Email works in Netscape, not Thunderbird

November 1, 2006 1:33 PM

Email filter - help me prove to the vendor I'm not crazy. I can receive email using Netscape, but not Thunderbird. Same account details in both clients

(Thunderbird 1.5.0.7, on Windows XP Service Pack 2)

I am testing a spam protection service, mailprotector.net. I can pick up my mail with a Netscape client, but not with Thunderbird. This is not a typing error, a capslock error, or any keyboard problem. It is tested on three computers, with two different email accounts on each. Same username, password, POP server, and port in Netscape and Thunderbird, but Netscape gets the mail, Thunderbird gives an error.

When I try to get mail with Thunderbird, I receive this error:

"Sending of password did not succeed. Mail server pop.3.mailprotector.net responded:"

Note that I am not truncating that message. That's the whole thing. It does NOT continue with "invalid username/password" It stops at the colon. After clicking OK, Thunderbird says:

"Please enter a new password for [e-mail] on pop3.mailprotector.net"

When I re-enter the password, and click OK, the dialog box disappears. When I then click "Get Mail", I get the same message:

"Sending of password did not succeed. Mail server pop.3.mailprotector.net responded:"

This time when I re-enter the password, I get a different message:

"Sending of username did not succeed. Mail server pop3.mailprotector.net responded: USER"


I can get my mail when I set up a Netscape client without problem. The problem is not restricted to one email account. I have set up two different accounts on three different PCs. On each one, the two accounts work with Netscape, and fail with Thunderbird. The spam protection vendor and I have simplified this as much as possible - the password is 'test' for both accounts. The username is correct - for this vendor it is identical to the email address. The port is 110.

I can telnet to the server and log in with the username (in this case the full email address) and password (test) using port 110. There is no doubt that I am entering these three details correctly in Thunderbird. I have tested this on my laptop at work, a desktop at work, and my desktop at home. In all cases, it works on Netscape, but not Thunderbird.

I've tested this over a period of 10 days, so it's not a temporary glitch.

The vendor thinks I'm crazy, and that I'm just the one millionth user who can't type in a username and password. I am as prone to being an idiot as the next guy, and in this case I might be an idiot in some way - but I am typing the correct username, mail server, and password. The port is the default 110. There is no way I am doing this correctly in Netscape every time, and getting it wrong in Thunderbird every time.

The vendor is legit. We've been using their spam protection service where I work for 4 years without issues, which is why I want to use them for my home business email as well.

What else can I try? Is the specific error message indicative of anything? Typically when you've typed your name or password wrong you get "Sending of (username/password) did not succeed. Server responded: invalid username/password." But as I mention above, I am getting only a truncated version of that.

I understand that I can work around this by switching to Netscape, or probably some other client. But it makes me nervous, and I'm reluctant to commit to the vendor unless I have an idea what the problem is.

I'm willing to accept suggestions that indicate I've done something stupid, in fact I expect the solution to be related to that, but I am entering the right account details.

I have posted this issue to the Mozilla Thunderbird forums but have received no response so far.

Thanks

posted by lockedroomguy to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Do you have some variation of Norton Antivirus installed? I recall having a problem with the same errors that I (after some Googling) tracked down to a glitch between Thunderbird and Norton. I think in the end I had to disable incoming email scanning ... which obviously wasn't ideal, so soon switched to a different antivirus program. Try turning it off and see if Thunderbird starts working.
posted by valleys at 2:00 PM on November 1, 2006

out of idle curiosity, I see you have error messages mentioning both
pop3.mailprotector.net
and
pop.3.mailprotector.net

is that what you expect to see?
posted by juv3nal at 2:17 PM on November 1, 2006

This might be useful info regarding Norton - see incompatible programs section, which mentions Ipswich Imail POP servers as particularly causing a problem between TB & Norton. If that's not relevant there may be something else there that is.
posted by valleys at 2:20 PM on November 1, 2006

POP3 is a relatively simple protocol. I'd install WireShark and get a trap of the TCP communications for both mail clients. WireShark will let you extract a single TCP session. There is bound to be a difference of some kind between the two clients.
posted by chairface at 2:34 PM on November 1, 2006

Thanks all! I disabled everything to do with Symantec, and now it works! Everybody gets best answer because the two non-Symantec related answers were also excellent. WireShark looks cool, and Juv3nal, that was only a typo in my post, but great catch.

Thanks again, I love this place.
posted by lockedroomguy at 2:40 PM on November 1, 2006

FWIW, when I am having problems that seem like user error in typing in names and/or passwords I type my user name and password into Notepad or a word doc to ensure it is correct then I copy and paste it into the relevant field. It eliminates the fat finger theory right away.

I also have a lengthy word document on my laptop that I have buried my user names and passwords for various sites within. If I am using a public wireless connection I copy and paste the appropriate answers into the form to avoid either keyboard lookers or the like. If you carry a file like that on a USB drive, you can avoid keyboard loggers at unfamiliar machines like at the library. Or maybe I am just paranoid.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:54 PM on November 1, 2006

Here is your obligatory recommendation to give NAV the arse and use AVG instead.

Given the number of problems I've seen NAV cause, I'm now completely sure it's only Microsoft-style marketing tactics that cause it to be the market-dominant antivirus product.
posted by flabdablet at 5:15 PM on November 1, 2006