Re: Outlook Express error when sending email


"Martin Underwood" <news@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:431e93ef$0$1275$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
| news:dflqca$1tn4$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| > __/ [Martin Underwood] on Tuesday 06 September 2005 14:15 \__
| >
| >> I was setting up OE6 on a customer's PC today and usually (but not 100%
| >> reproducably) got error "0x800CCC0B" when OE tried to send using SMTP.
| >
| >
| > Are you using the SMTP server belonging to the ISP which provides the
| > connection? This is where many people get it wrong.
|
| Yes I am.
|
|
| >> The
| >> PC has McAfee Security Centre installed, but the problem still existed
| >> with McAfee Antivirus and Firewall disabled. Receiving email over POP3
| >> worked fine.
| >
| >
| > POP3 is completely unrelated, so don't use it for any inferences.
| >
| >
| >> Looking on MS's Knowledge Base, the error means "0x800CCC0B BUSY
Server
| >> or maildrop is busy."
| >
| > I believe that Microsoft ought to have output the description to the
| > screen
| > rather than give hexadecimal numbers and refer to the user to a
| > knowledgebase.
|
| Yes, it would be very useful if MS did this. What was particularly
| frustrating as the PC was originally configured was that McAfee simply
| reported "Protocol error" without any further narrowing-down of the
problem;
| it was only when I disabled McAfee's AV and firewall that Outlook Express
| gave the error code - I presume with McAfee in the frame, OE was happily
| passing on the email to McAfee with no error, and McAfee was then
| encountering the problem.
|
| >> The SMTP server was definitely correct - it was the same ISP and same
| >> server as I use myself, and I checked that my laptop could send/receive
| >> OK. I hadn't got "hangup after send/receive" ticked - the dial-up line
| >> was
| >> definitely staying up.
| >>
| >>
| >> With McAfee AV enabled, I get a McAfee error "Protocol Error" and no
| >> error
| >> message from OE; with McAfee disabled I see the real error message as
| >> above.
| >
| >
| > It sounds as if the problem is not related to the AV. It is only an
| > illusion
| > because the AV sits on top of the network layer.
|
| OK. It's useful to hear that opinion - at present I'm a bit unsure what
| component is causing the problem and therefore what to remove to see if it
| changes/cures the symptoms. I was all set to try uninstalling McAfee, but
| maybe I'll try elsewhere.
|
| >> As far as I could tell, if I cleared OE's outbox and closed/restarted
OE,
| >> it would allow me to send one email but failed for subsequent ones,
| >> either
| >> with two or more emails in the Outbox when I did Send/Receive or if I
did
| >> a S/R with one message (which sent OK) and then prepared another
message
| >> and did S/R.
| >>
| >> It's as if OE is getting into a state where it refuses to send, and
needs
| >> its Outbox clearing and OE restarting before it will send another
| >> message.
| >
| >
| > A few weeks ago I came across similar symptoms. A professor could only
| > send
| > one message at a time. It must have been an odd bug.
|
| This symptom usually means that OE has been set to drop the line after the
| last message has been sent, which works fine if there's no AV installed
| (though it's a right pain if you intend to browse the web afterwards!),
but
| it is a Bad Idea if you've got an AV program installed because the line
can
| get dropped while the AV program still has messages in its queue, once OE
| has handed all its messages over to the AV. Been there! But it wasn't the
| case for this customer: the line was definitely dropping.
|
| >> I tried pinging relay.force9.net (the SMTP server address) and
telnetting
| >> to its port 25 (SMTP) and that worked reliably. Unfotunately I didn't
| >> have
| >> my SMTP syntax crib*** so I couldn't try ending from the telnet
| >> session.
| >>
| >>
| >> Any ideas what the problem is and how to fix it?
| >
| >
| > Have you tried re-installing the mail client? You can isolate the data
and
| > make a clean installation. Otherwise, consider testing under another
mail
| > client. I recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, which is able to import both
mail
| > and settings from Outlook Express without any loss.
|
| Given that it's Outlook Express, a built-in part of the operating system,
| I'm not sure how easy it is to uninstall/reinstall it?
|
| I might try and get hold of a copy of Mozilla Thunderbird and try
installing
| that to see if it's affected in the same way. Given that it's a brand new
PC
| from Dell, I might see if their tech support department can shed any light
| on the problem in terms of anything odd that they may have customised when
| they installed the OS.
|
| I'll also contact Microsoft and see whether they know what might be
causing
| the problem (even if the root cause turns out to be something other than
| Outlook Express). Sadly there's no specific information in their Knowledge
| Base: the error number I'm getting is lumped together with others and the
| generic advice is vague "check that you're using the right mail server
etc".
|
| It's the intermittent nature of the problem that's got me baffled: if it
| failed 100% of the time, I could understand it better as being caused by a
| misconfiguration.
|
|
Might be a bit of a long shot but...

You mention this is a brand new Dell PC? Does it have the AOL software that
most new Dells come preinstalled with still in place? If so uninstall it all
and see what happens. I've had issues with PCs like this and removing the
AOL software (and its custom TCP/IP protocol stack) always helps solve the
problem. If you don't need it you might as well ditch it anyway.


HTH

Grant
--


.