Here is my network:

cable modem
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voip phone analog adapter
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firewall - eth0 - dhcp - SUSE 10.1
eth2 - 192.168.2.0
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eth0 - 192.168.3.0 - SUSE 10.1
proxy/dansgaurdian filter ----------WAP 192.168.4.0
eth4 - 192.168.4.0

From my wireless side I have a fedora 5 laptop that cannot send smtp traffic out of the network but can recieve e-mail fine. I have two other computers on that same network that can recieve and send e-mail no problem at all. I have ran ethereal and it really doesnt show me much other that the smtp server ip address and some other info. I can ping the smtp server hosting my e-mail. There is no communication issue that I can see. I believe it is at the application level where the problem is. I have checked my services and am not running a firewall on the laptop. I cannot figure it out help?

What are you using? Sendmail? Postfix? Thunderbird?

Anything specific you can give us about how it tells you that you can't send? Error log entry? Popup message?

Any chance that your cable provider is blocking port 25 for you?

When you say you can recieve email fine, do you mean through and MTA like sendmail/postfix or via POP3 with something like Thunderbird?

I am using thunderbird 1.5 and I can recieve e-mail fine my ISP. I have two other machine on the same 192.168.4.0/28 network that send e-mail fine. The error message is such:

sending of message failed.the message could not be sent to SMTP server SMTP.XXXX.net. The server may be unavailable or us resfusing SMTP connections.Please verify that you SMTP settings are correct or contact the administrator.

I have a machine windows machine that is setup in the same way and it is fine.

I have a very stupid question: I have sendmail turned off but would that have an effect on thunderbird working properly?

Could you compare the FC5 and Windows settings in Thunderbird and see if there is a typo or something like that in the outgoing server settings. Maybe it is supposed to be .com instead of .net or something else crazy like that. Is your username for authentication spelled correctly? No typos? I know, I hate it when people tell me to double check spelling too, but I helps. I know from experience from wasting hours trying to figure out what was wrong when it was just a typo.

Also from the command line you can type "telnet smpt.xxxx.net 25" and see if you get a response that way. If you do get a response that should tell you it is something in the Thunderbird settings and not your computer/network.

It is without a doubt thunderbird. Here is the output of telnet:

telnet mail.XXXXXXXX.net 25
Trying XX.XXX.XX.XXX...
Connected to mail.XXXXXX.net (XX.XXX.XX.XXX).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mta10.XXXXXXXX.net ESMTP server (InterMail vM.6.01.05.02 201-2131-123-102-20050715) ready Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:43:11 -0400

I downloaded Thunderbird from the Fedora site. I will try to download it from mozilla site instead. Maybe its the rpm that is screwed up?

Well, I assume that you did go through and re-compare your settings with your others, right?

Try to go to Edit > Options and see if some sort of proxy setting got accidentally set under connections.

Under account settings, make sure that your profile is using the correct outgoing smtp server. Under outgoing smtp servers do you have more than 1 listed?

I noticed in your second post you refered to the server as smtp.xxxx.net from the error message and then in your most previous post you refered to the server as mail.xxxx.net.... Could that be an issue?

when I refer to smtp.XXXXXXXXX.net I mean the same thing. My ISP incoming mail server and outgoing mail server is the same. I checked into that as well. I have reinstalled fedora since. I ran yum updates and it screwed up a lot of things. I guess this is safe to say but it doesnt matter what OS you use but an patch can screw your whole world up. I let you know how things went. I am leaning more towards a faulty rpm that I downloaded.

I wish I could help, as it looks like I have a similar problem. I just got signed on allvantage ISP with Thunderbird 1.5 (SUSE 10.1, installation media version), and I cannot send out mail with the smtp server using the Thunderbird program! I have the right smtp server name, and I can receive mail on the pop3; so maybe this really is Thunderbird (this is over a Kinternet dialup).

I also have SUSE 10 but I havnt tried it on that. It has to be a thunderbird issue. I have check everthing out even reinstalled my Fedora 5 and it is driving me crazy!

Deebeek,

I finally figured it out. Using either SUSE 10.1 or Fedora 5 there is a proxy setting under (Fedora 5) system > preference > network proxy. I tried using the IP address of my proxy 192.168.3.1:8080 but that didnt work, then I tried auto detect my settings and that did work. I decided to try using the localhost or 127.0.0.1:8080 and that did the trick. I do not understand really why that is like that, I was always under the impression that a proxy has to do with web browsing or e-mail but I will need some help awnsering this question. Thanks

Also in Suse 10.1 it is under YaST > network services> Proxy or something like that, good luck!

Also to benjithegreat98 many thanks for you ideas!

Perplexing.... Especially considering your 'telnet smtp.xxx.net 25' command worked with no problem....

Well at least it works!

Another great linux engineering masterpiece.