How to Fix Email Sending Issues

If you're having problems sending email, it may be something as simple as a wrong password or a port being blocked. Here are some common reasons you may have issues sending emails. Please see below for useful troubleshooting steps, ideas, and related articles.

Wrong Password

Even if you're sure the password was entered right, it is worthwhile to check again. If you're thinking, "It has to be right because I copied and pasted it," you might be surprised. Many times, especially in Firefox and certain other applications, when you paste in the password, extra space will be inserted. One blank space may be added to the end of your password, so it is advised to copy and paste this into a Notepad file before copying and pasting. If you have webmail access, try logging into webmail with your username and password to test and make sure you are using the right username and password.

Secure Connections and Ports

Some email service providers require the use of a secure connection to connect to SMTP. You need to make sure this option is selected in the email client you're using. For example, in Outlook, there's an option for "This server requires a secure connection."

Some servers may also require connecting on port 465 (secure) vs. 25 (insecure). If neither of these ports works, you can also try port 587.

Speaking of Ports….Port 25

Many ISPs will have port 25 blocked. So if you're trying to use port 25 and cannot send emails, you may want to try using another port when sending emails.

Check For Open Ports

For Windows

Hit the Windows key+R and type in cmd to bring up the command prompt box. Then, type in:

telnet domain.com 25

Replace domain.com with your actual domain name

For Mac

Go to Mac HD
Go to Applications
Go to Utilities
Open Up Terminal
Type this and hit enter:

telnet domain.com 25

Replace domain.com with your actual domain name

For Linux

Using a terminal, execute the following:

telnet domain.com 25

Replace domain.com with your actual domain name

If you get a message that has 220 in it or "connected," then it should open and ready to use. But if you get an error, couldn't connect, or no response at all, then it's blocked.

Hold CTRL + } and then type q and then press ENTER to end a telnet connection.

Authentication

If you see an error that mentions authentication, you may have the wrong authentication method set up. Most email programs provide different options for password authentication, including:

Encrypted
Kerberos
Normal or plain text

Try using normal or plain text if you are having trouble setting up your email client access in cPanel.

SMTP Crash

If you see an error that mentions something about server unknown, make sure you have the server name correct, and there's no problem with the resolution of the server.

Ping the server

If it responds to the ping, it's the mail server not responding
If it doesn't ping either, the entire server is not responding, and rebooting may help
If it doesn't resolve at all, it's likely something wrong with the DNS of the domain/host - look it up on who.is

How To Acquire Your MX IP and Ping

Typically, within our Shared and Business shared services, your MX IP will be that of your dedicated IP provided. However, it's best to confirm this or see if it's different by running the following checks.

Step1: At a command prompt, type nslookup, and then press ENTER.

Step 2: Type server \, where IP address is the IP address of your external DNS server, and then press ENTER.

Step 3: Type set q=MX, and then press ENTER.

Step 4: Type \<_**domain name**_>, where \<_domain name>_ is the name of your domain, and then press ENTER. The MX record for the domain you entered should be displayed.

If your test comes back with your domain without mail.domain.com, this typically means the dedicated IP shares the same IP with your MX mail server. Otherwise, the test will come back with alternative IP related to mail.domain.com.

Now run a standard ping test within the command prompt to that IP to check connectivity.

ping 192.xxx.xxx.xx

You can also ping mail.yourdomain.com for further investigation if you are pointing your MX record to mail.yourdomain.com

Blacklisted

Your IP may have been blacklisted. Use one of these blacklist checkers to see if your server or IP has been blacklisted:

Mx Toolbox
Blacklist Check
Blacklist Monitor

SPAM

You may be sending SPAM whether you realize it or not. Please contact our support team to request your email logs and email activity be reviewed if you feel that this is a possibility.

Mail Queue

The mail queue may be full or stopped. You only have access to this through WHM, though.

Go to WHM
Go to Mail Queue Manager under Email

Here, you'll be able to view emails in the queue and see how many there are. You can also attempt to deliver undelivered messages that are sitting here. If an attempt were made to send an email to an incorrect/unavailable address, they'd be here. You should manually delete these emails to clear them out.