U

Contributor

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20 Messages

Thursday, December 9th, 2021 10:25 PM

Closed

Cannot send email... (0x800CCC0F) Connection to server interrupted - or - (0x800CCC67) ESMTP server temporarily not available message

I am a former xfinity subscriber that kept my comcast.net email address.  I access my email through Microsoft Outlook 365 on Windows 10 via a POP3 connection.  My wife who has an identical laptop configuration is experiencing these same problems on her machine.  About 3 months ago out of the blue, we started to get one of the subject error messages when we attempt to send messages; however, the errors oddly only begin to occur around 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. and then persist through the rest of the day when you attempt to send email.  Receiving mail during all hours works without a problem. 

The next morning without me intervening in any way, I can again send and receive email until I get into the 8-10 am window when the send errors start reappearing.  This process repeats itself day-after-day.  

I can login into xfinity's website and send mail from my xfinity webmail account during times when I'm getting the send errors on my laptop.  I also run into similar problems from my android phone that runs a Samsung email app.  During the same times I can't send email from my laptop, I can't send email from my phone either.  

When I get one of the two send errors above, the emails will just stay in my outbox all day long as outlook continues to try to send them.  Yet, then at some point during the late-night hours, something must be reset on xfinity's end of things, I'm able to reconnect to the server, and the emails will send - without me doing anything on my end.  

 

I've called Comcast numerous times on this issue during the past 3 months and they insist the problem is on my end.  I'm convinced the problem is on theirs.  My theory is that as a current nonsubscriber, I am likely routed through different server infrastructure.  As more and more people like myself have cut the cord with Comcast, demands on this secondary infrastructure have increased, and Comcast is refusing to invest to upgrade it since we are nonpaying customers.  So, I'm beginning to doubt that there is a fix for this except to abandon my twenty-two year old comcast.net email.  

Any thoughts from anyone on this?  And suggestions on who where would be a good place to move to (e.g., gmail)?

Problem Solver

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874 Messages

3 years ago

Thank you for reaching out over Xfinity Forums @user_521d8c. I am sorry to hear this has been an ongoing problem for you and your wife with this email. I would never want you to abandon an email address you have had for so long. You have reached the right team to get to the bottom of this. I understand you have tried several troubleshooting steps, but will you take a look at this link https://comca.st/3rUUUcT and make sure your outgoing mail service and ingoing mail service are set up with the correct configuration. I will be an standby to continue troubleshooting if this does not help. 

Contributor

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20 Messages

3 years ago

Yes, I have going through all the Xfinity setup articles in the past multiple times.  Here are the specifics of my configuration: 

1.  I have allowed access in Xfinity to third-party programs in Xfinity Connect

2.  We are both running POP3 connections on our Dell XPS Windows 10 Laptops with Microsoft Office 365. 

     -- My phone runs Samsung Email app with IMAP and experiences the same problem connecting to Xfinity during the same time periods when my PC can't connect.

     -- My PC POP3 Settings are:

                Incoming Mail:   pop3.comcast.net    Port: 995    [I've also used mail.comcast.net    Port: 995  - both seem to work equally well]

                                           CHECK - This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL/TLS)

                Outgoing Mail:   smtp.comcast.net   Port: 465

                                           Encryption Method:  SSL/TLS

                                           Server Timeouts:  1 minute

                                           CHECK - My Outgoing SMTP Server requires authentication

                                                           |_ CHECK - Use same settings as my incoming mail server

          When I run "REPAIR" as instructed in the link, it runs fine early in the morning when I connect to Xfnity (send and receive works). 

          Response I get is "Account Successfully Repaired."   If I try to run "REPAIR" during times when I cannot send email, I get an error that connection to server has failed.

Part of my troubleshooting has included removing my outlook profile and then recreating it following the same instructions identified in the Xfinity articles.  This has not helped to correct the problem.

The important thing to consider is that at certain times of the day (early morning, each morning) my email and my wife's email works fine.  We can send and receive email which should be validation that our setup configurations are is correct on both of our PC's.  Then for reasons unknown and not everyday but almost everyday during the business hours of the day, we can no longer send email.  Instead, we get the send/receive error messages in the subject line of this posting.  If I then just leave a stuck email in my outbox in Outlook, usually early the next morning my email will eventually get sent.  For example, the last time this happened, the stuck email in my Outlook Outbox was sent at 2:11 a.m. (i.e., I noticed this when I turned my PC on the next morning).  So, the email went through when my PC was powered OFF - doesn't this suggest that the email was hung up in some que on Xfinity's end of things?   

Problem Solver

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770 Messages

Thank you for all those details, @user_521d8c. I understand the the importance of being able to send/receive emails in real time. The error you are showing suggest to:

  1. Check Your Internet Connection.
  2. Switch Off Anti-virus Software.
  3. Switch Off the Windows Firewall.
  4. Increase the Server Timeouts Setting in Outlook.
  5. Run Outlook in Safe Mode.
  6. Repair Outlook PST Files.

This was found by a google search for the error reported. Also, ensure you are not sending more than 1K emails per day, due to the limits found here https://comca.st/30k8xaa. After checking the following, if you still receive the message, you can speak to our Customer Security Assurance team at 1-888-565-4329, and they can look into your account, and ensure no safety issues are present. 

I no longer work for Comcast.

Visitor

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2 Messages

This is a crock of s—t. Try telling the truth about the war between Xfinity and Verizon!!! 

Official Employee

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1.6K Messages

Hello @user_8c7730!  Thanks so much for taking the time to reach out to Xfinity Support with Digital Care here on our Community Forum to voice your service concerns.  We are so glad to hear from you and want to assist in any way that we can.  You have reached out to a team of experts and we want to get things taken care of for you.  Please feel free to shoot us a private message with your full name and complete service address so that we can get started on this for you.  

 

To send a "direct message" / "private message" message to Xfinity Support:

 • Click "Sign In" if necessary

 • Click the "Direct Message" icon or https://comca.st/3t997TN 

 • Click the "New message" (pencil and paper) icon

 • The "To:" line prompts you to "Type the name of a person". Instead, type "Xfinity Support" there

 •  - As you are typing a drop-down list appears. Select "Xfinity Support" from that list

 •  - An "Xfinity Support" graphic replaces the "To:" line

 • Type your message in the text area near the bottom of the window

 • Press Enter to send it

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Official Employee

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1K Messages

3 years ago

Good Afternoon,

Checking our logs it appears that there is a large amounts of failed authentication attempts which is kicking on a timeout interval for login attempts. Please check any devices you may have linked with your email that may be presenting errors for incorrect password and resolve them. The device is broadcasting a LAN IP for authentication failures which is coming from a device within your internal network of 192.168.1.2. To resolve simply locate the device 192.168.1.2 within your local network and find any application that is linked with your email account and manually remove and re-input the authentication information(username/email and password) to ensure it is up to date with the latest information. This should resolve your issue. 

Contributor

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20 Messages

@XfinityCSAEmail 

Thank you for your response.  The device you mention: 192.168.1.2 is my Dell XPS laptop where I run my Outlook 365 client.  I have no devices attached to my laptop or linked to my email except my phone which is a Samsung Email app setup as IMAP into my email comcast.net email account.  I can be using my laptop early in the morning, sending emails without a problem, when at a later time (late morning), I start getting the send errors.  This occurs without me touching or turning on any other device in my house.  Instead, it is more like one minute it works and then all the sudden it stops working most of the rest of the day.  I am not a sophisticated user... I use my laptop for personal use, and 99% of the time run Office 365 applications like WORD, EXCEL and outlook.  I average sending 5 - 10 emails a day.  

I am now testing daily to monitor more precisely when sending email works and when it doesn't:

1.  Yesterday, I sent a test email to myself at 10:58 a.m. (a time when I usually have a problem) and sure enough got a Send/Receive error message 0x800CCC0F.  The email stayed queued in my Outbox and Outlook kept trying to send it for the next 7 hours or so via scheduled synchronizations.  Finally, at 6:01 p.m., the email went through and was sent.  I was unable to send any other emails during this same six-hour period time.  See above similar email test from two days ago when the email finally cleared from my Outbox at 2:11 a.m.  

2.  This morning, just prior to sending this forum reply, I sent a test email to myself at 7:20 a.m.  It was sent without a problem.  Later this morning I will test it again and my expectation is that I again will get a send/receive error as I have been for the past couple of months. 

When you say I that am  "...kicking on a timeout interval for login attempts", is this a security issue on Xfinity's end that then locks me out from sending email for hours at a time (i.e., is there some type of security consequence that kicks-in when you have multiple authentication failures)?  Keep in mind that when I encounter these send errors, I can still receive email.  My understanding is that authentication also occurs on incoming mail - right?  So, why if my incoming authentication is working isn't my outgoing mail authentication working?  This suggests to me that my username and password is not getting corrupted by another device or application.

I checked my Windows 10 Settings-Apps and Features and searched on "Mail" and got no search results.  I uninstalled Microsoft Mail and Calendar a while ago since I use Outlook 365 instead.   In other words, I am not aware of any other app or program on my laptop that is trying to access my comcast.net email account.   

Yesterday evening, I changed my server timeout setting from 1 minute to the max (10 minutes).  I'll see if this makes any difference today.  

Any other ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Contributor

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20 Messages

3 years ago

Pls see note above....  At 1:13 pm today, I again got the 0x800CCC0F when trying to send email.  My wife had the same problem on her laptop.  I could not send email on Samsung android phone over wifi.  I could send email on my phone with wifi turned off.  I shutdown my wife's computer and mine.  Rebooted my internet connection and router (I have a new Netgear ORBI RBR750 with firmware up-to-date).  

When wifi was back up, I first tried to send email from my phone with wifi ON.  It would not send.  So, this is not an Outlook problem or a problem with my laptop.  I have tested this issue from other locations that have different wifi connections to the internet and have experienced this problem on these other wifi networks as well.  I therefore don't think this is a problem with my home wifi network or else I would only experience the problem at home, and I would expect I would experience it all the time (not just midday and late day hours).  

As far as my email sending from my phone with wifi turned off, I'm assuming this works because the routing of the email into the comcast servers is different when coming through a cell phone provider like Verizon vs. when the data is coming through over the internet.  

Problem Solver

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770 Messages

Thank you for all those details. If you believe the routing from our servers to your provider is not working, you could reach out to your ISP, and discuss possible blocking. It could be within the firewalls set up. I suggest reaching the Customer Security Assurance team as advised above for additional support with settings. 

I no longer work for Comcast.

Gold Problem Solver

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25.6K Messages

3 years ago

As far as my email sending from my phone with wifi turned off, I'm assuming this works because the routing of the email into the comcast servers is different when coming through a cell phone provider like Verizon vs. when the data is coming through over the internet.

The change in routing when you switch from Wifi to cell service is probably not as important as the fact that your public IP address changes. If what @XfinityCSAEmail wrote is correct (and it usually is), Comcast's mail servers are detecting an unacceptably large number of failed authentication attempts from your Comcast IP. When you switch to Verizon cell service your public IP changes to a Verizon IP which does not have the "failed authentication" history, and Comcast's servers allow the connection.

If you are sure you don't have a program, app, or device repeatedly failing email authentication you might consider scanning your system(s) for malware.

(edited)

Official Employee

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1K Messages

3 years ago

Good morning,

Bruce is correct above. This is a standard security feature that is in place to prevent brute-forcing account passwords. To note, 0x800CCC0F is an error code exclusive to email clients like Outlook and Windows Live Mail. This is not a Comcast email server error code. This indicates an issue with the settings within your email client. 

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

Thank you... this is good information.  When I blocked-out by Comcast mail servers that are detecting an unacceptably large number of failed authentications from my laptop, how long am I blocked-out?  I'm trying to understand if this explains the intermittent functioning of when I can send email and when I can't.  Obviously, at some point a reset occurs and my email will start working again.  

I am currently pursuing Microsoft and my IP services provider seeking help from them on this issue.  However, if as you say the problem causing the initial error is not on Comcast's end, the time of when my email starts working again might in fact be determined by the blocking occurring on Comcast's end.  This would be good to know.  

Thank you.

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

Please see email above...  Also, my phone has a different Wifi IP address than my laptop.  It runs a Samsung Email app as a client (not Outlook as on my Laptop).  Can you help me understand why when I get the authentication failure on my laptop and then go to my phone to send an email, I get a similar failed to send error?  Is it because the wifi is connecting through the same "Outgoing Mail:   smtp.comcast.net   Port: 465?" whether I'm on my phone or on my laptop?  Yet, Brandon says above, when I turn wifi off on my phone, the email goes through?  

I run Microsoft Defender as my anti-virus/malware protection.  No errors have been indicated.  Do you have any other theory on what is going on or where I can look to solve this problem?

Official Employee

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1K Messages

2 years ago

Good afternoon,

Unfortunately its not a theory. The device referenced above in your LAN is failing authentication which in return is timing out access to the email account due to high failure amounts when attempting to authenticate. The details of which in regards to duration cannot be disclosed for security purposes and is a bit more complex than "3 failed attempts = 5 minute timeout"(as an example, if you tell a criminal how they can circumvent the legalities of an illegal activity - they are going to. For that reason we aren't going to disclose specifics of our security features and services to avoid the manipulation and abuse of such information). This type of issue is generally resolved by manually refreshing the settings within your third party email clients by re-typing them and/or removing all accounts and re-adding them as if they were new accounts.

NOTE: if you use POP3 to access your emails, create a backup of your emails before removing any accounts from third party email clients.

Gold Problem Solver

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25.6K Messages

2 years ago

... my phone has a different Wifi IP address than my laptop ...

192.168.x.y addresses are local, LAN addresses. They're not the address that Comcast's mail servers "see". They "see" your public IP address, which is the same for all devices that connect using your router or gateway. 192.168.x.y addresses never appear on the public Internet. They're reserved for local, private use.

Your router or gateway translates local IP addresses to your public IP address and vice versa. Your public IP is the address "seen" by mail servers and other devices on the public Internet when you connect to them.

(edited)

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

Thank you for the responses....  I'm at a complete loss.  As mentioned before, I've deleted my profile and recreated it and it has not fixed the problem.  I've tried doing this multiple times with the same result.

Today I successfully sent a test message to myself at 9:56 a.m.  I then turned my computer off and my wife and I left the house and returned at 2:20 pm.  Booted-up my PC and tried to send a test email to myself and immediately got a send/receive error 0x800CCOF error message.  Tried a test send on my phone and got an error: "There was a problem connecting to the server.  Your email will be sent as soon as the connection is restored."  Turned wifi off on my phone and the email send successfully.  All the same pattern as before.  

I have a second email account which is an outlook.com email address.  It is an IMAP connection.  I've getting blocked on my comcast.net email account, I switched to this other backup email account and can successfully sent email through it over my same wifi ISP setup.  So if the problem is within outlook, or my wifi, or my ISP, wouldn't I also be getting problems on my this other email account or does the fact that my comcast.net email is POP3 is what accounts for the difference?

Official Employee

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1K Messages

2 years ago

Good afternoon,

To update, the LAN designation has changed on the device causing the issue to 192.168.1.3. Please confirm if this is still the device you were originally troubleshooting. I'm also able to see a mixture of IMAP and POP3 access - did you check for any duplicate accounts listed in your settings for any email clients linked with your comcast email? You will want to ensure that you commit to a single access protocol of either IMAP or POP3 as the two different protocols directly conflict each other. The issue still remains that a device on your LAN with designation 192.168.1.3 is providing the incorrect username/password combination when attempting to access emails.

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

 192.168.1.3 is my Dell XPS laptop with the Outlook client.  It has the POP3 connection and is where 98% of my comcast email activity occurs (i.e., it is the primary device I am troubleshooting).  My Samsung Verizon phone which has the Samsung Mail client is a IMAP connection because 98% of the time I only use my phone to read email.  It is setup as IMAP because I do not want to locally store emails on my phone.  I have had this POP3 home PC and IMAP smart phone setup for years and have never had a problem with POP3/IMAP access to my email from these two devices until 2 to 3 months ago.  

What do you mean when you say "the LAN designation has changed?"  How does the LAN designation get set (i.e., is it my wifi, my ISP, etc.)?  

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

... you also say "The issue still remains that a device on your LAN with designation 192.168.1.3 is providing the incorrect username/password combination when attempting to access emails."  To be clear, even when I can't send emails from my laptop, I can still access and receive email (i.e., the incoming authentication still works, it is only the outgoing authentication that is failing).

Contributor

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20 Messages

2 years ago

Yesterday evening I setup static IP addresses for all of my home device connections to my router.  I rebooted the router and modem and was able to send/receive email.  The assigned static IP address for my laptop is 192.168.1.10.  I was hopeful this might fix my problems.  My PC was then in sleep mode all night with Outlook open.  This morning when I logged back into my laptop at around 6:00 am, a dozen new emails were received into my inbox.  I then immediately did a send email test and got the same send/receive error 0x800CCC0F.  This again occurred with the static IP email address on my laptop of 192.168.1.10.  

After rebooting my router and PC and closing outlook for over 30 minutes, I went back in and tested sending again. I still got the 0x800CCC0F error.  After 5 hours of trying to resolve the problem and still not being able to send email, I did a hard reset on my router, restored everything to factory settings including removing the static IP addresses I had setup, rebooted my PC and after 1 hour of having outlook closed went back in and tried to send an email.  I am still getting the 0x800CCC0F error.  The current IP Address for my laptop is now 192.168.1.7.  

I removed my outlook profile and recreated it.  In the process of doing this and running the "Test Settings", the outgoing send failed with the same 0X800CCC0F error message “Send test email message: The connection to the server was interrupted. If this problem continues, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).

So, today, nothing has worked.  It's 2:11 p.m. and I've been unable to send email since 6:00 am.  

I'm at a loss of what to try next. 

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