SMTP server configuration for Apple mail (and related issue)

12/03/22

Had a conversation with a 3rd level support staff. Very nice person but unfortunately with no technical insight into the interface and configuration of email for Apple mail. He just sent a link that was sent before to information about Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. of no use. Has no capability to see the screen or provide an email address where I could send screen captures. Promised not to close the ticket, but otherwise could not help.  I am considering creating an additional email address in Comcast and trying to figure out how to configure it in Apple mail to see if that could help me to debug the problem, as Comcast support staff neither has tools, nor knowledge to do it. They just raise their hands and offer no help.

12/04/22

I decided to make an attempt to add a new email address and see if by trying to configure it somehow for Apple mail I can determine what Comcast might have changed (somewhat like the Thunderbird user did). I got instructions for how to add a new email address from "Direct support" staff. They did not work as they were supposed to work. 4 different people handed over to each other the topic and none was able to provide any help. None looks at what the prior person said or did and they cannot do anything. I have not seen any vendor this ill prepared to provide support.

There is light at the end of this tunnel !

I've had the same issues as most of you.  For me they started out-of-the-blue around 11/23/2022.

-I use a 3rd party email client (Forte Agent) on my desktop computer

-Have 3 Comcast.net POP3 email accounts

-Can only send mail using 1 of the 3 accounts (my Primary comcast account)

-Error Msg "Connection closed unexpectedly by server" for the other 2 accts

-I CAN receive email sent to all accounts

-I do not use anything Apple-related.

My wife uses the same email client on her computer and didn't have any issue with her 2 comcast.net email accounts until late afternoon on 11/28 when she started having the exact same issue with both of her accounts. She was dead in the water, couldn't send any emails.

In the early morning of 11/29 around 1AM I asked her to try sending mail again.  Now she COULD send email from both accounts.  So I checked my 2 problem accounts and now I could also send email.

We made no configuration changes anywhere in our email client settings, on our computers, or in Comcast's settings.  It's now painfully obvious that Comcast is the only party responsible for triggering this outgoing mail server disruption on unsuspecting  users.

It seems to me that this problem had propagated, over time, through Comcast's email system.  And now it appears the correction is doing the same.  I hope the solution finds its way to the folks who posted here.

@Anon1476264 thanks a lot for sharing your experience, it is another proof that the problem has to do only with what Comcast has been doing. Unfortunately miracles did not happen for me, but I am very glad for you and your wife.

11/05

After n+1 useless exchanges with Direct "support"'s staff that changes at least once an hour, I gave up on them. They do not read each others' posts and they keep asking the same questions over and over without providing any help. They neither have proper tools for support, nor training. What they do is ridiculous and just wasted a tremendous amount of my time. Unfortunately I am not as lucky as the other users of 3rd party email who had the same problem. My issues didn't go away and I could not fix them.

haz10-

I had the same issue using Apple Mail for Comcast e-mail.  Recently, outgoing messages wouldn’t get sent, and an account- or authentication-related error message would be returned from Comcast.

Here’s what worked for me:

• Mail > Preferences > Accounts
• click on a POP account icon at left
• under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP), click the Account drop-down menu
• from that menu, select Edit SMTP Server List…
• click the plus sign icon at left
• enter a unique Description for that POP account (you can change it later … avoiding similarities seemed to help them “stick”, at least initially)
• enter the Comcast username for that POP account (omit the @comcast.net portion)
• enter the Comcast password for that POP account
• enter smtp.comcast.net as the Host Name
• in the Authentication drop-down menu, select Password
• UNcheck Automatically manage connection settings
• enter 465 in the Port field
• CHECK Use TLS/SSL
• Click OK

Then, select the newly created SMTP account in the Account drop-down under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) for that POP account.

If a small Save button that appears at bottom right, click it.

(Unfortunately, I found that a newly created STMP account didn’t always stick - it wouldn’t appear as a choice in the SMTP Account list.  Recreating it seemed to do the trick.)

To be safe, after successfully creating a new one, I’d close the Preferences dialog, quit & relaunch Mail, and then repeat the above steps with each subsequent POP account.

When finished, remove any outdated SMTP profiles in the Edit SMTP Server List dialog by clicking on them clicking the minus sign icon.

This did the trick for me — I hope it does for you, too.

@FBPDX, thanks so much for documenting what worked for you.

Was only one of your email addresses impacted (not sending emails) or all of them?

If I understand correctly what you did, you created new "accounts" and deleted the old ones.  If so, for a while you had to have duplicate accounts for each mail address. I am surprised that this didn't "confuse" mail delivery.

I am very glad it worked for you. I will try to carefully first find the references to the places you mention and then see if I have the courage to try to repeat the trick. I do not understand at all these configurations. If I mess something up, I know that at Comcast there is nobody who knows anything about their error messages, configurations or how to fix something.

In my case, the matching screen to your first screen capture for Accounts shows for Description only:

- Comcast

- Comcast.net

- Comcast.net

- Comcast.net

The In Use By Account column is also very different. Comcast is associated with 3 of my email addresses (one of them being the main one, the one impacted for outgoing), while one of the Comcast.net accounts is associated with my 4th email address.

In this context I am wondering what would happen if I try to associate each entry with only one email address.

Thanks again.

This may be helpful to some.

I use Thunderbird to manage my "default" comcast account plus 2 secondary comcast accounts.

Last month, I could suddenly send from only one.

Sending from the others generated 

    Sending of the message failed.
An error occurred while sending mail.    The mail server responded: Please ensure your email address and 
authenticating user match when sending messages. Please verify that your email address is correct in your 
account settings and try again.

What is required .. to interact with xfinity ... was to create an outgoing server (with the appropriate names/credentials )

for each mail account.

The outgoing Xfinity server is    smtp.comcast.net (Port465)   

     Security setting are      SSL/TLS    Normal password  AND    User Name 

The User Name must be the same as the email name.

So if my email is    [Edited: "Personal Information"],    then my User Name  (security setting )  is    blossom

         my 2nd  may be  [Edited: "Personal Information"]     then THIS server setting needs to have    rose  as the User name

Thunderbird makes it rather easy to 'Add'  outgoing servers.  I needed to have 3

Hope this helps some one

Sorry if it is old info

jpw

@user_7c0dfc, I got a notification about your post, but strangely enough I cannot see it in the the Forum. So I posted it.  Thanks for taking the time to share your experience on the Forum and your fix. The more, the better. It is not "old", as nobody at Comcast seems to know what's happening. Hopefully Comcast staff will learn from it and finally figure out the solution for everyone using 3rd party email clients who had this strange problem. It seems that it impacts those who use POP 3 for incoming mail, although the impact is for the outgoing mail.  Thanks again.

... got a notification about your post, but strangely enough I cannot see it in the the Forum ...

Probably because the post contained example email addresses. The Forum's security software is smart enough to recognize email addresses, but not smart enough to recognize when they are example addresses. The software typically makes such messages private so they can only be seen by the author of the post.

The answer to the problem you are having is simple, and is given right there in the error message: make sure your email program or app is set up so that the ID it logs in with to send email is the same as the "From:" address in that email. QED.

Please be aware that there are 2 kinds of responses in this Forum: Replies and Comments. When you Comment on a post by scrolling down to "Comment on this post here...", I am notified of your response. But if you select Reply, I am NOT notified and may not be aware of your response.

@FBPDX, thanks for the clarification. I will attempt to do what you suggest but I wish I had some handholding. I am scared to death that I mess up something, as I am not a technical person...

@BruceW, when you know what you are doing, everything  is really simple, but since I do not know what I am doing, it is not. At my age, this is really over my head. But thanks for always trying to be helpful.

... I will attempt to do what you suggest ...

I know nothing about Apple Mail, but you have a good example above at https://forums.xfinity.com/conversations/email/smtp-server-configuration-for-apple-mail-and-related-issue/637ae3c1384cbc5bcf9d25f7?commentId=6396424886efae732c83a69e. Unfortunately the author was forced to butcher the images to make the Forums security software happy and avoid censorship, but the description provided should be helpful.

Please be aware that there are 2 kinds of responses in this Forum: Replies and Comments. When you Comment on a post by scrolling down to "Comment on this post here...", I am notified of your response. But if you select Reply, I am NOT notified and may not be aware of your response.

Yes, I am treasuring the example and I will try to somehow find the places that match the images and "correlate" this example to what I have. It is such a disgrace that Comcast can afford to do what they did and NOBODY claiming to be "support" knows about what was done and how to fix the problem.

@FDPDX, would you be able to answer a question or two (if I will have any) after I familiarize myself with the places where I have to make similar changes like you made? I would very much appreciate that. Being close to 80, I am really concerned about making these changes, but with a bit of support maybe I could do it. It might be only a "naming" coincidence, but I live in PDX... I know that this is somewhat of a "strange" request, but thanks in advance - if you are still reading this thread and you might be willing to do it.

I started "studying" what I am dealing with to try to emulate what @FDPDX did and to my surprise I am noticing that the "association" of my 4 outgoing SMTP accounts accounts drastically since I last looked at them. If I would not have dated printouts for how they looked a month ago, I would think that I am day dreaming. In addition to 4 POP accounts (for incoming mail), I also have  a Google gmail account which is IMAP for incoming mail. Google never before appeared on this "table" that shows the 4 outgoing SMTP "accounts" with Description, Server name and In Use By Account (Comcast user name). Now it does.  I cannot understand how things changed as I did not touch them. Are these associations of outgoing servers with user names "dynamic" or is someone at Comcast maybe making changes of my configurations- if they have access?  Does anyone know?  Thanks.