Sending of username did not suceed

[gb2010]

Hello,

I'm a long-time customer of Idnet and I have three email accounts from the old .idnetfreemail.co.uk days. It can't be a coincidence that all three of these email accounts have stopped working recently. When I try to download my email I get:

Error with account. Sending of username did not succeed. Mail server pop3.idnet.net responded: User unknown

I can login to all three accounts via the .net webmail so the username and password must be right. Something must have changed elsewhere. I've tried various things but haven't been able to get them working again.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions before I get on the phone.

[Simon]

Do the accounts appear in your customer portal?  There may be a clue there as to what the problem is.  Sometimes accounts are limited due to inadequate passwords, or lack of use.

[gb2010]

By customer portal do you mean logging onto the Idnet website? They've never appeared there. All my idnet.com email accounts are there but I've never seen the old idnetfreemail.co.uk ones.

I'm sure it's not lack of use. I think the mail server has changed somehow.

I've discovered my version of Seamonkey is not up to date so I'm going to try that first and see if that helps.

[Simon]

Blimey, another SeaMonkey user - we are a rare breed!   

I'm not really sure what to suggest, other than a quick phone call to IDNet.  I know the idnetfreemail.co.uk accounts are fairly old now, but if they'd discontinued them, I'd have thought they would have let account users know.   

[gb2010]

Ha! I like Seamonkey but I think the writing is on the wall - their blog gives the impression of it being developed in a scrappy, under-resourced sort of way. Do you also use Kaspersky? The two don't get on very well causing an issue where every weblink is blocked by Seamonkey as being untrustworthy, even the Seamonkey website itself. Something to do with how Kaspersky handles security certificates which Seamonkey doesn't like. I've upgraded my version of Seamonkey and tried downloading email with Kaspersky switched off so I don't believe my problem lies there.

I've emailed Idnet. I don't think they've been discontinued but as you say, they are old and maintaining them is probably not a priority. Some setting has been changed behind-the-scenes, I just need to find out what one. But as nobody else is complaining on the forum that also suggests it's something specific to me. Urgh.

[Simon]

No, I use F-Secure, which doesn't seem to have any problems with SeaMonkey.  Last time I used Kaspersky, it kept trying to block Windows Explorer (!), so I gave up on it.  I do hope SeaMonkey continues, because I've been using it for as long as I can remember, as far back as when it was just Mozilla, before Firefox even came on the scene.

[ayjay]

But as nobody else is complaining on the forum that also suggests it's something specific to me. Urgh.

I've been having the same problem for a few weeks now, it started with me not being able to send emails and after a couple of weeks I was also unable to receive them.

Now I get the same message that you mention in the topic title.

I'd left it until I visited my son pre-Xmas as he normally fixes PC problems for me, but he was unable to resolve this one. I'm using Thunderbird, 52.5.0.

Any clues?

[Gary]

Not sure if this matters to this case but idnet have changed thier mail servers recently to securemail.com and smtp.com for pretty much all email going though them, like their domain mail and idnet mail. They don't guarantee older servers will work now. Its on their support page under email details.

https://www.idnet.net/support/guides/email/settings.php

[ayjay]

Thanks Gary.   

I just wish it all meant something to me!   

I'll discuss it with my son on the phone over Xmas and hopefully he can talk me through it.   

[Terryphi]

Not sure if this matters to this case but idnet have changed their mail servers recently to securemail.com and smtp.com for pretty much all email going though them, like their domain mail and idnet mail. They don't guarantee older servers will work now. Its on their support page under email details.

https://www.idnet.net/support/guides/email/settings.php

After reading this thread I looked at my settings and compared them with the settings in the idnet support link.
I am using POP3 995 for securemail.idnet.com and SMTP 465 for smtp.idnet.com which are the Thunderbird defaults for mail servers with TLS authentication. Everything works well.

It seems that the guide should also specify a line for SMTP Secure - Port 465. The recommended port 25 does not work with TLS.