Re: [Evolution] sometimes can't get mail

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

On Tue, 2010-09-14 at 06:58 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-09-14 at 21:55 +1200, Victoria Spagnolo wrote:
> > In the past year I've taken my laptop to meetings in other cities
> > where
> > wireless was available and had trouble with sending/receiving mail.
> > rall, I'd connect, visit some sites, send/receive mail, then
> > disconnect. Sometime later I'd connect, visit some sites but couldn't
> > send or receive mail. And maybe one time I could receive but not send.
> > know that isn't much detail. I am just asking for advice on what I can
> > try or how to investigate this behaviour next time this happens.
> Please explain what you mean by "couldn't send or receive". You mean
> there's no connectivity (did you try pinging the respective servers?),

PING may not tell you anything;  ICMP might be blocked while TCP is not,
or vice versa.

telnet {your-smtp-server} 587

- and see if you get a connected message.

> or there was a password failure, or Evo connected but didn't
> download/upload anything, or what?

Evo's error reporting is pretty 'lite', IMO.

> You also need to consider policy in force on the net you're connected
> to. Some admins, especially in corporate networks, won't allow
> connections to random external servers.

+1 That includes me.  Blocking egress TCP/143 & TCP/993 (IMAP) and
TCP/25 & TCP/587 (SMTP) is common and advisable.

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org> LPIC-1, Novell CLA
<http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com>
OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba