Tiscali and outbound SMTP emails - Help!

[Chas Uno]

If anyone here is with Tiscali and uses a stand alone email client, then they will be aware that there have been major problems sending emails using SMTP:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/114236/tiscali-suffers-weeklong-email-outage.html

I'm with Tiscali and tied to a 12 month minimum contract that doesn't expire until October, so basically I am stuck with them for the time being. I also use a stand alone email client program (Forte Agent), which was working fine until Tiscali messed up their SMTP system. They finally got it working again last week, but some time during the weekend my emails stopped getting sent again.

They appear to get sent and get marked as so in my sent messages folder. No emails get bounced back, and no error messages are returned. Basically when I send emails via SMTP they disappear into Tiscali's black hole SMTP server never to be seen again.

Anyway, as I'm stuck with Tiscali as my ISP until my contract expires, is there any other way I can send SMTP emails with my email client? I've found some places online that offer SMTP services for a charge, but as I'm already paying Tiscali for the privilege I'm loathe to want to pay out again for a service I should already be receiving...

And don't even suggest contacting Tiscali's helpline. They're utterly hopeless and I'm still awaiting a response via the online help section.

Do I HAVE to send SMTP email ONLY via my ISP's server?

 

[Xen]

a few years ago, it was possible for you to connect to some SMTP servers anonymously to send email as if it was from whichever address you want. However, due to people abusing these services for spam etc, they are no longer available (or if they are, their very hard to come across.) You used to be able to do it with stmp.google.com, but as far as i know, theyve restricted it now and if you use that server, you have to have a Gmail login and it will appear to the sender as if its come from your gmail account (not the account you specified in the from field of the header.) RCPT statements no longer work either iirc, so people will reply to your gmail account even with a RCPT.

 

[Liam]

I'm with Tiscali and they say this has been rectified.

Liam

 

[jug]

mail15.com offer free smtp (smtp authentication required)

 

[The Negotiator]

Use your uni SMTP server? That's what I do because it is by far the most reliable thing...

 

[Liam]

I've sent emails out to my hotmail account and they go through fine, nothing to worry about but if you still have issues then it maybe a configuration error.

Liam

 

[Chas Uno]

Cheers for the suggestions everyone.

Just to clarify the situation, my SMTP outbound emails were working quite happily from when I joined Tiscali last October up to when they buggered up their SMTP system sometime towards the end of May. They started working again last week, but then they stopped again.

I contacted their help department who finally managed to get back to me. They said that they 'do not support Forte' (Forte is my email client) and that I should try and use Outlook express. Funny, as Forte worked quite happily until Tiscali's SMTP system went tits up. But more strangely, Outlook Express DOES work with their SMTP server.

Though they won't admit it, something that THEY'VE done has stopped my Forte email client from working with their system. And yes, I have checked and double checked all the settings and they are the same as Outlook. I mean, I had to configure Outlook to work with their server so if I can get that right then I'm sure I can get Forte right as well...

I'm using a very old version of Forte Agent (1.7), and the latest version (4.0) is supposed to be Vista ready. Why Tiscali say that they 'don't support it' is anyones guess. This is Forte Agent by the way: http://www.forteinc.com/

So I am now stuck with either using Webmail (ugh!) or Outlook Express. Thing is, I have 8 years worth of emails, details, passwords and information plus my address book all in Forte Agent. How the f**k am I going to transfer all that lot over to Outlook? It's not possible as far as I know, and I've just never liked using Outlook as it doesn't have the same facilities as Forte.

Perhaps I'd better look at trying a different email client - does anyone have any suggestions? I'd prefer one that is very much stand alone, i.e. if I install my hard drive into another machine I can run it on that and access it. If I try that with Outlook express it defaults to the copy originally installed on the host machine and will NOT run the version with all my information off a second hard disk.

Jug, thanks for the suggestion of mail15.com but their website is all in Russian!

Paul, I'm not sure how to use my college SMTP server and have no idea if they even have one?

Liam, Tiscali denied there was a problem and also spread loads of mis-information when this first started. They also continued to say that they had it sorted but clearly it wasn't, and their service status indicators suggested all was fine. A huge thread on their forums occured because of people suffering from the same problem that according to Tiscali was just a minor glitch... http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=128594

To be fair I hadn't had a single problem with Tiscali until this happend. I have an anytime phone package, 2MB broadband and line rental with them. However, they've been totally hopeless with rectifying this problem so I've lost a lot of faith in their customer care. I am however stuck with them until October when my contract expires.

I just want to continue to use Forte Agent and send emails

 

[The Negotiator]

For me I typed in "University of Manchester SMTP outlook" and got the results from there on the Manc website, maybe you don't have the same though? I would give you mine but I've been told off once for sharing my account with somebody else. I have a secondary one also but it's not reliable enough for me to share with you.

 

[jug]

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/tonyhughes/599

 

[Chas Uno]

Just to update, I upgraded to the latest version of Forte Agent (4.2) and set that up to work with Tiscali. Still no joy, Outlook DOES work though.

After doing a search on the internet I found that Google are doing free email accounts with POP3 and SMTP facilities. I think they even have 3 GB of storage available too! I signed up for a Google email and then set up the latest version of Forte Agent with Google's settings and guess what? All is working fine :slayer:

Another advantage is that you DON'T have to be logged into a particular ISP to send SMTP emails via Google. So for anyone who travels about, has to log into different ISP's and still wants to use a single email client then Google is the answer.

As for Tiscali... They claim that they 'don't support Forte', try and tell me that I must have my settings wrong (even though all was working fine for about 9 months :bang: ) and then suggest that Forte is not compatible with their system... Well, it looks like my credit card won't be compatible with their (lack of) service when my contract comes up for renewal in October :tosser:

Anyone looking for a free internet service with POP and SMTP facilities I suggest they try Google - gmail.google.com

DON'T use Tiscali, because their 'customer service' is non existant. They deny they have problems and constantly try and shift the blame when problems do come to light. Fingers crossed with Google being as big as they are then I won't have any more email problems...