ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: Do you have any thoughts or ideas (other than re-installing programs or throwing the computer against the wall) on the following? We are using Windows 10, and running Thunderbird version 45.[something], and sending emails has not been a problem. About a week ago, we suddenly started getting the error message:

Sending of the message failed. The Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.cox.net does not seem to support encrypted passwords. If you just set up the account, try changing the ‘Authentication method’ in ‘Account settings | Outgoing server (SMTP)’ to ‘Normal password’.

 At first it was intermittent – email would not send, then on second try would, then would only send on a longer wait, and now not at all. I should explain that is from Cox (with whom we have tons of problems since they have tried going digital, especially with their TV “service”, but that’s another long, sad, irritating saga), though if I go to Gmail I can send. My husband is talking of going totally to Gmail because of Cox problems.

– Becky B.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: I never advocate violence against computers, unless in doing so you also plan to do injury to your credit card balance when you have to go and purchase new hardware. So, act judiciously on your impulses. I also don’t think a software re-install is necessary, since it appears to be a simple problem with the way your Cox account is configured in Thunderbird. This issue to me is why did it work properly, then suddenly stop working?

I have a couple of general troubleshooting comments regarding the last part of your e-mail that I want to get to before I discuss the problem itself. Based on the e-mails that I get from readers, there seems to be an unfortunate tendency to try things, or make logical connections that are completely unrelated to a given problem. In your case, you are comparing Gmail’s continued ability to successfully send e-mail to the failing ability of Thunderbird to send Cox e-mail. Although these two perform similar e-mail functions, they are two wholly and distinct providers, and the fact that one is working has no effect and proves nothing about whether the other one should be working. The reason I mention this is because I’m often regaled with tales of the various things that people have attempted in their desperation to try and fix a problem. Sometimes the things they do are relatively harmless, but other times people risk further complicating a problem, or at the very least, wasting a lot of their time by reinstalling software or playing with settings that they don’t really understand. Please, dear Geeks – ask me for help before you start down that path.

Now then, Becky, I should tell you that my efforts to come up with an answer for you had me both performing my own research online, and doing a live webchat with a representative from Cox Customer Service. It seems to me that Cox must have made a change that stopped their e-mail servers from allowing encrypted passwords. The Cox representative vehemently denied that, despite my pointing out a conversation thread on Cox’s own message boards from several customers who have problems virtually identical to yours, and which even started – as near as I can tell – on the same date as yours. This same representative proceeded to send me a link to a page on the Thunderbird website that shows how to configure an e-mail account. This page showed that password encryption should be turned off. When I asked if she had information with Cox-specific settings, she sent me to a page on the Cox website that shows how to set up Thunderbird, and that page showed that password encryption should be turned on – a direct contradiction to her earlier advice. After a bit of back-and-forth, and some discussions that had her telling me that “Cox doesn’t provide support for third party e-mail clients” to which I replied that since Cox does not author any e-mail software, technically all of them are 3^rd-party, and even though they don’t “support” e-mail clients, they do, in fact, administer the Cox e-mail servers, which appear to be the source of the problem. Her best advice was to suggest I contact Thunderbird’s technical support. Seeing that no help was forthcoming from Cox, and with the conversation going nowhere, I terminated the chat shortly thereafter.

The bottom line from my perspective is that despite what this representative said, Cox must have made a change to the way their servers accept passwords, and now your encrypted password no longer works. Whether this is happening only to Thunderbird users I cannot say, since I am neither a Cox customer nor a Thunderbird user. What I can recommend is in Thunderbird, go into the settings for your Cox account and double check your outgoing mail settings. Cox’s documentation says your port number should be 587 with TLS enabled, or 465 with SSL enabled and the authentication box checked. If that doesn’t work, try unchecking the box that says to use SSL. This is the “authentication method” that is mentioned in the error message you cited.