Changed ISP's, now can't send/receive e-mail w/Outlook

[dlk9s]

I switched from BellSouth (AT&T) DSL to Comcast cable HSI yesterday and the internet is up and running fine. I work from home and use Outlook 2003 to access my Exchange server work e-mail. Since activating Comcast I can no longer send or receive anything via Outlook. The progress dialogue takes longer than usual to finish and then it does say that the "send" portion was complete, but does not say anything about receive. Thing is, the e-mails in my outbox have not been sent.

I can access my e-mail from an Outlook web client and that works fine. I just can't use the actual Outlook software for some reason.

I, of course, called Comcast and they have been of no help.

The only change I made when activating Comcast internet was switching a wireless router setting from static IP to dynamic, but I can't see this being a problem since I can surf the web, play poker, etc., just fine.

I had Comcast internet a few months ago and everything worked fine.

Anyone have ideas on what the heck is going on?

[PLOlover]

you gotta change your pop3/smtp settings. also if you wanna dl newsgroups you gotta change your newsserver setting. theyre still trying to access your old isp's.

[nuclear500]

This shouldn't be the problem, as he is using Outlook to connect directly to his Exchange server over the Internet, so its going to be using RPC over HTTPS and will be using Exchange's mechanisms to send mail.

Souns to me like they aren't allowing that anymore. I'd ask them that specifically.

[ghostbeef]

Comcast is blocking your port 25 to any SMTP servers except their own. You can either change your Exchange server to listen on an alternate/additional port (587 is common), or use their SMTP server (smtp.comcast.net) to send mail.

Large ISPs do this as a preventative measure against comprimised computers sending out large amounts of spam.

[dlk9s]

ghostbeef,

I'll check into that. Thanks. I'll be pretty pissed if I can't use Outlook anymore, since the web client is lame.

[nuclear500]

[ QUOTE ]
Comcast is blocking your port 25 to any SMTP servers except their own. You can either change your Exchange server to listen on an alternate/additional port (587 is common), or use their SMTP server (smtp.comcast.net) to send mail.

Large ISPs do this as a preventative measure against comprimised computers sending out large amounts of spam.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cannot use Outlook from a remote location to connect to an internal corporate Exchange environment over the Internet unless you are using RPC over HTTPS. This means absolutely all communication with Exchange, and therefore sending emails, is occuring over port 443 and 80 to his companies Exchange front-end servers.

[dlk9s]

I called Comcast back and the rep confirmed what ghostbeef said. They only allow outgoing e-mail through their SMTP server (although that still doesn't explain why incoming wasn't working, either).

We went through some steps to try to fix it, but it still didn't work. He then told me Outlook Express should work and that I should set my incoming to POP3, using my Exchange server address and outgoing to SMTP (Comcast). I don't have Outlook Express on my work computer right now, so I just tried it on my other computer and, what do you know, it worked. All my e-mails downloaded and test e-mails back and forth went through.

So, I guess I'll be using Outlook Express, which I suppose I don't mind. As long as I have all my old sent and received e-mails, I'm happy.

Thanks for everyone's help!

[nuclear500]

I actually have to lol at the fact this is the way it works for you.

This is quite an insecure setup. Your companies IT department must be....uninformed.

[dlk9s]

[ QUOTE ]
I actually have to lol at the fact this is the way it works for you.

This is quite an insecure setup. Your companies IT department must be....uninformed.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not my company's IT department that is setting it up this way. It is Comcast. Comcast is the company preventing me from using Outlook. It worked fine with them as late as April and it worked fine with AT&T.

[nuclear500]

I give up.