Knowledgebase

There are a variety of reasons why you may not be able to send or receive emails from your email software. To help diagnose which issue may be occurring, we recommend using a simple process of elimination:

1. Check to make sure that your IP address is not blocked in our security firewall. To do this, try accessing and logging into your webmail.
   1. If you cannot see your webmail log in screen, it is likely that your IP address is blocked in our firewall. To learn more about this issue, click here. When you are able, send us your IP address via our technical support form, explaining your concern, and we will check the firewall for you. Once the IP is removed from the firewall, your emails will start coming in like normal.
   2. If you can see your webmail screen, then you have eliminated an IP block from being the reason you cannot send emails. Continue to the next option… 
2. Try sending or receiving the same email to/from the same recipient using your webmail portal. This will inform us if the issue is server based, or if it is local on your computer’s end. When you access and use webmail, you are working directly from the server.
   1. If you cannot send/receive your email from the server, there are two options:
      1. Your email account may be over quota. To test this, try deleting old emails from your webmail account, or emails with large attachments, and test again. For more information on email quotas, click here.
      2. If your email quota is not the issue, there may be a communication breakdown between our mail server and the sending/recipient’s mail server. To determine the exact cause of the breakdown, we will need you to run atraceroute and send us the details (you can use our technical support form to send us these details).
   2. If you are able to send/receive your email via webmail, then you have eliminated our email server as the cause of the issue. Continue to the next option… 
3. Finally, we look at the various options that may be causing the issue on your local computer. There are a variety of elements that could be the cause:
   1. If this is a new email account set up, and you have been unable to successfully send/receive test emails from the set up, it is likely an outgoing server port issue:
      1. For sending errors, change your outgoing mail (SMTP) port from the default of 25 to 26. To do this, refer to the HOW TO SET UP EMAIL page for instructions on setting ports for your specific email software.
      2. For receiving errors, review your email account set up to ensure that the account settings are correct. For more on email set up, click here. HINT: your complex password should be copied and pasted from the original email that you received, making sure not to accidentally copy any extra spaces at the end of the password. 
   2. If your email has been working fine up until now and is only suddenly experiencing an outgoing email issue:
      1. Check to make sure that there are no emails with large attachments stuck in your outbox waiting to go out. If there are, you will need to delete them from your outbox, restart your program, and try sending again without the large attachments. For more information on sending large attachments via email, click here.
      2. Try shutting down and restarting your computer, and then restarting your email program. Your computer may be running out of RAM (random access memory) that it uses on a continual basis. Restarting the computer will refresh and clear the RAM.
      3. Your internet connection may be down. To test this, try opening a website that you have never opened before. This is important because any website you have been to in the past may be held in your browser’s cache/memory, and therefore it will appear to be active on the internet, when it actualy may not. Here is a good test website:www.whatismyipaddress.com.
      4. Your local computer antivirus/firewall software may be stopping your connention. When a firewall software does an automatic update, sometimes it will reset itself, or adjust its own settings. These changes may be causing your email connection to be severed. The only way to accurately test this is to temporarily disable your local antivirus/firewall software and try access your email from your email program with the firewall temporary disabled. This is a more complex option and should only be attempted by someone comfortable with firewalls, and your computer security. If you are unsure, then you will need to contact a computer technician to ask for their guidance and assistance.

SiteWyze Solutions assumes no responsibility for computer software configuration or firewall errors that may occur causing email interruptions in your local email software, nor any malicious attacks that your computer may experience if your firewall is not properly activated on your local system. This is why we recommend a professional address the firewall concern. 

Companies using a third-party email service (i.e. local exchange servers), will need to contact their server technician to have them diagnose the issue.