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StamosD
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Comments on Latest 3.0.4

1) Lost my messages on upgrading from Thunderbird 2. Folders all there but no messages.

2) Found my messages after restarting on another machine. Go Figure.

3) One annoyance remains. I have a pop mailbox, so must reset my smtp server as I go from machine to machine. It's OK to reset as I go to send my Email, fair enough, however what is annoying is when I get my Emails and the sender has asked for a return read receipt.
Thunderbird responds immediately by trying to send this and fails because I am in a different place with a different ISP. Now it is possible to change the outgoing server before downloading messages but it is a pain to have to do this for an occasional read receipt (which may be important). This is after all a Portable application and needs a more elegant solution.

Before trying to send the read receipt can Thunderbird please ask for the smtp setting? Or even ask on failure of an outgoing message? I bet that over 95% of pop mailbox send failures happen because of this setting.

4) Is there a way of displaying the size of attachments in the message list? This helps with knowing which to delete when housekeeping.

Thanks

Gizmokid2005
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Well...

1 and 2 I can't comment on, never had an issue.

3) This isn't an issue with the portable implementation or the app itself, it's an issue with the ISP of the connection you're on. Many will block standard Port 25 outgoing mail servers as it's their way of combating spam. MOST (if not all) mail providers have a workaround for this, whether it be an alternate outgoing mail port, or alternate server/setup altogether. Some use port 26, others use 587 with TLS or SSL, etc. It all depends on your mail provider. Once you get the correct alternate setup, you should never have an issue with it.

4) There's no way to show individual attachment sizes, but you can show the size of the message by adding the size column to the message list.

-Michael

StamosD
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ISP smtp settings and message size

3) I think you are a little confused regarding the problem, ottosykora and arizona480 understand it OK.
This is a Portable app and you send E-mails from *many* different ISPs, wherever you happen to be connected at the time.
That is why you are given the ability to change the outgoing smtp setting at the time you are writing an Email prior to sending it.
Travel requires it.
Now *every* single saved smtp setting works just fine on my machine when I am connected through the relevant ISP. There is no problem with port 25 on any of these settings.
So, I connect at the office where my smtp is smtp.talktalkbusiness.net.
Rec/Send OK.
I go home and download my messages.
Problem!
If I open a message with a return receipt flag, the app tries to return the receipt immediately.
But it fails because the smtp setting is still at the office setting whereas it needs to be my home ISP setting smtp1.bethere.co.uk
And there is no way of resending the return receipt.
You would have to go to the account settings *every single time* you move your machine anywhere to reset your smtp settings on your pop mailbox to match the location just in case you get that sort of message.
This for the relatively rare, but important time, when you need to send a return read receipt.

This is poor design. It can be done better.
I am not saying it's critical, it's just annoying.

Arizona480's answer will work and is ideal for someone who travels from hotel to hotel to coffee shop to airport and/or uses phones to access emails.

But should I have to pay for this when I don't often need it?

4) It should not be difficult to show total message + attachment size. The info is in the message header and the attachment doesn't even have to be downloaded. See something like MailWasher.

So, please, where do I go to add the size column to the message list?

Stamos

Gizmokid2005
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I do

I do understand the issue, and having worked for an ISP I know exactly the issue at hand and my solution is how it SHOULD be done. An application should not be correcting for an issue with an ISP. The mail host should have an alternate configuration to get around SMTP port blocks, and I'm 80% sure if you were to ask them, they'd give the alternate information, or a permanent fix without cost. My ISP has the standard port 25 settings, but we also have an alternate for port 587 for these issues. Gmail does the same thing, as does email from many, if not all, hosting companies.

I should add, I had this issue before when I was jumping between Dialup at home, high-speed at work, and a cable broadband connection at my parent's house, setting it to the correct bypass settings allowed it to work fine everywhere with no issues whatsoever.

Without any further information on the email provider I can't be more specific with the information, as it varies from provider to provider.

As for the size column, in your message list, at the top, to the VERY right of the column list is an icon if you click that will give you a list of all the columns you can display. You can add/remove them as you wish from here.

-Michael

StamosD
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smtp Authentication

OK, sorry to imply you don't understand my problem.
So now I must approach my regular ISPs

Be Unlimited UK
Opal UK
BT UK
OTE net GR
Hellas Online GR
Comcast USA
RoadRunner USA
Forthnet GR
AOL/Compuserve USA

I must get through to all their technical departments (no mean task in itself and expensive)
I must find someone who knows what they are doing (virtually impossible) and negotiate with them.
For *all* the above? This is cruel and unusual punishment in my book!
Of course this won't work when I am piggy backing on other offices' ISPs using my now not so portable Thunderbird.

The Gmail capability sounds *very* interesting. I never knew you had the capability of registering a 'foreign' E-mail address and then using the Gmail server. This is definitely worth trying. It should even work from Airports, Hotels and Coffee Shops. (I know, you'll be thinking 'Get a life' etc. etc. , but I have to work!

Thanks for the column display tip. So easy when you know. I find the online Help anything but helpful

Stamos

Gizmokid2005
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No.

You only need to talk to the technical support of the company of who's email you use.

You don't need to talk to all the ISPs that provide internet service you use, just the ones who host your email.

ottosykora
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correct!

basically, any e-mail only provider will have to provide authentication on SMTP, otherwise their servers will be locked within hours worldwide.
So any e-mail only provider is ok for that. Gmail is certainly one of them, I use gmx.net here in europe, for many years, never use any local ISP's smtp servers, this is just waist of time.

Talking to real ISP is waist of time, just get an account on any mail only provider and you can communicate from any place in the world, any access point, mobile phone or what ever you wish without any change in settings.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

StamosD
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Penny Dropped

Now *that's* what I didn't understand.
I thought you had to configure every connection through the ISP's smtp server that you were using at the time.
Never realized that you could bypass and redirect your outgoing mail through someone else's server.

Thanks! This now works as compuserve supports port 587

Stamos

Gizmokid2005
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Yep.

The mail host is the one with the workaround Smile Glad you got it figured out. Should make things quite a bit easier for you.

Jimbo
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He seems to understand it just fine

It is just that maybe you didn't quite follow his explanation.

First off, for point 4, to add a size column.... Across the top of the message list there is the row of column headers. Mine reads From Subject Date star then a little graphic directly above the scrollbar that is meant to represent a tabular view. If you left click on this graphic, it is the field chooser, and should allow you to add the size column.

Secondly, the roaming support for sending mail.

Your problem is basically caused by one of two issues (or possibly both).
When anyone, anywhere, sends email by SMTP, the server they are connecting to needs to know for sure who they are. There are several ways to achieve this. Standard ISPs do this by the very simple method of knowing that you are on their network, and who is connected in on what account as what IP address at the time. This means that if you are on the "home network" of an ISP email server, you don't need to do anything at all special, and it will simply work. However, if you are not on the "home" network, then they cannot track who you are by your IP address, so need to use an alternative method. This is usually done using authenticated SMTP, which will mean that you have to manually tick a box, and enter a username and password (or tick a second box to say use the same as for POP/IMAP). This allows the ISP to know who you are, and that you are authorised to send mail through their server no matter where you connect from. BUT, it will only work if the ISP supports it.

There is a second issue in that many residential ISPs block all traffic to port 25 apart from their own servers. This is to prevent spam.

Because of this second issue, some ISPs offer an alternative port (often 587) which you can use to send out email if you are on a remote network, but this port will always require authentication.

What this means, is that for each of your email accounts, you are going to need to contact their tech support people, explain that you wish to send email out on the account from a different internet connection, and ask what settings are appropriate for the outgoing server for each of those cases. Noone else can zen what these answers will be, we can only give you common examples.

If you cannot get a valid answer from one or more of them, then I would recommend that you create a gmail account, add the mail addresses to that account as vaild to send from (not to collect the mail, just so gmail knows of them), and then configure google's outbound server for all your traffic all the time. If everything is properly set up in Thunderbird, you should never have to mess with the settings, and it should basically work wherever you are.

Finally, on your receipt question, it isn't a bad design. You are implicitly telling thunderbird that you are online, so it can send mail immediately, then you are telling it to send a mail. Of course it will send it immediately. You could very simply change this behaviour by setting Thunderbird into offline mode before reading the mail, since you do not wish to send, so it will queue the messages. Alternatively, you can alter its receipt behaviour so that it will prompt you before sending them at all, allowing you to choose whether to send them or not.

ottosykora
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surprised

that this is still problem in some parts of the world. I have seen here number of complains about having to select different profiles depending on ISP. Well this would be one attempt to solve it somehow.

But do your ISP use all just IP authentication? Don't you have some mail provider having simple pasword authentication for SMTP? Password authentication can be used on any port, but can be used with all that fancy encrypted traffic too.
My mail provider, the GMX and others use it and so there is no need to change any settings for SMTP when you change ISP.
OK, some providers started now even authenticated connections to guide via port 587, new idea, but once it is set, it works.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

arizona480
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Do you mean you are being blocked when not sending

emails from your "home" isp's smtp server? For $24 a year, this works great:

http://www.authsmtp.com/auth-smtp/pricing.html

ottosykora
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again surprised

that you have to pay for such service. Here in europe I believe all mail providers, particularly those which are not an ISP themselves, do use authenticated SMTP traffic for long time and we do not pay extra for that. The more free service they offer the earlier they did start with that.
They have no other means of checking after all, they have no IP range themselves to borrow to the user.

They even still keep the older POP-before SMTP authentication, since there are still lot of mail clients around not able to do SMTP authentication at all.

The more difficult are those old standard ISP, they simply have nothing more the IP chek authentication for their SMTP, they can use port 25 in open mode only (IP authent only) and are not even able to offer some 587 or SSL ports.
So in recent times, they use their own servers still with p25 open, traffic in transit, that means when I use other SMTP then their own and have proper authentication at beginning, they force us to move to 587 so they don't have to watch us if we use authentication or not (587 is authent only).
In other words, it saves them computing power, since traffic pointed to port 25 of any server other then their own would have to be scanned for authentication on the fly before it is released to the outside world. This is the only reason, or at least I can not see any other.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

consul
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is this common?

I use multiple email providers, I'm in the US, but it all goes through my USC university account. Do they pay for it?

Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.

ottosykora
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well this is the point

you have a mail server provider at the university, all transmissions go via this server and so you can receive mails from all pop or imap accounts since those need authentication in any case. This is just matter of settings on the server, nothing magic behind it.

But apparently, some people have just their home account and have not the privilege of using decent server with authentication like your university one.
Some strange guys then try to make business of that one single setting on the server and sell this one single tickbox in the config for 24$ or what to the general public.
Recently someone apparently locked a ghost inside a bottle and this was then sold on e-bay for 2000$.
Interesting business models will exist all time, my imagination was never so good, that is why I have still to work hard for living. My fault.

Here in europe such business as charging for authenticated SMTP would be zero, since all servers have it, particularly all the mail only providers and free services etc.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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