[SOLVED] mutt error "Could not find the host"

Question

I have been trying to set up Mutt, following the Mutt wiki page. Every time I run 'mutt' at the command line, the application opens but I get the following error message at the bottom of the window:
Could not find the host "imap.qmul.ac.uk"
I've tried various .muttrc variations, but no luck so far. Here is my current .muttrc file (with my username changed to 'user' but no other changes):
set imap_user = user
set folder = "imaps://[email protected]:993/"
set spoolfile = +INBOX
mailboxes +INBOX
unset imap_passive
(Eventually I will add smtp information, but it seems premature at this stage. I also tried putting my password in there, but it did not make a difference.)
It may be relevant that I also cannot telnet into the imap server in question (or get in there with 'ssh'). I set up telnet using the telnet wiki page.
The IMAP server itself seems to be working well: I can log in there and read and send emails just fine when I use a GUI-based email client.
Any ideas, anyone, on what's going wrong?
PaulE
Last edited by PaulE (2013-01-05 11:23:07)

Answer 1

Just in case anyone stops by and is interested in the networking question, let me add, in partial answer to skanky's questions, that I can indeed ping the server:
$ ping imap.qmul.ac.uk
PING imap.qmul.ac.uk (138.37.6.143) 56(84) bytes of data.
And the telnet error message I get is as follows:
$ telnet imap.qmul.ac.uk
Trying 138.37.6.143...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out
But I've just noticed that if I include a port the telnetting works fine:
$ telnet imap.qmul.ac.uk 993
Trying 138.37.6.143...
Connected to imap.qmul.ac.uk.
Escape character is '^]'.
I don't know why that should be, since a port number is optional in the telnet documentation I've consulted, both on my system (via 'man') and elsewhere.
And if I include a port number in my .muttrc folder setting but keep the server name instead of the IP address...
set imap_user = user
# set folder = "imaps://[email protected]:993/"
set folder = "imaps://[email protected]:993/"
set spoolfile = +INBOX
mailboxes +INBOX
unset imap_passive
... it STILL doesn't work:
Could not find the host "imap.qmul.ac.uk"
Finally the GUI application that I mentioned was a webmail service. I just go to a web page and type in my username and password, so I don't know about its settings offhand. I can try to find them out if this issue is of interest to any networking expert who wanders by.
There are deep mysteries here, but I am content for the moment that I have mutt up and running.
PaulE