unable to download email in Seamonkey 2.0.5 (SOLVED)

[sledgehammer]

When I checked my email this morning, having done nothing unusual the day before, I got the following error:

The RETR command did not succeed. Error retrieving a message. Mail server mail.greatbasin.net responded: Could not read message file

I have been on the phone all day with greatbasin.net.  It has been my ISP for 15 years and I have used seamonkey for at least the last 5 years and never this problem.  Greatbasin doesn't think its their problem. I can send email fine.  I have, on greatbasin's web email service, deleted everything in the nature of a non-essential email that came in after seamonkey was last successfully used.   I have changed settings.  Removed and reloaded seamonkey. Nothing seems to help.

ANY suggestions are appreciated. 

[stretchedthin]

Have you tested against another email client say Opera or Thunderbird?  If they all fail then I'd go back to your provider.

[retired1af]

RETR? That's normally used with FTP. Double check the ports you're using with the email client to ensure they match what the ISP requires. Are you using the POP3 or IMAP protocol?

[sledgehammer]

Are you using the POP3 or IMAP protocol?

POP3.  Sorry for omitting that.

[retired1af]

Non SSL would use port 110. SSL would be using 995.

[sledgehammer]

Have you tested against another email client say Opera or Thunderbird?

I tested Thunderbird and got exact same RETR error message.  Under RETR in Seamonkey help it says "server problem."  We had a computer for kids day today and I had one of our expert computer internet guys look it over and speak with greatbasin and he concluded that it was on greatbasin's side and that they were trying their best to fix it. 

One thing that pissed me off was an apparently rather new greatbasin tech support guy telling me that my problem was I wasn't using Outlookxpress.  I have run my office for the last 10 years through an ISP that doesn't support the operating system (linux) that I have been using for the last 10 years? 

I emailed them this afternoon and said if not fixed by monday at 8 am I am switching ISPs.  I don't want to but I have to have email.

 

[sledgehammer]

Thanks to all for your help.  My email is working now.  I am happy.

 

[stretchedthin]

tech support guy telling me that my problem was I wasn't using Outlookxpress.

Like Outlook Express uses pop and smtp addresses any differently. Just another of the unfortunate brainwashed masses.

[Andy Price]

tech support guy telling me that my problem was I wasn't using Outlookxpress.
Like Outlook Express uses pop and smtp addresses any differently.

I used to think that too...

A few years ago I moved a friend (here in Cambodia) over to Thunderbird and they used it for months to send & receive via their organisation's own mail server in the States. Then I had a call to say that they couldn't receive any more. When I checked I found the settings unchanged. Out of desperation I tried Outlook Express and it worked fine. I wrote to the web master in the States and he told me that he had made a small change to the mail server, but since it worked fine with Outlook (which is what they all used over there) he didn't realise there was a problem. Thunderbird was still relatively new in those days so no-one ever though to test it - I guess that's still the case today. Anyway, the web master made another small change and my friend went back to using Thunderbird.

[sledgehammer]

Andy Price,

I suspect something like that was in play here as I didn't change anything before it quit working.  And though I changed a lot of things after it quit working, thinking the problem was on my end, those changes didn't help.  Not long after I told them I would have no choice but to switch isps, since I had to have email, it just started working again.   

Anyway, my isp is recommending that I switch from POP3 to IMAP.  Not sure of the difference but see no reason not to go along with that suggestion and plan on doing so next week.

[toothandnail]

Anyway, my isp is recommending that I switch from POP3 to IMAP.  Not sure of the difference but see no reason not to go along with that suggestion and plan on doing so next week.

IMAP has a major advantage if you use more than one machine. Mail remains on the server, and can be accessed from multiple machines. It does mean that you need to trust the people running the server to keep good, current backups of your mail.

There are a few things to watch. Seamonkey (and Thunderbird) have the ability to keep mail locally. I found that it was defaulted to on when I changed to IMPAP, which meant that not only did the server have copies of my mail, I had something in the region of 440 MB of mail held locally as well. Good if you want to be able to access mail offline, but a pain otherwise.

Its fairly unusual for an ISP to offer IMAP, but you can get free IMAP from Gmail. When I changed ISPs recently (after a house move). my new ISP does not offer email at all, so I've now moved all my mail to my Gmail account. Working pretty well, especially given the amount of free space that Gmail provides. Gmail aslo provides another advantage - it is independent of the ISP, so you don't have to go through the pain of notifying all your contaces, changing mailing list addresses and so on if you do have to change ISPs.

Paul.

[sledgehammer]

I get about 1500 emails a day, all but 20 or 30 spam. The ISP has a spam filter and I have one on seamonkey. Still, far too many spam emails get through. Right now I have it set to leave my email on the server for at most 4 days.  I believe everything is downloaded to my hard drive. 

I understand that with IMAP, only those that I read will be downloaded to my hard drive. If I am right, that would be an improvement.