Mail.. two different accounts have mixed... help!

Question

Here is my problem... my pop account & .mac account have combined. Now, when I log onto my main mail ( pop ) it is in the .mac forum. I can receive mail but can not send any. I talked with my server tech for 1 hr & half, their settings are all correct. I did not upgrade to Leopard. Has anyone had this type problem. My crisis started yesterday morning (12/22).
Thank you,
Lisa

Answer 1

So, for whatever reason, it cannot send mail through the pop account's SMTP server. That is why it is asking you if you want to try to send the message using another (.mac's) SMTP server instead.
Things to check: In Mail | Preferences | Accounts, for the troublemaker account, are you certain that the selected smtp server being shown in the pull-down menu is the correct one for the account, and that there are no typos or anything (if authenticated smtp, your smtp server name would look like mailout......com:lconley)?
Click on the SMTP Server Settings button. What port number are you using? Is the SSL checkbox checked? What is the type of authentication? Username correct? Try leaving password blank for now, once eliminated here and in Keychain Access (see 2nd following paragraph), it will add back in in both places if you check the "Save to Keychain" checkbox
Try searching your email provider's web site and see if you can find a link to directions to setting up your mail account that addresses the above issues. See if what is printed there jibes with what they told you over the phone and more importantly if it jibes with what you have entered in your smtp server setup.
If you make any changes here, go back into Keychain Access and delete any entries that pertain to that email account's SMTP server before you try sending email again.
One last thing to try, maybe. Is the email account from somebody other than your ISP (i.e., 3rd party)? And if so, might your ISP be blocking your traffic destined for smtp servers other than one of their own? That might be a likely cause if you are currently trying to use port 25. Many ISPs block port 25 traffic that is not destined for their server. You can check this by launching Terminal.app and typing telnet mailout......com 25. Substitute whatever port number your email provider said you should be using; 465, 587, being typical ones besides 25. You should see something that reads similar to this:
Trying {some.numeric.IP.address}.
Connected to mailout......com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 {domain name of some sort} ESMTP 
Do a control-right bracket to get to a telnet > prompt, and type quit followed by <return> to exit
If you don't see any of that stuff, and instead just get a timeout message, then I would claim that either you are using the wrong smtp port number or your ISP is blocking traffic on that port.