SMPT Server Not Connecting - How to Get Help?

@MRWA Thank you for reaching out and bringing this to our attention. I can see how this would be frustrating. Is this happening with all email clients you have used or is there 1 specific that you are trying to use? 

Hi and thanks for responding.

The issue affected any and all devices attempted to connect to the SMTP server through our home internet.

This includes, Outlook 2019 on Win10 (2 devices), Apple Mail on a Macbook Pro, Apple mail on an iPhone, and Samsung Mail on an Android phone.

Our ISP shared the range of "dynamic" IP addresses that were used and could not connect.  Their tech then had our accounts moved to a different range of IP addresses they use for "fixed IP address" accounts as a temporary workaround.  I provided the "bad" IP addresses to at least 2 Xfinity support reps but neither had ability to open a tech support ticket... or at least none were opened to my knowledge.

How do I get this information to a tech support team that can investigate and resolve?

I finally got through to a CSA agent who attempted to open a tech support ticket.  He told me the system would not allow it.  Subsequently, I had an agent on Direct Messaging admit Comcast's policy limits the support available to "email only" accounts.  This is a disappointing policy but finally is an answer!  "NO, there is no way to get more help"!!

To this agent's credit, he/she "refreshed my email account on the back-end" whatever that means.  I will have my ISP move us back to the troubled IP address range and see how it goes.

After paying Comcast thousands of dollars for internet and TV service for over 20 years, we are now told we cannot get help because we moved to an area not served by Comcast.  Their policy is counter-productive in my opinion.  They paid at least 10 support agents to deal with me for several hours to avoid having 1 skilled tech or engineer investigate my issue for 5 minutes.  They also left an impression that will be remembered if I move back to one of their service areas.

Good morning,

To provide some further information and hopefully insight into the issue you are experiencing - I'm assuming this is all happening when you are attempting to establish a SMTP connection via an email client and not over http/https when attempting to access email via xfinity.com. In regards to how we handle IPs and blocking them - if an IP is monitored to distributing spam, phishing, virus attachments, or participating in other various forms of internet abuse - it would end up on a block list. This would limit the interactions said IP would be able to have with our services due to it. The only definitive resolution would be for the owner of the IP to be responsible for their data traffic and enforce their network internally and should they be placed on any blocks to appeal and notify the blocking party what they have done to resolve the issue on their network. For example, we actively monitor relevant blocklists and receive communications regularly when abusive activity is detected within our network and actively resolve them. As an example if you had a misconfiguration on your network or a possible malware infection we would be sure to communicate that to you as a Comcast customer to resolve it. After confirming it resolved we as the ISP would notify that it is resolved to the relevant parties. This is true for both dynamic and static IP addresses although dynamic tends to be a bit more volatile due to them being shared amongst a large unknown amount of users. For example its not uncommon for dynamic IPs to be participating in multiple abusive activities because it changes hands so much. Most recent example that comes to mind is a range of IPs that were participating in the entire A-Z of activity from distributing phishing emails attempting to steal personal information from users to participating in DDOS attacks(likely part of a botnet).

In your example specifically, here is an example of a global block on one of the IPs: https://check.spamhaus.org/listed/?searchterm=209.206.91.1
The above link will specify further details for your ISP to further troubleshoot and resolve any issues with their IPs.

To also add, in regards to limited assistance for comcast.net emails after disconnecting services its due to needing to scrub/delete all personalized data from the email/account association. This is due to federal and legal regulations. Its to be able to offer the email service after leaving our footprint or just simply disconnecting your services with us. This means that specific maintenance like passwords, security questions, recovery options are all up to the user to manage. Comcast can not manage them for you. As the service provider we will provide the servers and manage the service overall, but specific to the email account we are unable to assist. Similarly to any other free email service - if for example you forget your password and cant answer security questions for a Gmail account - there is no phone number to call for Gmail or a way to regain access if you've exhausted all recovery methods and were unsuccessful. I am unable to really provide details into the mindset of another agent within Comcast, but an important note to make is also that Comcast does not design, manage, maintain, or control third party applications. Meaning that if you were to express issues with MacMail, Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. as Comcast we would be unable to directly assist due to it not being a piece of software that Comcast created. 

For future instances please advise your ISP to review our security page: https://internetsecurity.xfinity.com/help/report-abuse
Within there it will provide them the link for our block removal page: http://postmaster.comcast.net/block-removal-request.html
It is a way for your ISP to reach us directly with the specific technical details to request an unblock or for further information in regards to the block.

Hi,

Thank you for the response.

Yes, this only happens with email clients attempting to access the SMTP server from a dynamic IP configuration.

I forwarded to our ISP for consideration and/or investigation, as you are the first to tell me one of the IP addresses within the suspect range has been blocked.

I understand your comments regarding the reasons Comcast cannot provide customer support, but I find it frustrating that:

1) You seem to have an understanding of the issue and offered a possible path to resolve, yet NONE of the support and/or CSA agents I communicated with knew the same, nor did they know how to escalate to you.  If these policies are clear and in place, why do the support/CSA agent not know this?  Why did none of the other agents responding to my message not direct me to "XfinityCSAEmail"?

2)  I was told by at least 2 agents that there was "no block" in place

3)  Comcast can block an IP address without taking responsibility for communicating affected email account holders

4)  Account verification is not passed on from one support agent to another.  There were times I was transferred multiple times in a single call and had to waste time verifying my account over and over, wasting both mine and their time

5)  I posted my request on June 3 and it took 10 days to get a useful response

6)  I still do not know if the IP address you found blocked is one that I used.  Hopefully my ISP can tell me.

7)  I still do not have anyone within Comcast that can tell me if my SMTP service requests were rejected because of the blocked IP address.  Why is this not traceable?

Thanks again... I do appreciate the help in spite of your comments regarding Comcast's inability to support a "closed" account and your pushing the responsibility on my ISP to avoid being blocked.  As I see it, if my issue was caused by Comcast blocking an IP address, Comcast took this action, not my ISP.  If Comcast took this action, either my ISP or myself should reasonably expect help determining this.  Even better, we could be informed!

Good afternoon,

I ran a few more of their IPs and saw that they are also listed by Cloudmark, the ISP would have to also submit requests here: https://csi.cloudmark.com/en/reset/

To note, these are not Comcast blocks - these are global block lists. Comcast does not manage these lists or have input into which IPs get blocked or not. These are industry reputable block list providers on a global scale. 

Thank you again!  This is helpful and I will forward the information to my ISP.

I do understand Comcast does not create the block lists but they apparently do follow them.  I think if Comcast follows these lists and limits access to their SMTP server as a result, it would be reasonable to inform those customers affected.  I do not see how it would be overly burdensome to search email accounts that are blocked by Comcast and inform those account owners of the reason they cannot access the Comcast servers.

The lack of response from XFinity is disappointing.