can't send mail with ISP but can receive and view website
 

Hello. I have just changed over to earthlink and cannot send email from my email account. I can receive email and visit web sites. I contacted tech support and they offered suggestions which didn't work. Funny thing is when, I first set this up, it worked. Now it doesn't.
I am using Kontact on SUSE 9.3 . When I set the mail server to what the tech support suggested, it said a password was required. When I changed the setting to allow for authentication, the message came up that the server didn't support authentication.
The tech support suggested changing to another server, which requires authentication. When I did this, it said the connection was broken.
The tech person said I needed to contact my vendor and reset the TCP/IP and this would fix the problem. Of course, I don't know how to do this. I suspect there is a better solution. But I don't know.
I would appreciate any help in trying to solve this problem.
I know little to nothing about Linux, other than I really like it.
Once again, thanks for the help.

This problem can be caused by a number of factors
Is your account active?
You may have some overdues, or may need to activate your account.
Are you connected to the isp whose mail account you are trying to send through?
The SMTP protocol seems to be quite funny in this area and does not allow you to use one network's SMTP server when connected to another network.
Have you tried pinging the mail servers?
Depending on what error message you are getting when trying to send mail, sometimes network connectivity could be the central issue.
Have you tried sending emails via another mail client?
Try using another email sending program. Thunderbird is good.

I hope that some of these suggestions help