Recently, maybe a week ago, I lost SMTP in Thunderbird.
So, I tried some other SMTP servers I know of and have a POP account. Did not work.

I am not sure what broke the service. Possibly a CHANGE in my Ati-Virys program, Avast. Maybe?

As of now, if I WANT to reply to a message I get on Hotmail, I have to log into the Hotmail site and send the reply from there. This is a mild inconvenience. I like to use Thunderbird as my e-mail client.

Presently I do not have an account with Comcast, I am using it as a guest from my neighbor next door. With here permission.

I can not use the Yahoo SMTP.
And I cannot use the geek9pm SMTP because the SSL has expired.

Nor an urgent issue, but it would be nice to understand what went wrong.

BTW, I only tried in Windows XP. Would Windows 7 make any difference?

Thanks.


I use Thunderbird and last time I had a problem like this I found that my system date/time was wrong year. Is everything ok with the system date/time?

One ongoing problem I have had with Thunderbird for over a year now is that I have 3 e-mail accounts that it polls for new e-mail when launched and at times I get a complaint that one of my oldest of e-mail addresses which is a Yahoo address I have had since 2003 complains that it was unable to connect and to supply the correct password. I have used Thunderbird on all 3 accounts for so long without having to enter my passwords for them that at some point its going to be a nightmare trying to get into them if I get locked out for some reason.

The fix for this is to click on the [X] to exit out of supplying a new password and relaunch Thunderbird this way I dont BLOW away the cached copy of the passwords that I forgot after years of not needing them. I have been using Thunderbird now on same COMPUTER for almost 4 years.

Somewhere in a stack of old paperwork I probably have the passwords written down, but ever since the move to new house... I might have thrown away my alias info and passwords for those 3 accounts that are linked to Thunderbird. My one and only fail safe from a total lock out caused locally is by the system image I have that I can restore to to get Thunderbird running with stored passwords. If a hacker tried to hack my e-mail addresses and the email service PROVIDERS locked out my account requiring me to create a new password and prove ownership... I would probably end up parting ways with those e-mail addresses and starting fresh. Thanks. Now I think the issue is really Comcast. I need to get a secondary account with Comcast to be able to your their SMTP service.
For the Yahoo account, do you have SMTP set to port 465? Reference: http://email.about.com/od/accessingyahoomail/f/Yahoo_Mail_SMTP_Settings.htm
soybean,
Hey! That worked! I set the Yahoo account as the SMTP and port 465 and it worked!
Cool that you got it working. Interesting that somehow the port config got changed. I didnt expect that looking at this initially but makes total sense for the issue you had with comm failure.