Please, please, check the possible causes listed here before calling to ask if our mail servers are down.  This is one of the MOST common unnecessary calls we get.  There are many issues which may cause problems for you in sending or receiving mail and most of them are not problems on our end.  Try the troubleshooting suggestions below first and they will often correct your problem.

First, let's determine what problem you're having.  Most email programs will provide an error message when there is a problem.

Here are some common errors you may receive and how to correct them:

"relaying not permitted by you" - This means you are caught in the Pop before Send security loop.  Click here for details on correcting this problem.

"incorrect userid or password" - If you just setup this mailbox and you're getting this message, please check your mail settings.  Make sure your userid is spelled correctly and that the case you are using in your mail program matches the case you used when you setup the box on the server.  Ex. using super on the server and SuPer in your mail program would cause a mismatch and create this error.  Same goes for password.  Also make sure that your mail server entries are correct.  For more details on userid, password and mailservers, click here. 

This may also be caused by your computer needing to be rebooted.  Various programs and processes on your computer use portions of your system's resources to run.  When too much of the computer's resources are in use the computer may begin acting strangely or locking up.  Reboot the computer to free resources and try again.

"can't connect to mailserver" or "connection to mailservername failed" - First, verify your mailserver entries and verify that they are all lowercase.  Your mailservers, both incoming and outgoing are yourdomainnamehere.com. 

Another possible cause is a problem with your internet connection.  If left on for hours, a dial-up connection will sometimes degrade.  Disconnecting and reconnecting may help and rebooting to make sure system resources are free never hurts.  Even if you have a "always on" high speed connection like Cable, DSL, or ISDN you cannot discount the connection as the problem.  These type of connections sometimes need to be reset or may experience problems.  Try rebooting your computer and resetting your connection to see if that clears the problem.  Make sure that your modem is making a connection to your provider.  If not, you will need to call your provider to determine the problem.

If you're not receiving an error message or aren't finding it, please try rebooting the computer first.  In our experience, that clears the problem about 75% of the time.  Also, please check your internet connection and reset or reconnect if necessary.