Schizo Outgoing Mail

Question

Problem has been building for a while, now sending mail is like waiting for roulette to land on my favorite number.
After hitting send, to a reply, or a new message, I kept getting 'cannot sent mail because connection to outgoing mail server failed' or something to that effect. I'd click 'try with selected server' (the only one I've ever had, that used to work perfectly fine), get the same push back, and then eventually it would go away.
Tried to follow some instructions on various discussion threads and completely hosed my outgoing mail server settings, probably my account settings too. Crashing on a project, so had to call Apple Care, and got good support. We trashed the plist, reentered the outgoing mail server smtp.mac.com, checked SSL selected the default ports, quit mail, restarted and everything worked fine.
Then, now, I swear it is worse than before. Same error box on sending again. The outgoing mail server changed it's name to smtp.me.com:myname (i swear I didn't do it). where my accounts used to say [email protected], now there is an 'me' in there. My sent mailbox doesn't have a lot of messages I sent recently. I still can't send mail, and when I try to repeat what I did earlier to fix it, it doesn't fix it.
But, so far, if I feel like clicking 'try using selected server' enough times, the message eventually gets sent (when my blood pressure raises high enough to scare it probably)
Anybody know what the heck is going on? I haven't done anything strange recently on the computer; repaired disk permissions, software updates only. Where is all this coming from?
Thank you. (Won't be able to send you a thank you via email probably)
BC

Answer 1

thanks guys. several things seem to help, for a while, then it is screwy again.
i'm in rome, italy now, so ended up calling a local apple care number - luckily got someone who spoke english well.
we added another outgoing server. he called the local internet provider and got the name of their outgoing server (something i never could have gotten on my own, they don't pick up the phone and all of the recordings are in italian).
anyway, we added that, kept default ports, unchecked SSL and left out the authentication (hmmmmm.)
Saved, relaunched, mail started going out. Worked well for most of the day, then out of the blue, mail couldn't send from THAT server for some reason (connection doctor showed all connecting to servers just fine). I selected one of the ones that wouldn't work earlier (my old smtp.mac.com) and then IT worked. go figure.
I'd like to go back and clean all of this up eventually, but for now it is working and I have some work I need to get out, so not rocking the boat. In the process of all this, strange stuff has happened to my mailboxes, folders, etc.
Some, like Sent items, had a bunch of messages missing and in a new folder 'on my mac.' There are also some strange folders with Time Machine label, probably from when I tried to go back and use that to help sort out my outgoing server problem (probably bad idea, i don't really know much about Time Machine, just figured I try to use it since all it (its hard drive) seems to do is sit on my desk, make noise, and send me a note that TM was unable to complete backup for some excuse or another. Maybe in the process of trying to 'restore' stuff from my old mail, before it gt hosed up, I messed up the folders. Or maybe it was when I renewed MobileMe and things seemed to take a life of their own for a day or two, renaming and moving stuff around.
Bottom line, this seems like a weird thing to just start happening all of a sudden. Glad you guys are around to help me sort it out. I'll let you know if more strange stuff happens.
BC