Receive mail, but cant send

After some network updates, 2 different computers have developed the same problem using Outlook 2000. They can receive mail, but it wont send. All the settings are the same as they were before, and the same as on other computers, but for some reason the mail wont send. The mail server is Earthlink, but I saw an earlier post with the same problem using Prodigy.

 

network updates - what, exactly, was done?

What OS are the problem machines running?

 

Updates

We "upgraded" the server software from Windows Pro2000 to Server 2000, and installed Exchange. On the individual workstations, the owners of those individual workstations (in their own wisdom) loaded Outlook 2000 over a previous installation of Office XP, which I believe has Outlook 2002. This happened on 2 workstations, one of which runs XP and the other is Windows 2000 Pro. They sit next to each other and thought it would be better to have Outlook 2000 because we had Server2000 and Exchange2000. Everything seems to be working ok, except that when they hit "send and receive" it only gets mail and does not send mail. There is a send mail error. We have tried to reload a new mail account from scratch, with the same results. All the other computers are working ok on our network. As a side note, I tried to load Outlook 2002 over 2000, and it loads, but never finds any of the data such as contacts, etc. and seems to go into some internet browser mode without the options to locate the data manually. Currently on the XP workstation I deleted the Norton Antivirus software to rule that out, but it still does not work.

 

owners of those individual workstations (in their own wisdom) loaded Outlook 2000 over a previous installation of Office XP

LOL. Not funny for you I'm sure but such a typical user stunt that I gotta smile a little. Gotta make those numbers match. I'm reminded of a lady years ago who chewed my ears off when I dared suggest we load Win95 on her PC. After all, she told me, she was running Windows311 and it had to be better (she missed the decimal that would have told her she was running 3.11).

That "downgrade" of the office app did the deed. Did a few other things as well and none of them good.

At this point my best suggestion for a fix is to blow away the PC and do a fresh OS load then install the apps. Might be a great idea to set those two users as only users on their PCs so they can't do that sort of damage in the future though.

It might be possible to fix the issue without a reinstall of the OS but I'm afraid it would be about like trying to unscramble an egg and is certainly nothing I'd want to spend time on.

 

My comment: Set the user account name as "username@earthlink.net ". Outlook may have just inserted "username" without the doman. Some ISP's require the whole thing. Also, be sure the outgoing mail server matches that which your ISP specifies..........Just a try!

 

Done

Thanks to all who replied. Not to be ungreatful of anyone's advice, but the reason I subscribed to a BBS was to get advice on how to fix problems without wiping my computer clean and starting over. Of course that is the easy fix and will fix almost every problem, but it is not very practical and often very time consuming. As it turns out, thanks to some of the advice, it made me go back and look at the outlook installation. I can tell you what fixed my problem, but cant be for sure if there was an easier way. I had multiple versions of Office loaded, both 2000, and XP, and then Outlook 2000, so 3 versions of Outlook loaded. I went in using the Office software, removed Outlook from the computer, and then went back and re-installed Outlook 2002 with the XP. So yes I started over, but only with Outlook and I didnt see any reason to wipe the whole computer clean for 1 program.

 

NC Music - since it was me who suggested a wipe, I'll respond.

Very glad you got things working again and I agree, reinstall is usually a last resort rather than a first resort.

If the system stays stable then you did much better than I would have believed given the situation you described. Hopefully it will. But if it does does not and strange things that require a lot of your time (and not specifically Outlook related things either) start happening, you might have to reconsider at some point.

I can only go with my reaction based on lots of years messing with these things and say that if it were my own personal PC that had the overlay of an older version of an app that is as pervasive as MS Office, I'd wipe it and start fresh. If it were a system I were going to support in the future, I'd wipe it and start fresh.

But certainly nothing lost by doing the fix and seeing how it works. My feeling may well be wrong in this case. Just maintain good, current data backups.