Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

I am having trouble accessing mail through thunderbird on my new computer.

At the bottom of thunderbird, it just says:

mail@siamese-dream.com: Checking mail server capabilities...

I installed thunderbird, copied the profile from my old computer to my new computer, and launched thunderbird.

It shows me my accounts and all my downloaded emails, but unfortunately it is not connecting to the mail servers. I can neither download or send email from thunderbird on the new computer.

I checked the passwords and they are all correct.

I looked at the server settings, and they all seem correct too.

I really don't know what else to look for. Any suggestions anyone?

~~~~~

Also, if there is either a good way to use a better webmail client (or use gmail instead of thunderbird), I am all for it. Only problem is that my email is set up as imap, and I am not sure if gmail will use imap or whether I will need to set my email server back to pop3 - or what I have to do.

Ideally, I would prefer to use a web based client instead of a desktop based client like thunderbird.

I don't like the built in horde mail at all that is used in the plesk control panel.

Thanks in advance.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Make sure you're using secure everything; POP3S (port 995) or IMAPS (port 993), secure outgoing with TLS on port 587, SMTP authentication enabled. For the server name, try changing from mail.siamese-dream.com to web015.mivamerchant.net (specific to your account, not a general rule for others who may read this thread). The SSL cert on the mail server matches that server name, so Thunderbird may have an issue with the fact that the name doesn't match if you're using your domain name.

Regarding gmail, they can pull using pop3s or imaps, so you can use either, and you can choose to leave the email on the server. However, I prefer to have them direct the incoming messages for a given account to a specific folder for that account, and not leave messages on the server. Then you get the 7+ GB of storage they offer, you can still send as your account provided you put the SMTP info in, and it's all in its own folder with their spam filtering.

[Kent Multer]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

I've had trouble with Thunderbird from time to time. I've usually been able to fix it by either (1) compacting folders in Thunderbird, which apparently this does some clean-up on the DB; or (2) logging in with webmail briefly to read and delete all incoming messages, which seems to allow TB to "clear its throat" and resume normal operations.

Also, I did have a problem earlier this week because of the switch to secure servers. David's instructions above should help you thru that.

HTH --

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

@ David:

Thanks so much for the info.

Just to be sure: If I decide to use gmail, for the smtp server do I use the web015.mivamerchant.net that you suggested?

or do I use the mail.siamese-dream.com server?

Thanks in advance.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

You'd want to use the web015 server name because Google will complain about the certificate name not matching if you tried to use your domain name.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

[edit]
It seems to be working now, but it is downloading email VERY slowly
[END EDIT]

Thanks David:

Gmail seems to be receiving SOME email, but is having a problem downloading MOST of it.

I get this error messages:

Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:09 AM
Error: Server is temporarily unavailable.
Server returned error "Error in RETR command: Can't open the message file - it's gone!"

Mon, May 18, 2015 at 11:09 AM
198 mails fetched. 2221 mails remaining.

Any suggestions? I get the same error messages whenever i try to check.

And also, just to be clear, my miva merchant email account is an IMAP and it looks like GMAIL is using the pop protocol to retrieve it. When I set up gamil, I had to use the pop port of 995 because when I tried to use the IMAP port 993 it wouldn't connect.

There was a problem connecting to web015.mivamerchant.net

Thanks in advance.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

That error occurs if you're using another email client at the same time and it moved (even if going from not read to read) or deleted an email they had not yet downloaded. I'd recommend turning your regular email client off while google does the initial retrieval. They do an initial listing, then start retrieving all the messages, so if a message on the list disappears while they're going to get it, the error will occur.

The speed will adjust over time. Google bases the frequency at which they connect to retrieve email on how much email you receive over regular intervals. For example, if you tend to get a few messages per hour, they may only connect twice per hour, but if you get a few messages per minute, they'll connect every few minutes. The initial pull can take a while though.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Thanks again, David!!!

Seems to be slowly crawling it's way though for now.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

One More Thing:

What to do when I get a "Message Left On Server: suspected virus" message from gmail?

Of course, I don't want to download a virus to my machine, but is there any problem with "leaving" them on the miva servers?

What if someone emails me a 500mb virus? If I don't use horde to delete it, will that file just sit there using up my disk space allotment?

Sorry, but I worry about stuff like that.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Yeah I've found that to be the one annoying aspect of their mail pull. You would think it would give you the option to click and have it delete the message it doesn't want to download, but that isn't the case. You can pop in to webmail every once in a while to clear those out if your regular email client is still in use but doesn't delete them.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Thanks again, David. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything obvious.

[Datagg]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Mark we had a similar issue with Thunderbird awhile back and for us it was corrected by trial and error by changing the times emails are retrieved. Basically they were all setup by default in Thunderbird to grab mail at the same time and by changing them, say a minute apart for each things began to work. I just figured they were clashing all trying to retrieve at once. It also increased the speeds of downloading emails also. Worth a shot perhaps on your end.

[ILoveHostasaurus]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Ah, didn't realize Thunderbird had that feature. It's possible a maximum concurrent connection limit could be getting hit if there are numerous accounts all being checked from the same location, i.e. same IP address from our perspective. We can raise that limit if that is occurring.

[Datagg]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Ah, didn't realize Thunderbird had that feature. It's possible a maximum concurrent connection limit could be getting hit if there are numerous accounts all being checked from the same location, i.e. same IP address from our perspective. We can raise that limit if that is occurring.

Yes David. You can find that setting (thunderbird) under tools > Server settings then look for tick box labeled "check for new messages every X minutes"

I have all my accounts set 1 minute apart and that fixed the issue for me on my end.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Can't Access Email With Thunderbird After Moving to New Computer

Thanks for the tip, Dan:

In my particular situation, I think it was just some update in thunderbird that made it no longer work with my Miva based email. I realize now that it had also stopped working on my OLD computer (the one that I had copied my profile over from). And the only thing that I had changed on my old computer was updating thunderbird.

Probably had something to do with the security certificates or SSL or?!?!?!

Anyway, I used the method that David had suggested and am now happily using gmail to retrieve and send emails from my miva-based email accounts.

It works well for my needs.

thanks again, Everyone.