February 6th, 2008Sending Email Through MidPhase Servers
It’s almost comical when you think about how difficult it is to set up a POP3 account on servers hosted by MidPhase. It seems at any time I want to create a new account or configure a mail client, something is getting in the way and nobody is available to lend a helping hand. Well, luckily, there is help for some of us.
To quickly summarize the problem that some of us have with email on the MidPhase servers, we can receive messages just fine. It’s sending that’s a problem. Our email clients can see the outgoing server, but we just can’t log in and send. On the ever-helpful MidPhase forums, they do have a solution for this, though … use you local ISP’s SMTP (outgoing) server and just route everything accordingly.
What a terrible solution for an otherwise frustrating technical problem.
So here’s the solution. Change the outgoing mail port from 25 to 2626. This will get around the problem of having your ISP block port 25 from use, as well as give you the option to send and receive emails from any device with an internet connection. What I really like about this solution is that I no longer need to use SSL every time I need to connect to the server. While SSL is nice to keep the data secure, there is nothing that passes through MidPhase that is worth any value.
For anyone that needs the full set of information to set up an POP3 email account with their email client, here are the settings:
User Name: user+example.com
Incoming Mail Server: mail.example.com
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): mail.example.com
Server Port Numbers
Incoming Server: 25
Outgoing Server: 2626
SSL: This can be enabled or disabled. If SSL is enabled, the Incoming Server will be port 990, and the Outgoing Server must remain 2626.
Hopefully this quick little post will help others who have struggled with this hassle, as it’s next to impossible to get a timely answer from the help desk. All that said, if you still have questions about setting up your email clients for MidPhase’s servers, drop me a comment and I’ll be happy to help.
Jason,
Good information even though MidPhase does have it posted/buried in their Knowledgebase. Surprisingly I found after Googling that there are a lot of ISP’s that routinely block Port 25 like: AT&T (can be unblocked at the request), MindSpring, BellSouth, MSN, CableOne, NetZero, Charter, People PC, Comcast, ATTBI, Sprynet, Cox, Sympatico.ca, EarthLink, Verio, Flashnet, Verizon, MediaOne, and etc.
So the problem is more widespread than even I imagined.
Thanks!
Thanks, Crispin. I did manage to find the port information in MidPhase’s knowledge base a few weeks after discovering this solution and it made me wonder why I couldn’t find it before. That said, I hope that this post can help anyone that has trouble finding the fix when they’re pulling their hair out trying to fix this.
It seems that a bunch of ISPs in Japan are starting to close their ports as well, as I didn’t need to use 2626 until early February. Perhaps it’s becoming a global standard, which makes me wonder how many millions will be affected when the changeover is all said and done