missing mail ! Could the firewall be responsible?

Hi all...

A few months back I posted about not being able to send e-mail from one of my computers, using NS 7.1 webmail.

Now it looks as if I'm on my way to solving that problem. I disabled my firewall (Sygate Personal Firewall Pro 5.5 build 2525) and anti virus (AVG 6.0) and all of a sudden I could send e-mail again. I haven't located the problem within the firewall yet, but at least I'm on the right track to a solution (or at least I hope so).

I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier, probably because I hadn't done any tightening of the firewall prior to the beginning of it all.

Despite this my blood pressure is through the roof...
Late last night I learned that mail sent to my netscape.net account from a friend, using hotmail, had not been delivered and a newsletter informed me that they'd recorded bounces from my account since mid-january, give or take a week or two.

I had noticed the abscence of the newsletter but no other missing mail, until yesterday...

Here's the question:
Could the firewall be responsible for the missing e-mail?

I have a very limited experience when it comes to firewalls although I do know that I need one, and I find it rather hard to spot single missing e-mail, that's why I ask.

The thing is I'm expecting responses to several job applications sometime next week so I need to be certain the email I see is all I have.

Best wishes to you all.
/Angus

Running a PII 350 MHz with 64 Mb RAM, Win 98, AVG 6.0, Sygate Personal Firewall Pro.

Under Options --> Security for the firewall the following is currently checked:
Security enhancement:
*intrusion detection
*Port Scan detection
*Driver level protection
*stealth mode browsing
*Denial of service (DoS) detection
*Block universal plug & play
*automatically block attackers IP address for x seconds
*Anti-Mac Spoofing
*Anti IP-spoofing
*OS fingerprint masquerading
*Net BIOS protection
*Anti-application hijacking

smart traffic handling.
*DNS, DHCP & WINS all enabled

 

Hi Angus,

If after disabling the AntiVirus and the Firewall software, you were able to receive your mail, then I would say, yes that one of the two was definitely responsible.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Sygate or AVG, but will move this post to the Security / Virus / Spyware Forum, where you can get some help with your settings.

The only advice I might offer is to disable the E-mail scanning in AVG, if that option is available, and enabled.

Ramona

 

The problem is I don't know if I'm still recieving all my email without the firewall, only that I'm capable of sending e-mail. I don't dare to disable my firewall for longer periods of time, I feel the attempted scans and whatnots are too frequent for that.

I tried disabling the e-mail scanner in AVG. The only change was that instead of snagging while trying to contact the server it now says "Delivering mail..." but still, nothing gets through.

Thank you for pointing me to a more proper forum.
/Angus

 

I may be wrong, and if so, hope someone will point it out, but I don't think that your firewall would prevent your mailbox receiving it's mail. The mail is generally stored on the server, not your machine, and if your firewall allows you access to your mailbox, then the contents of it would be accessed too.

 

Angus,
It could be possible that your Firewall or AntiVirus is too tight, blocking all ports. And it might also possible that your ISP or network using special port numbers of sending/receiving emails.

It would be a good idea to check the port numbers your network is using for emails (you will need at least two port numbers for emails.) If your email server is configured to secured mode, you will need to use different port numbers.

 

Thanks for the tips, I'll look into it after a few hours of sleep.

The thing is that the missing newsletter started to bounce prior to any tightening.
Anyway, I have a few things to try now, i'll keep you posted.
Thanks once again.
/Angus

 

Late last night I learned that mail sent to my netscape.net account from a friend, using hotmail, had not been delivered and a newsletter informed me that they'd recorded bounces from my account since mid-january, give or take a week or two.

I have to agree with "noahdfear" on this one. Local machine has no influence to what is 'accepted / rejected" at a WEB based mail server. If sending is a problem, Netscape email setup issues or local security programs are not allowing connection.
Possible place to look per the "bounces from my account since mid-january ". It's easy to forget to "empty trash" for the "trash" folder. You may have reached your maximum. Netscape WEBmail does NOT / NEVER removes this automatically. You must do it yourself. It is easily done via your Netscape email client account. "Right click" on your TRASH folder and select "empty trash ". Clears everything out of the folder. You can also do this at the WEBsite view.

10 minute later update
Before you do the above, please go to your Netscape WEBmail account via the browser view. When you log into your account, it should tell you how much storage you have used. If it is 5 MB, your max'ed out.

 

Looks as if this thread should have stayed in the Netscape Forum after all. If Lonny and Mark will excuse my fumble, I'm going to move it back to the Netscape Forum.

Ramona

 

My mail account has never been maxed out. I don't think I've ever passed the 2Mb mark, I empty out the trash on a regular basis.

I'm allowed to access my incoming mail, or at least whatever gets through, without any problems. Moving mail to/from the trash can or other folders is not a problem.
Sending mail is the only function that gives me grief.

Yesterday I created a hotmail account and tried sending an e-mail containing the exact same attached file as the one that didn't get through when sent from my friend (also using hotmail) and that one got through OK.

/Angus, still confused

 

Sorry for the late update.

I've finally managed to fix my e-mail!
I started by deactivating all blocks, scans and whatnots in my firewall and then re-activated them one by one.
As long as I don't activate the "Block universal plug & play" everything works like a charm.

Thanks to all of you who came with hints and suggestions.
/Angus