Enabling Outgoing Mail in Thunderbird

Hi all,

Running 18.04 and Thunderbird 68.8.04 on Cox. Can't send anything out. Pretty sure Cox blocks port 25 and requires the use of its SMTP server per https://sites.google.com/view/cox-imap-smtp-settings/. I will probably call them tomorrow, but...

- How could I confirm that a port is blocked? I ran netstat -tunlp and sudo ufw status. 25 wasn't running, but doesn't mean it couldn't be (right?), and ufw isn't running.

- Other than waiting for the Thunderbird GUI to report an error, is there a way for me to see what's going on under the hood? There's gotta be a log I can check.

Here are the last few lines of my syslog:

Jun 14 16:15:01 one CRON[7947]: (root) CMD (command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1)
Jun 14 16:17:01 one CRON[7970]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jun 14 16:17:33 one thunderbird.desktop[7273]: JavaScript error: resource:///modules/activity/alertHook.jsm, line 49: NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED: Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIMsgMailNewsUrl.server]
Jun 14 16:18:21 one gvfsd-metadata[3332]: g_udev_device_has_property: assertion 'G_UDEV_IS_DEVICE (device)' failed
Jun 14 16:18:21 one gvfsd-metadata[3332]: message repeated 7 times: [ g_udev_device_has_property: assertion 'G_UDEV_IS_DEVICE (device)' failed]
Jun 14 16:18:21 one nautilus[28810]: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: Failed to execute child process “net” (No such file or directory)

Thanks all!

A

Most all ISPs block outgoing traffic to port 25 as an anti-spam measure.

Besides, Thunderbird is a simple Mail User Agent and can't deliver individual mails directly to the relevant SMTP servers; it requires an SMTP relay.

Looking for a local SMTP service is pointless. You don't need one in order to send e-mails from Thunderbird, and even if you had one and it was configured as a relay it wouldn't work, at least not out of the box, due to port 25 being blocked.[*]

Configure Thunderbird to use smtp.cox.net as its outgoing SMTP server using the "mail submission" port (587), and make sure authentication is enabled. You'll have to enter your Cox username, and Thunderbird will ask for your password when you send the first e-mail.

[*]It is possible to configure the local Mail Transfer Agent (SMTP server) to use another relay, like smtp.cox.net, with authentication. That's what you'd have to do in order to enable other components and programs on your Linux system to send outgoing e-mail (that is, mail to non-local recipients).

Thank you, Ser.

I appear to be doing it correctly, but it is not working. Cox no longer provides a mail service, but keeps an SMTP server running, I imagine for this purpose. I tried my Cox account credentials and they didn't work. So I will call them and see what they suggest.

A

Originally Posted by AreteVirginia Jun 14 16:17:33 one thunderbird.desktop[7273]: JavaScript error: resource:///modules/activity/alertHook.jsm, line 49: NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED: Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIMsgMailNewsUrl.server] Jun 14 16:18:21 one gvfsd-metadata[3332]: g_udev_device_has_property: assertion 'G_UDEV_IS_DEVICE (device)' failed Jun 14 16:18:21 one gvfsd-metadata[3332]: message repeated 7 times: [ g_udev_device_has_property: assertion 'G_UDEV_IS_DEVICE (device)' failed] Jun 14 16:18:21 one nautilus[28810]: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: Failed to execute child process “net” (No such file or directory)

This looks more like something went wrong when you installed Thunderbird. As if some component were missing, or a version mismatch between Thunderbird and other parts of the system.

I would purge and reinstall the software, and carefully look at output and error messages.

Cox is my ISP. My email clients (Claws and Thunderbird) work very nicely with the Cox mail servers for my Cox email address.

A simple web search for "cox email settings" turned up this: https://www.cox.com/residential/supp...-settings.html

The Cox webmail service is also alive and well.

Originally Posted by berndbausch This looks more like something went wrong when you installed Thunderbird. As if some component were missing, or a version mismatch between Thunderbird and other parts of the system. I would purge and reinstall the software, and carefully look at output and error messages.

Good suggestion. Reinstalled and it worked like a charm. As an FYI for anyone else experiencing the issue, I used gmail's imap and smtp settings.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by frankbell Cox is my ISP. My email clients (Claws and Thunderbird) work very nicely with the Cox mail servers for my Cox email address. A simple web search for "cox email settings" turned up this: https://www.cox.com/residential/supp...-settings.html The Cox webmail service is also alive and well.

Doesn't work for me.

https://www.cox.com/residential/support/cox-email.html

They probably keep it going for legacy customers who log in at least bi-annually.

Meh.