Database Users

IMAP over GPRS problems

I am trying to connect to my office server using IMAP over GPRS from my Universal.
It works fine when I am on my wireless network in the office, but then when away I switch all the connections over to using GPRS and it won't connect.
I have modified my firewall to allow incoming traffic on port 143 for IMAP, but am still getting nowhere, it just won't connect.
Something must be working right because I can synchronise my main mail account over the web via GPRS using Activesync on the Universal without any problems.
Any ideas?

its working fine here.
do you have a router? did you nat port 143 to the server?
can you use on the internal network imap?

It sounds like a firewall issue. Check what you have configured for outgoing ports on your firewall. You could be blocking the outbound data. I'm not sure whether IMAP uses the same port outbound as inbound, but it should be easy enough to check.

port 143 is for reading mail, you sent your mail through port 25 = smtp mail
most providers wil close inbound port 25, but (i have t-mobile) mail i sent is intercepted by their smtp server and send through their server. i have imap server and smtp server my mailservers ipadres but my outgoing mail is directed not through my server.
if you want to specific send your mail through yor mailserver you have to first make a vpn connection and then you can send through your own mailserver.

Port 25 isn't used by IMAP. Port 25 is used by the email server to send and receive email, and that is already configured and working I assume.
When applications connect via a tcp port, the server often responds on a different port. Therefore when you are opening ports on a firewall you often have to open the incoming AND outgoing ports (if they are different), in order to get an application to work correctly. That was what I was alluding to.

yep two ways
imap is sending over port 25 only reading mail on 143 (143 two ways open as you said)

graybo said:
It sounds like a firewall issue. Check what you have configured for outgoing ports on your firewall. You could be blocking the outbound data. I'm not sure whether IMAP uses the same port outbound as inbound, but it should be easy enough to check.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I was thinking. I have port 143 on the firewall open both ways and it isn't logging any other issues.
I'm wondering if there are any restrictions on the server side (Exchange 2003 on Win 2003 server).
It's not such a burning issue, but in the future I would like to get setup so that I can connect to three accounts on my mail server (two using IMAP) over a wireless connection when around the office and then when away use a VPN connection to be able to get in over GPRS or 3G - having to reconfigure the connection for each account when away is a pain.

The IMAP virtual server needs to be running, obviously, and if I remember rightly you may need to enable it for each user, or group of users.
Have you checked the settings in the Properties of the users you want to login as?

Try to run a network sniffer like Ethereal (www.ethereal.com) on your server while trying to connect from your Universal. Maybe you get some useful information on what's wrong there...
.ox

Hi,
Thanks for the responses.
The IMAP service is running fine since I can connect to it without problems over the local network, I just can't connect coming in over the web.
Interestingly whilst the IMAP doesn't seem to want to play over the web, I can use activesync over GPRS to sync my outlook folders.
Now if only I could have 2-3 outlook style accounts on the Universal and use activesync to sync them, that would make life a lot easier.

We have twelve SPV 5000's at work and non of us tinkerers can get IMAP to work over GPRS or G3.....
It's taken us flippin ages to work out how to send over POP3 and GPRS although we could always receive fine.
Technical help from orange is less useful than my mum... and the help on the website is non-existent.
Good luck in your quest Brave Warrior. 8)

[WiFi] POP3 e-mail doesn't work

I can connect my device to the in-house Wlan and I get assigned an IP address like it should. I am able to browse the net (IE) using the Wlan and I can even go to the HTTP webmail site but when I set up a POP3 e-mail account I get the error message that I cannot connect with the current settings. Suggestions?
The other strange thing is that I am able to login on a local server using Terminal Services, but I can only connect to the IP address, not the hostname.

Perhaps I should mention that I have an own domain so the mailbox I'm trying to connect is a completely seperate mailbox and should work 'native' with POP3 port 25 settings. This shouldn't be a problem as far as I can see, but it still doesn't work...

I did some more testing, the weird thing is that I can send e-mails using the WLAN connection, but cannot receive them. The connection towards the server seems to be good (I didn't use seperate settings for SMTP) so DNS seems to be correct as well.

Right, I'm not under the impression a terribly large population of users are dying just to solve my problem, but since I located the source of the problem I thought I'd post it here for other users to find.
The problem I was faced with had actually nothing to do with the WiFi at all, it was the POP3 server that was the problem. The connection was fine, sending the mails was fine it's just that the POP3 daemon of the Direct Admin hosting control panel (vmpop3d-e) is unable to work with Windows Mobile 5 due to some kind of problem I don't even begin to understand (nor would I want to).
If you have your own domain and your hoster is running the Direct Admin control panel you won't be able to use the e-mail POP3 function. Instead, use the IMAP4 function which does work.
DA Forum PDA topic

when you set up your mailbox (menu - tools - options) go to the 3rd screen and click options. There you tell it what connection you want. I'd be willing to bet thats where your problem is.

E-mail client doesnt work on my wizard eather. I can receive mail, but sending it is impossibl. I think I tried everything.
If anyone have any suggestions what can I do please tell me.
THX

@primossz, you're pretty active on this forum :wink:
You need to first install the client software provided by your're ISP. So if you use T-mobile you can let T-mobile send the parameters via SMS to yor're cellphone. Just login to your're ISP provider for that on the WWW.
Greetz ET

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).

SMTP - is it just me?

hi
i have a touch hd on the three network. on this connection i can send and receive emails but i MUST use the three SMTP setting or I cannot send emails.
unfortunately when I'm at home on WIFI (tiscali) i have to use the tiscali SMTP or cannot send emails.
is there a way to fix this so that i do not have to keep changing the SMTP settings depending on which connection i am using?
i presume both Three and Tiscali require users to use their own SMTP servers whilst using their facilities. Is this not a bit daft on a MOBILE device?
cheers
don

SMTP care not if you're connecting from a mobile device or not, it's just a protocol.
SMTP servers are usually restricted by connecting IP address, generally to CIDR blocks owned by the provider of the SMTP service. This is done to prevent the server being an "open relay" and therefore being used by spammers to send out **** loads of junk email.
You might be able to find an email provider that uses TLS/SSL authentication in which case they *MAY* allow access from anywhere.
Presumably the 3 and tiscali email addresses are different so you'd just have the two accounts set up on the phone anyway? I don't really use outlook on my HD so I'm not sure I totally understand your problem.

donster22 said:
hi
i have a touch hd on the three network. on this connection i can send and receive emails but i MUST use the three SMTP setting or I cannot send emails.
unfortunately when I'm at home on WIFI (tiscali) i have to use the tiscali SMTP or cannot send emails.
is there a way to fix this so that i do not have to keep changing the SMTP settings depending on which connection i am using?
i presume both Three and Tiscali require users to use their own SMTP servers whilst using their facilities. Is this not a bit daft on a MOBILE device?
cheers
don
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using smtp servers from www.gmx.com and www.gmail.com, both with excelent imap support.
With these smtp servers, you can send mail regardless of what connection you have.
Both are excelent mail providers with pop collectors.
You can also forward your mail to these accounts.

SMTP enabled on android?

Does any dev know if android enables port25 connections, and/or smtp mailing? Im not talking about like gmail smtp. Talking about like sending smtp emails from the actual isp aka sprint/at&t/etc..

Most ISPs block port 25 anyways because of spam problems. AT&T, Comcast, and others. I'd bet Sprint does too.
As for Android? I doubt it. You could always open up the Email app and try though, unless I'm mis-understanding you.

I have multiple email accounts (non-Gmail) set up on my EVO. I am able to use the account-specific SMTP server for each and every one of them when connected via 3G/CDMA. I can connect to smtp.east.cox.net on port 25, etc.
When I am on my WiFi, I cannot use those SMTP servers as Cox has a block on all port 25 traffic that isn't to Cox's SMTP server.
Hope that helps!
Last-Chance said:
Does any dev know if android enables port25 connections, and/or smtp mailing? Im not talking about like gmail smtp. Talking about like sending smtp emails from the actual isp aka sprint/at&t/etc..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I have similiar issues as well..I use a POP3 server..Optimum online...From day one i can only receive email and NOT send,i believe i can send only on WIFI,not sure why??Wondering if there is a work around for this??

drmacinyasha said:
Most ISPs block port 25 anyways because of spam problems. AT&T, Comcast, and others. I'd bet Sprint does too.
As for Android? I doubt it. You could always open up the Email app and try though, unless I'm mis-understanding you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most providers also provide some sort of authenticated smtp when you're not on their network. I configure all my email accounts to use this so that smtp works whether i'm on wifi/3g/4g without any further configuration changes. You'll likely have to change your ports too.
I can't say what the proper settings are for any of the above providers as I haven't used an isp email acct in nearly a decade. Try looking up the support email page for server settings while off network.