Database Users

Useful Utility for PocketPC - Comments please....

I connect to 4 or 5 different wireless lans in the various places I work and also to GPRS.
For each one the connection to the internet will be with a different provider and therefore the SMTP server I need to use for sending mail will be different, or may even be a POP service running on a local Exchange server.
This is a pain. I have written a utility that solves this problem by allowing you to switch smtp server for all your mail acccounts in any mail client quickly on the fly.
Basically you configure any mail clients to use an smtp server called virtualsmtp and then you set up all the different smtp servers you use by IP address in the utility.
The utility sets a host record in the registry for virtualsmtp pointing to whichever smtp server you want to run.
It's called SMTPSwitcher (very imaginatively) and runs from a notification icon in the system tray.
It's a bit flaky at the moment (mainly windowing problems and issues with the NotifyIcon) and I also can't delete the server entries because RegDeleteKey always returns error 5 : Access Denied.
If anyone wants to test it or has any ideas or comments please post here.

I'd be happy to test it for you

nice software. I was wishing for it last thursday when I had to send mails from the wifi access point of a friend.
I would be glad to test it (qtek 2020, windows mobile 2003), once my phone decide to work (it did a quick 3 seconds journey in my wc today. oops)

OK. I can post the app here.
1) There is no install program at the moment, just an exe file.
The best way to install is to just copy to your PPC.
You can run by clicking on exe or create a shortcut in your startup folder.
2) It is written in c# for the .NET compact framework so you must have the .net CF installed which you probably have anyway.
3) The biggest problem at the moment is that the Remove button does not work properly.
If you need to delete entries from the list you will need to use a registry editor. The entries are stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\SMTPSwitcher.
4) Sometimes the app stops responding and wont display its form when you click on the icon. If this happens you can try to terminate it using the Settings->System->Memory->RunningPrograms option or do a soft reset.
I will be trying to fix the Remove button and unless I can find a fix for some of the problems that cause the app to stop responding I will probably remove the feature that lets you run it as an icon.

I had this problem ages ago where i would go to a friends house or a wifi hot spot but of corse could not send email.
To get round this i purchased a domain name and email account with easyspace. this works well for me, as it done not matter how i am connected either GPRS, or WiFi i can still send emails from just the one account.
The only problem just noticed the other day is if i use orange UK it works fine on GPRS connection but not if its a 3g connection, Orange are looking into this.
Please dont take this as critisisum your program is a excellent idea, I just like the idea of not having to take any notice of how i am connected and email working
John

Subscribing to a roaming smtp service is another way round the problem as is using webmail.
My problem is that I have 5 or 6 mail accounts in different domains and a lot of roaming smtp services will not relay for any domains other than the ones you have with them.

I have uploaded a new version which has a DNS resolver built in.
Instead of typing in the IP address of any smtp server you want tp use you can enter the name and it will look up the ip address assuming you are connected to a network.

outgoing email through smtp.o2.co.uk

Is anyone else having problems with all email attempted to send from the Exec through o2's outgoing mail server returning a failure message at the moment?
Very frustrating. I like to quickly turn WiFi on, sync email and fire off a few snap responses when I get back to base before I decide whether to fire my PC up or not.

Have you clicking the 'outgoing mail requires authorization' box in account options?

I've never actually used my O2 e-mail account to send messages before, but after seeing this thread I tried it and sure enough it didn't work until I ticked the "outgoing mail requires authorisation" box!
Hopefully your advice will fix it for FunkyMagic too!

"I like to quickly turn WiFi on"
hi funky magic
you can't use your wifi connection with the smtp.o2.co.uk setting - that only works for gprs. for wifi you need to set the smtp to your internet provider NOT o2. i use Blueyonder for my home internet - so my smtp is smtp.blueyonder.co.uk - works perfectly. i actually have 2 mail accounts set up - one for use at home on wifi using blueyonder, the other for when i'm out and about using the o2 gprs connection
best
mikey mike

Cheers folk!
I think prior to today I was (without really thinking about it) -
Switching WiFi on.
Recieving new email.
Composing responses and hitting send.
Then just sticking the thing on the cable connected to my PC for charging where I leave it for a few hours before going out for the evening or 'fiddling' (at which point pass-through would have sent the emails correctly at the next 15min sync).
I was in a bit of a rush today to confirm an email had gone out so hit send/recieve after creating a new mail PRIOR to connecting to the wire which I don't think I normally do!
Problemo solved!

Mikey Mike said:
you can't use your wifi connection with the smtp.o2.co.uk setting - that only works for gprs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My O2 account with smtp.o2.co.uk works fine for me with wifi

I've just been fighting with this for about an hour, hopefully some of this might be of use to someone:
Receiving mail from an IMAP4 account on my own Linux server. Using the same server as an outgoing SMTP relay.
Everything worked as intended, but obviously could only send outgoing mail when connected via wireless network at home (the SMTP server only allows relay to IPs on the LAN, like most ISP's relays).
Clearly this isn't much use on a mobile device, so I reconfigure outgoing mail to use smtp.o2.co.uk. This fails, which I assumed was because I was not connected via the O2 network at the time.
I enable "outgoing mail requires authentication" and "use seperate settings", and enter my O2 username and password, as used to log in to the website. Still no Joy. I try various permutaions of the username and the previous version of my password, enabling SSL, etc. with no success.
Getting suspicious that this is an XDA issue, I create an SMTP account in Thunderbird on my desktop PC, using smtp.o2.co.uk with authentication. A little trial and error confirms that using "[email protected]" and your website password to authenticate (no SSL or anything clever enabled) works, even though my PC is connected to the internet via another ISP.
I try re-entering the settings a squillion times, rebooting the exec, etc, without any luck. I become suspicious that the changes in config aren't taking. I dig through the registry in search of the settings, but don't find them.
Then it occurs to me to delete the IMAP account entirely, reboot the exec, and re-create it from scratch, this time using the known-good settings for the O2 smtp server. This appears to have worked. I can send email via smtp.o2.co.uk, and it works regardless of whether I'm connected by UMTS to O2 or my wireless LAN at home.

kimble
you are a star! works perfectly
mikey mike

Same problem but with Blueyonder?
Hi All,
Im having a similar problem with my Exec and outgoing mail via GPRS/3G and smtp.blueyonder.co.uk. I get "Invalid message recipients". however if i send a message to my own email address at blueyonder it is sent ok. also if i send via wifi its ok. If i send the message using my SPV C500 via GPRS it sends OK. All the settings are the same.
I wonder if its a 3G/UTMS problem? unable to get just GPRS coverage (I dont belive im saying this).
I hope this dose not mean another Hard reset.
Regards
Premo

Kimble: Thanks for an awesome post! 8)
[EDIT: I am using my own Exchange server, so it doesn't matter to me, but I can use the info to help others, so thank you.]

Kimble, you star. i had the same problem but it's working now.
I note that SSL can't be turned on. Does this not concern anyone else?

can't connect to any POP3/SMTP site that requires the use of SSL.

I recently got this email from att yahoo:
Dear AT&T Yahoo! Member,
We're making some security improvements to your AT&T Yahoo! service. These changes will affect members who send or receive email from a desktop or mobile client program, such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express, Eudora, Apple Mail, or Thunderbird.
To help us ensure the security of your email, you will need to change the settings on your desktop or mobile email client program.
you may take the following steps to change the settings on your desktop or mobile email client program:
Open your email client program.
Locate the email account settings for your particular client.
Change the POP server to pop.att.yahoo.com.
Change the SMTP server to smtp.att.yahoo.com.
Check the option labeled Use an encrypted connection (SSL) and change the SMTP port to 465.
Check the option labeled Use an encrypted connection (SSL) and change the POP3 port to 995.
Confirm the above settings then click OK.
I already tried my first comandment "Thou shalt not ask before search!" but alas I can't seem to find how to change ports on e-mail set up. I'm running wm6 but I don't know if wm5 had this abbilty as I didn't need it then. Any help would be great!

So, mabey I should have posted under wm6 & titled the post photon question. At the very least somebody would reply to flame me or something. lol

I had the same problem. Turned out to be the operator. They do not offer full Internet services, only WAP and unencrypted e-mail (i.e. no SSL). The problem sorted itself out after switching to another operator . . .

Add a colon then (port #, no spaces) after each in/Out server. That is how I have it set up with my 8525/ wm5

Thanks, I'll give that a shot. If not I guess I can open a hot mail account and forward email till att fixes the auto set up in August (per the "help" desk)

WM 6.1 ActiveSync Exchange Sync over PPTP VPN WORKING ON FIXED SCHEDULE

I'm an IT guy and I just got into smartphone PPCs for the first time after a long-time hiatus from PDAs when I used to be a Palm owner. After my last palm, a LifeDrive, got stolen I moved to a Moto Q wich was a big dissapointment OS wise, and I never really got into modding it or anything, just set my POP3 e-mail server and used it like that for 2 years (draw back was that I didn't have contact sync nore internal e-mail sync that got handled by my exchange server). My contract with that Q expired and I made the move to a Sprint Mogul with WM 6.1 Pro and I'm NEVER LOOKING BACK!!!
Anyways, enough about me, this is my first contribution so I wanted to do the little intro.
I had searched around a bit about how to get ActiveSync to sync my company's Exchange server through PPTP VPN (we don't have it published with a certificate for an actual push config) but all I found was info on how to setup the VPN itself, being an IT guy that was like pointing out the obvious to me as I had already got that running and connecting but couldn't get anything but the OWA site opening in IE and Opera.
Basically what I figured out was that I had to program a work URL exception in the Connections control panel under the Advanced tab. There I added my exchange server's IP address as a URL and used that IP to program the server under ActiveSync with all the usual credentials. I can't configure it to receive as items arrive, instead I had to let the configuration run on a 10 minute schedule. Every time the schedule is up I see the VPN connecting pop up and it syncs PERFECTLY and disconnects the VPN. (It doesn't turn on my screen each time, it just pops up if I'm using it; but that pop up can be turned off if it gets to annoying).
I don't know if anyone else knew about this but I though I'd share this info as I searched for a few days and found nothing, ended up figuring this out myself. If this is new info I'll post more detailed configuration information for those who desire it.

BTW, this is working over the Data Plan and WiFi as well.

Wow. your a god...
I been trying to figure why it kept disconnecting the vpn when it synced up.
Adding the work url exception works perfect...
(Im using WM6.1 on a Samsung Omnia)
Many Many thanks!

No problem dude! I'm surprised no one else has really found this helpful. Glad I could help!
BTW, those exceptions work very well for internal web sites as well. I use it to log in to web-based management consoles such as Symantec's Mail Security for Exchange, Symantec Endpoint, basically if you got an internal website of some sort you can access it through VPN using a Work URL Exception.

I was looking for this info too, i would like more detailed configuration information about this.
Thanx in advance...
Roland hendriks

What part of the configuration are you having trouble with? Configuring the VPN, the Exchange Server or the URL Exception?

Thanks
I personally am thankful for your information. Even if none of the other 1000s of readers out there say anything...
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Tim

Glad I could help! I know I broke my head over this one during the first week of me having a WM phone. I figured it out thanks to the Fdc Soft Task Manager using the Netstat utility. It let me know exactly what the network stack of the phone was trying to do and the URL exclussion I just stumbled upon and reading what the page said it lead me to believe that it might be a routing table for configured "WORK" connections. And it worked.
During the past month or two of using my exchange like this and switching around ROMs and cooking my own ones now I've noticed that having TCP Data Reconnect and Transmission Retry settings in your registry set to high will cause Active Sync to take a long ass time for it to actually route communications through the VPN connection. I noticed this after using custom ROMs wich some have these settings increased to ensure communications go through but they raise connection timeouts way to much. On my own custom ROM I've set these to defaults (2 and 4 respectively) and Active Sync only takes about 1 minute to start syncing onces you hit sync while you wait for it to dial the cellular line and the VPN.

you talk about the vpn..
i think you are in the very small percentage of ppl who can get that to work.
i have the activesync set to manual and have tried the vpn type to both IPSec/L2TP and PPTP
w/o success..i always get a UN PW error which i know cant be so..
i set the host ip to what was shown from "whatsmyip"..
searching for quite awhile, i see thousands of ppl who cant get it to work and have
never found a reliable method that works for anyone but the person who posted it.
if you could back track a little and post how to do it, there are probly
thousands of ppl who would find it very useful and really appreciate it.
thanx

Well one thing is how to setup a WM device's VPN client to connect to your VPN server and another is actually configuring your VPN server. Do you have a working VPN setup in your corporate network already? This usually is setup by having a static IP assigned to your corporate internet connection and a firewall configured to allow VPN access with all the necessary traffic and authentication routes.
If you don't have a static IP in your office and use a lower cost DSL or Cable connection you aren't SOL, for these types of connections you can use a service like dyndns.org to dynamically upadate your dynamic IP into a static dns name like: mycompany.dyndns.org for example. This requires you to setup your firewall or ISP modem to communicate with dyndns.org to report the changes. Most firewalls come with this funcionality already built-in, but most of them also call them by different names so you'd have to look up your equipment's documentation on how to report a dynamic dns service.
I would be happy to help you setup your VPN correctly but its more practicall for me to help you setup a checklist on which type of VPN you want to setup (IPSec or PPTP) and what your corporate network's infrastructure looks like and let you know what to look for in google; there is PLENTY of very helpful information on the web on how to setup VPN but first you have to know what you need and how you are going to achieve it and then you'll know what to look for.
Each setup is very particular to the customer's needs and the network infrastructure that is setup and how much security you want to use (IPSec is a naturally secured VPN tunnel protocol while PPTP is not secured by nature but can be secured with a Radius server in your DMZ validating authentication in an encruypted manner to your Active Directory service).
What I posted above will work for an already existing and working PPTP VPN connection wich I already had running for years in my office and I regularly use with my laptop to connect to my exchange server while on the road or at home. What I posted above is what is need to get your WM device to connect to an already functioning PPTP VPN server.
Hope this helps. And if I'm to help you make a checklist I need a lot of information:
Type of ISP (static IP or dynamic IP)
Type/Brand of firewall device
How the devices are connected together (dumb modem or internet router from your ISP to your firewall's WAN port or a full blown router provided by your ISP wich is patched into your firewall's WAN port)
Internal network configuration (both AD and Exchange on same server (SBS) or separated)
What amount of security you are looking for.
Send me some PMs and maybe I could at least point you in the right direction.

nttdemented: I'm doing the PPTP shuffle at the moment, and wanted to pick your brains..
The basic connection is running fine - e.g. when I add 192.168.0.1 as an Exception and go to http://192.168.0.1 in Pocket IE the VPN fires up and I see the page just fine.
I've also added '10.6.1.8' as an exception, but if I go to that address in PIE, I don't see any network activity (using ethereal/tcpdump) on the 'ppp0' server interface (I use Ubuntu server's pptpd) ...
Can I assume that your Exchange server is hosted on the same machine as your PPTP server? Some MS SBS or similar?
Even if I configure an http proxy (on the 192.168.0.1 IP) I see no activity when I try the 10.6.1.8 address. :/

thanks so much!!
that i didn't find/read about the "exceptions" option in WM before...
Somehow, when i got my phone, i got it to work without this workaround, it just worked, out of the box, no exception setting required. (VPN settings + exchange server location were enough)
But yesterday, from the one moment to the next, it suddenly stopped working.
In my efforts to get it to work again i deleted the exchange settings, but doing that, I deleted all my contacts and my agenda! I was in big trouble because I really needed those , but after reading your post, i got it working again! my phone is synching "as we speak" and i'm very happy!
don't know how it worked before, don't know why it stopped working, all I know is, it's working now!
you made my day

Good to know!
Cheers!
I've since stopped using this method as we got around to publishing our Exchange server with an SSL certificate so I'm actually using SSL enabled ActiveSync push on my phone now.

Excuse me but perhaps you can help me too.
My problem is that I can get/sync my mails using WIFI.
If I connect thru GPRS, y go to send/receive and I get all the mails. If I'm on my office and connect thru WIFI to the work net I also get all the mails from the exchange server.
The problem is when I'm outside my office and connect to other wifi net and try to sync my mails. I have an HTC TOUCH CRUISE with WM 6.1 original from HTC without any flash.
Thanks in advance.

VPN connection doesn't always connect for ActiveSync synchronization?
I have had ActiveSync working with an Exchange server over a PPTP VPN connection for years now, but there has been one nagging issue I can't figure out. For the most part it works, but sometimes when ActiveSync tries to sync it will not make the VPN connection. There is only one connection listed when I tap on the icon on the notification bar - the phone's data connection. So in activesync, the icon with the arrows spins for a while but nothing synchronizes. I think it ends up saying "waiting for network" or something like that. It seems to always work when I manually hit "sync", but sometimes it fails on scheduled synchronizations.
Any idea why this happens sometimes?

oh...cheers...got my brain back...
The exceptions rule has almost fixed mine now. I'm getting mail but not through Activesync (just sits waiting for network).

New Hero can't send mail. Port 25 blocked.

I just got a HTC Hero two days ago from T-Mobile (in the Netherlands). But no matter what I try, I can't get the thing to send email. It took me a while to figure out why: either the phone or the network is blocking traffic over port 25.
This is how I tested it:
I wrote a small program that simply listens to a specific port. It would display whenever a remote host connects to the port and it would also display anything the remote is sending. I had the program listen to port 25 and setup another HTC (a Touch) to use my computer's IP address as outgoing (SMTP) mail server. Whenever I tried to send mail from the HTC Touch, the program would show a remote host was trying to connect to port 25. I could change the outgoing port to whatever I wanted and it would show in the program.
Not with the Hero. No connection attempt was displayed when the HTC Hero was set to connect to port 25 on my computer. If I set it to anything else, it would display. So the only conclusion can be that either the Hero blocks port 25, or the network.
Anyone else experience this problem? And is there a way to correct this?

Did a few more test and found out that if I connect through WiFi to the internet through my router, I am able to send mail. Disconnect from WiFi and connect through GPRS/HSDPA and I can't send email. So port 25 is blocked by the network...

having a problem with emails as well.
phone sends emails out but they dont arrive.
when contacting my service provider ("Tele2" in Estonia) they told me that network software "spam assassin" categorize my phone as spammer. so no emails from my phone through their smtp server is allowed...
At the moment only solution is to use alternative smtp provider.
I tried with gmail smtp and managed to send mails out. this is some kind of temporary solution but not final... I would still really want to know what causes this problem, as gmail changes "from" address to gmail account address and I want to use my default address.

What email server are you using? I had to change the standard setting to send out mail by hotmail UK

Right, this is a problem related to SMTP server configuration in general. Since SMTP is not typically authenticated, most ISPs (landline or wireless) won't let you send outgoing email through their servers if you are not connected directly to their network. Some also block any outgoing port 25. For example, if you normally use your DSL providers e-mail servers for POP/IMAP and SMTP and you go to your friends house who uses a different ISP, you'll be able to configure his e-mail client to retrieve your POP/IMAP but not send via you ISP SMTP. In that case you would have to send using his ISP SMTP server. This is typically done for spam prevention. Otherwise, anyone anywhere in the world could just send junk email using any ISP SMTP server as the start point.
For your situation, I think you are trying to use your ISP's SMTP server while connected to the mobile network. For the reasons above, it typically won't work. It works from your Wifi because you are then connected to the ISP network. There are a couple of solutions:
1) Set the outgoing SMTP server to the one provided by your mobile operator. No matter where you go in the world, you will send email through the mobile operator SMTP server which will be fine. The only problem is, depending on how you have everything set up, the emails won't show up in your "sent" items on your normal email.
2) Use Gmail, and maybe others. Google use authenticated SMTP that requires a username and password. Therefore, they allow you send through their SMTP servers from anywhere. Ohh, and it does not use port 25.
Hope that helps.

Just a shot in the dark here - do you have the handcent application (sms app) installed? When I installed this app I got exactly the same problem. Stopped my email going out. Removed handcent and all was ok again.
Zippy1970 said:
I just got a HTC Hero two days ago from T-Mobile (in the Netherlands). But no matter what I try, I can't get the thing to send email. It took me a while to figure out why: either the phone or the network is blocking traffic over port 25.
This is how I tested it:
I wrote a small program that simply listens to a specific port. It would display whenever a remote host connects to the port and it would also display anything the remote is sending. I had the program listen to port 25 and setup another HTC (a Touch) to use my computer's IP address as outgoing (SMTP) mail server. Whenever I tried to send mail from the HTC Touch, the program would show a remote host was trying to connect to port 25. I could change the outgoing port to whatever I wanted and it would show in the program.
Not with the Hero. No connection attempt was displayed when the HTC Hero was set to connect to port 25 on my computer. If I set it to anything else, it would display. So the only conclusion can be that either the Hero blocks port 25, or the network.
Anyone else experience this problem? And is there a way to correct this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Zippy1970 said:
I just got a HTC Hero two days ago from T-Mobile (in the Netherlands). But no matter what I try, I can't get the thing to send email. It took me a while to figure out why: either the phone or the network is blocking traffic over port 25.
Anyone else experience this problem? And is there a way to correct this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First note that this is not a problem with Android or HTC Hero.
The problem is that many broadband providers have their servers for outbound email set up to allow clients to connect without authentication from addresses in their own network. Word-wide open access to mail forwarding OTOH is a big no-no and would soon lead to the servers being blocked by other network operators. A client that normally connects over broadband will thus get access denied when it is trying over 3G or GPRS as the phone then appear to your broadband-provider as being connected to an "unknown" network.
There are several solutions:
1. Use a provider for mail that is independent from the one providing connectivity. Such providers offer many ways in which authorised users can send and receive their email. You've got a wide selection of free providers such as gmail and hotmail, as well as paid services from places like imap4all.com and fastmail.fm. This also gives you the flexibility of being able to change bandwith/connectivity suppliers as often as you like without having to change your email-address.
2. Check with your broadband-provider if they provide authenticated global access to their SMTP-servers, and if so what ports/protocols they support. Any half-decent provider will have such alternatives available. Encryption is strongly recommended for the email-setup (both send and receive) and the Hero support SMTP over TLS or SSL for mail delivery, the port can also be configured (to match a non-std setup if required by the server). With a decent provider it will probably be enough to enable TLS (or SSL) for the SMTP connection and configure a username and password, so you might want to try that first.

There's a little more to this; it indeed is largely T-mobile's fault. I want to connect to my own (authenticated and using TLS, so not an open relay!) SMTP server and it failed to connect consistently. I then tried to telnet the SMTP server and found the request being intercepted by a host called 'filter2-tmobile.zx.nl'. Ridiculous.
Strange thing: same SIM-card, same phone number, same everything, but using a HTC TyTN II/Kaiser: no problem whatsoever. So it's definitely partially HTC Hero's/G2 Touch's 'feature' as well.
I'm calling them tomorrow to find out more.

Terranca said:
There's a little more to this; it indeed is largely T-mobile's fault. I want to connect to my own (authenticated and using TLS, so not an open relay!) SMTP server and it failed to connect consistently. I then tried to telnet the SMTP server and found the request being intercepted by a host called 'filter2-tmobile.zx.nl'. Ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like your provider using outbound filters. That's also fairly common for port 25. Have you tried with SSL, which by default use port 465. That is usually combined with authentication so it is not so common to filter port 465.
I forgot an important detail in my previous post. Using anything over port 25 for outbound email is generally nothing but trouble. Always use SSMTP (port 465) instead of plain SMTP over port 25 if possible.
Email-providers such as fastmail.fm and imap4all.com provide SNMP-services on a number of nonstandard ports to get around these provider filters. Some even put proxies in front of their SMTP-servers that enable connection through any port. When combined with SSL that makes it virtually impossible for other providers to filter.

T-Mobile (my mobile provider) is blocking anything over port 25. I've tried their own SMTP server (smtp.gprs.t-mobile.nl) and like I said, I wrote an application myself that listens to traffic over port 25. Not even a connection request arrived.
I solved my problem by setting up my own mailserver to also accept incoming connections over port 587 while forcing authentication and TLS.
But it's pretty stupid that T-Mobile sold me this phone (including a mobile internet subscription) while not even allowing me to send emails over the default port and their own mailserver.

I have had the same problem, i have an ntlworld email account, which does not let you use their smtp server unless connected to their network. So to get round this i have used gmails smtp server on the hero, its the only way it lets me send mail.

Have you tried authenticating and using port 26? I do this on T-Mobile NL, however I use the SMTP sevrer of my own domain e-mail account (hosted).