I have a hosting arrangement with ICD, which I have always been very happy with. I have never had problems accessing their mail server from home and sending/receiving mail using Netscape mail on WinXP english.
I am now accessing the same server from work, with Netscape mail configured exactly the same and Win XP chinese version. The machine I’m using is also the server for a few others and has apache running in the background.
2 times out of 3 I get an error message when sending mail via SMTP. The server responds with a message indicating that it doesn’t recognise me, which comes from their anti-spam procedures They won’t let you send mail if you haven’t first checked your inbox, but I have checked my inbox and checking it again doesn’t make the problem go away. If I try repeatedly the problem does eventually resolve, but the time is completely random.
Their support people are pretty good, but the best they can do for me this time is to tell me to check all my internet settings to see what is different about the office machine. We’ve exhausted all the options at their end. Great! Try doing that with a chinese OS, when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Is your workplace’s ISP the same one you use at home? If not, perhaps they have a firewall in place which blocks certain connection types. Or if work is through Hinet, maybe ICD blocks them – my ISP blocks email from Hinet.
Don’t use the provider’s SMTP. Use Hinet - ms1.hinet.net. I use this always and it works perfectly. It’s also faster and means you don’t need to worry about attachment sizes, time to verify your account, whatever.
Tracert? Dunno what that does, but the support guys at my hosting company had me run it and were happy with the result. They seem pretty convinced that it’s something to do with a firewall or something in our system here.
Actually the whole system here is a complete bodge, and has obviously been cobbled together at various times by whoever happened to be available at the time. I’m 90% convinced I should just get someone competent in to give the whole system a good seeing to.
We have 3? machines sharing some resources, a couple more with their own internet connection, and half a dozen others. Not to mention all the bits of hardware lying around with ‘out of order’ labels on them. And where the hell do I plug my laptop in to the system? It’s a heap of crap right now, and every machine has a different OS.
You see people wandering around with disks in their hands in search of a computer that is connected to a functioning printer. How the hell can a business function on that basis?
Welcome to Taiwan… [flowing chaos, though what you’re experiencing seems Jurassic even for this place] where your value to employer, friends and society is directly related to your ability to segue between disasters while maintaining signal on your cell phone.
Ick. Last time I overhauled a system, I was contemplating the purchase of a cot since I was spending so much time there. Domain and file servers, etc. I re-did the system and data drives/partitions…separating them. Remember, Ghost is your best friend.
I hope you don’t have too many cross platforms. MY workplace was all Windows just a bunch of mixed versions… 98SE, ME, NT4.0, 2000, XP. Linux/Unix and Windows is one thing, but mix in NT4.0 vs 2000 and that isn’t fun at all. Oh heck, let’s throw in a bunch of OS upgrades too for the heck of it.
Recommend ya stick with 2000 and ditch XP. But I bet you knew that already.