSL port tends to be 465, but sometimes can be the same as the regular non-secure port: 25.

FYI, this is distinct from incoming POP or IMAP server ports - for incoming, non-secure tends to be port 110, and secure tends to be port 993. All of these numbers depend on your particular mail service provider though.

You might want to check these settings in your Mail.app SMTP (i.e. outgoing) server preferences.

Are you sure that you were using that SMTP server for outgoing mail before you did the OS upgrade?
It is quite common nowadays for ISPs to prevent use of any other SMTP server than their own (often called "port 25 blocking"). Check with your ISP to see if they do this. It would seem quite a coincidence that they just introduced this policy at the time of your OS upgrade, but it's possible.

already checked the port settings and although there are sometimes issues using port 25, this is still the recommended port with my email service provider, if my memory serves correct i moved from dial to broadband recently, this is when everything stopped working(flashing light bulb moment)

i am now using onetel as my internet provider but still using my hotmail and freeserve mail addresses.

You haven't made it clear if you still have the problem. If you do, the solution is to change your Mail.app settings to use your ISP's SMTP server for all accounts. You can use other provider's POP or IMAP servers for incoming mail as usual.

bingo! user error.. didn t change my smtp settings to my new isp
thankyou hayne...

Another person with send problems
 

I am new to Macs, with lots of Linux and Windows experience. I have Mail 2.0.5 and Tiger 10.4.4, and a trial account to mac.com plus a SSH tunnel account to my own linux server. With both mac.com and the ssh tunnel, I am able to receive but not send using POP. A colleague also can receive but not send. Is there some sort of known problem on Mail.app ?

Also cannot send using Thunderbird
 

I also tried sending both via ssh tunnel and to mac.com using Thunderbird. Still no luck. Is there something that one needs to set on OS X to allow for outgoing mail to a remote SMTP server?

Are you sure that you aren't having the usual problem due to "port 25 blockage" by your ISP?
For mac.com, there is another port that you can use. I forget what it is, but I'm sure it is documented somewhere on the .Mac site or help page.

ISP blocking of port 25 wouldn't apply to something going over a ssh tunnel on port 22 to a linux box, would it?

No - I was ignoring that case since that is a more complicated scenario and more things might be going wrong.
Maybe you need to have a look at the low-level packets (with Ethereal) and see what is happening.
Or try doing your own SMTP sending with a Perl script or just telnet possibly - just as a diagnostic step.

Same problem here - just started happening.. what a B^*CH!

Same problem here. Oddest thing is, from the same machine, I can telnet into the SMTP server and send a message with "helo", etc.

Perhaps this macosxhints article on setting logging options for Mail.app might help:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...04101603285984

Thanks for the link, but didn't seem to help much.
The flags that seemed relevant (LogDeliveryTimes and LogNotificationActivity) didn't give any info. Well, LogDeliveryTimes didn't give any info... LogNotificationActivity gave so much info it would take me the rest of the year to see if there's anything there that's pertinent =P

Anyone have any other ideas?

You could watch the low-level packets with Ethereal (under X11) and see what is happening when Mail.app tries to send mail.

I wish I could do that... I'm trying to remotely debug a friend's laptop, and it isn't making any sense to me. As soon as it tries to send, mail instantly pops up a "cannot send messaging using [smtp server]".

I think I'm gonna trash all of mail's settings etc, and try again. I'll let you guys know what happens.

For some reason, that worked! I moved ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist, moved the mail folders (~/Library/Mail and ~/Library/Mail\ Downloads), and started mail over, and it worked fine. I quit mail, replaced the mail folders, and that worked too. I never replaced the messed up plist.

So, for those trying to fix this, I think trashing your plist should do the trick just fine, although I'd back up your mail folders before you try anything =)

Good luck!