Ron Schenone

Gmail – POP Problem? Also MSN POP Problem? What's up with all of this?

Posted by on Apr 12, 2007 | 49 Comments

Last evening I had a unusual experience in that neither my Gmail nor my MSN account would download email via POP. The first thing I thought of was that it could of been one of the MS updates I had received on patch Tuesday that was causing the problem. Or was it a hardware issue with my router? These thoughts went through my mind as any attempt to receive email from either Gmail or MSN resulted in errors.

Before I go on. Each of us sets up our system to work best for our own particular needs. This is why it is hard sometimes to diagnosis problems, since all of our systems vary so much. For instance, on my system I use Outlook for two accounts. One for my cable ISP that I keep private for family and friends, and also for a MSN account I need to have for Microsoft MVP stuff and updates. Over on  Outlook Express I have my Gmail account for messages from the forums and Google alerts, as well as notifications from LG when a comment is posted. I also use OE for the Microsoft newsgroups I subscribe to.

So I tried doing a restore before the MS updates, nope, no change. Hard reset the router, that wasn’t it. [Reason for reseting the router was that I was messing with a new OS which required some router changes - more on that later in another post] How about AVG? Since it scans email coming in, sorry, no joy. Firewall? Nice try. Around 10 pm I called it quits and while trying to fall asleep I thought to myself, could it be that both MSN and Gmail were just having problems? Unusual but not unheard of. Since I had Internet access and my ISP email account was working just fine. I have also learned over the years that some of the weird problems we all experience from time to time are caused by the computer Gods, and may just disappear on their own. Sometimes that is.

So this morning I was not surprised when MSN worked like it always had. But Gmail was another story. When I kicked on OE the message stated ‘downloading 1 of 313 messages’. That’s wierd. I couldn’t of missed that many messages in one day. Then I noticed that Gmail was downloading messages off of the server since last November. How could this be. Gmail is set to only keep messages for 30 days than they are dumped. So Gmail was sending me groups of email ranging in size from 290 to 320 messages at a clip, which I had to delete, than download more for deletion. :-(

So what’s the moral of this story? Not all of our computer woes are related to something being wrong with our systems. Even MSN and Google have their moments. Sometimes a little patience pays off. It sure beats trashing your system for something that is beyond your control.

Did anyone else experience a problem with POP for MSN or Gmail last evening, or am I the lone ranger?

Comments welcome.

[tags]msn,gmail, pop, problems, [/tags]

  • marc klink

    Yes, I did, but I have had it happen twice before, so I did nothing. I also use Outlook, but I download mail from 4 accounts at once, and when MSN did not work Google did.

    I am wondering why you use OE for newsgroups. It seems so clunky to me. Have you tried Agent? It isn’t free, but there is FreeAgent, which is a couple of revisions back from Agent, but has most of the functionality.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Marc,
    OE newsgroup is clunky. But I only use it maybe once or twice a month, if that. But thanks for the recommendation and also the comment.

    Someone here or elsewhere once said, ‘ you really can’t complain to much when something is free. ‘ :-)

    Thanks, Ron

  • marc klink

    An update…I just tried accessing my hotmail account by http and still can’t get mail. However, I am still getting notification of received mail via MSN messenger. Kind of them to let me know how many mails I can’t get to.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Heh Marc,
    Microsoft is kind of like that – they want to show you what you are missing!:-)

    Ron

  • Don

    Gmail’s pop server and smtp servers were having some sort of problem beginning on the 12th. While mail still worked normally using the web interface it was not possible to access email via another mail client. The odd thing is that some accounts on one domain still worked while others failed. I wasted a couple of hours trying to find a problem on my end and finally realized that it was a gmail issue. It began working about 36 hours later. There’s nothing on the gmail help site about the outage, but dozens of other users reported it in the discussion groups. If google wants to be taken seriously with this service they need to own up to the outages and offer at least some sort of explanation. Simply admitting that there was a problem and posting a note would have save lots of people lots of hours trying to isolate a problem on their local systems.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Don,
    I hear you. Makes one wonder how many people screwed around on their systems only to find all was well. I think Gmail owes us the courtesy just to post a short note.

    Ron

  • Anita

    Yes, I am having exactly the same problem. And now when I try to redownload my account, I can only get one month’s worth of emails: from 10/26/06 to about 11/19/06. What’s going on?

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Anita,
    Is this GMail or MSN?
    Go to your account online for either. Are the messages their? If so the problem may be with your email software. You may wish to try and setup your accounts again.

    I hope this helps. Ron

  • SA

    This is insane, I could only get pop3 emails from around July 04 to March 2006 – everything after results in a timeout error in Thunderbird.

    I’ve tried it with Outlook and it downloads multiple copies of the emails in that range over and over.

    I’ve tried resetting POP, disabling it and reenabling and it seems to be a problem that others have faced too. So much so that one guy used a python extension to export everything to an mbox file.

    Guess I picked a bad time to backup my email.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello SA,
    Sorry to here about your troubles. Thanks for sharing this with us.
    Ron

  • http://www.rvrentalarizona.net Paul McGahee

    YEP.. Like you I was up late trying to figure out what happened to the MSN accounts. I gave up and had to go to iternet mail to read the MSN mail accounts. Guess I’ll reactivate them in my outlook and make certain they are working. BTW I am using MS Outlook 2000 with Service pack 2.

    PAUL

  • Mars

    Hi guys, i noticed that you were talking about receiving your msn mail via pop. I can’t get mine to work. I had it set up 2 years ago to get my msn mail thru pop, but now i can only get it thru the http address. Does anyone know the proper pop settings to get msn thru pop. I looked around on google and all i could find was that you can only get msn to grab your mail thru http server. But i had mine working thru a pop server for 2 years! I just deleted my settings yesterday and i can’t find a way to get my settings back. I found some sites saying that the pop server is pop3.email.msn.com, but it doesn’t seem to be working, or maybe i need to specify specific outgoing/incoming ports? Please advise! I beg of u! :p

  • http://www.mail.google.com Michael Axtens

    I am having a similar weird pop problem with Gmail. I have tried several different email clients and both windows and Mac. Some mail stays on the google server and isn’t downloaded via pop. Occasional emails come through to the client. Fiddling with POP settings in the google account don’t work. Either does disabling and reenabling pop. I’ve given up and am hoping that Google silently fixes the problem. I’ve logged the problem with them, so here’s hoping.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Mars,
    MSN doesn’t use pop3 – they use http. Only Outlook and Outlook Express auto support this feature through the setup wizard. When you setup the new account and come to the pop settings click on the down arrow and select http – another box will appear with Other – click the down arrow and select MSN.
    Hi Michael,
    If all of your settings are correct and your gmail account is set to download pop mail, check the following:
    pop.gmail.com
    smtp.gmail.com
    Check – requires authorization
    Advanced port settings:
    smtp – 465
    pop -995
    Check – use SSL
    If these are OK, then it may in fact be a gmail glitch.
    I hope this helps good luck to you both,
    Ron

  • George

    Found this on microsoft.public.dicussion group.
    The changes worked for my outlook 2003 msn premium account….

    If this is a legacy MSN account, still using POP access, change the settings per
    the below:

    “In order to continue using the MSN POP3 service, you must make the following
    changes to your mail client:

    1. On the Servers Tab,
    a. Change the Incoming mail (POP3) and Outgoing mail (SMTP) settings to:
    i. Incoming mail FROM pop3.email.msn.com TO pop3.live.com
    ii. Outgoing mail FROM smtp.email.msn.com TO smtp.live.com
    b. Uncheck the “Log on using Secure Password Authentication” box
    2. On the Advanced Tab,
    a. Change the port number for Incoming Mail (POP3) from 110 to 995
    b. Check both the boxes that indicates “This server requires a secure
    connection (SSL)”

    -steve
    –
    Stephen Boots
    MVP Windows Live
    Windows Live OneCare Forum Moderator
    sboots@mvps.org

  • Mars

    For 2 years i was retrieving my msn mail via pop. But i think it was thru a site that created pop access for me while it retrieved it via HTTP. If that was the case, then i can’t find it anymore. The closest thing i could find was fastmail.fm. But this was a paid one for pop access and free imap access but not outgoing mail. And it would only check your mail every hour or more. This was ovbiously not the one. The one i had checked mail automatically.

    Does anyone know of any websites that will acquire my msn/hotmail emails and supply me with a pop/imap server address. I’m looking for some kind of middle network that will pull my email frequently. The one i had pulled it as it arrived in the hotmail server. I set it up 2 years ago, and i have no idea how to set it up again (b/c i formatted my pc). Are there any other sites out there (aside from fastmail.fm, or izymail (formerly pop3hot))

  • http://MSN Frank

    I spent hours on the phone with my msn account. The pop3 service has been out for a week. they refused to say why they did not post this anomaly on their web site. There is only a temporary fix available. Go to Outlook email accounts and add an htp account. use your same passwords etc..
    Make the new http account your default. You will be able to receive emails through that account which will show up atthe bottom of you current personal folders. You can select all and drag them to your old inbox. I am told that the problem was going to be fixed last Friday. It still persists today.

  • Mars

    ohh.. ok so im not crazy then lol??? … so the pop3 for msn did work at one point in time?

    Are you using pop3.email.msn.com or pop3.live.com?

  • ~Von

    I had been using pop3.email.msn.com unil last week when my pop access to MSN stopped working. I get this error:

    Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: ‘MSN’, Server: ‘pop3.email.msn.com’, Protocol: POP3, Port: 110, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F

    I changed the outlook express server settings to pop3.live.com as mentioned above and checking email times out with:

    Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: ‘MSN’, Server: ‘pop3.live.com’, Protocol: POP3, Port: 995, Secure(SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F

    Web access to the @msn.com account works fine on the hotmail/ live site works fine. Pop access with my treo does work with the older server settins…Hope they fix this soon.

    ~Von

  • Kim

    This website has saved my sanity. I’m totally new to Gmail, had heard nothing but the positives about it; Only it’s 3:35am and I’ve been trying to configure my 2 day old gmail account to retrieve yahoo and hotmail email since about 11pm yesterday – no such luck. I’ve already recieved a delivery failure message, and had trouble logging into. Outlook 2003 configuring is also in failed status.
    Think I’ll let calgone take me away and call it a day.
    I’ll visit u guys later today for more support and trouble shooting.

    Thanks for the insight.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Thanks for all of the posts and comments. They are appreciated.

    Ron

  • Larry

    I too have been having problems with OE for the past week or two. Strange thing is that I can send messages but cannot receive them; getting the same error message as Von on May 17th. It has sporatically worked on several occasions but has not worked for the past three days. I tried changing my account to pop3.live.com and same with smtp. Also checked and unchecked boxes like they instructed, and changed 110 to 995, but still doesn’t work… Brings up my logon and password… Clicking ok only causes the logon and password request to come up again, and again….

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Larry,
    It is a definite server problem from your description.
    Regards, Ron

  • Virginia

    Yes, I have been having problems for between two and three weeks. (I’m in Warsaw, Poland). Problems with my account have taken several technicians here quite a lot of time. If it’s Google then I think they should let users know ASAP before hundreds of people all over the world start running around fixing problems.

    Meanwhile, does anyone know why exactly I can’t log in or send mail. Occasionally I get a lucky break, and service is okay on some computers, but for the most part I’m locked out!

    Am about to start changing accounts…two to three weeks is not a glitch!

    Virginia

  • Ron Schenone

    Hello Virginia,
    I think your best option is to change accounts and see what happens. When it is 2 or 3 weeks, that is a definite server problem.
    All the best, Ron

  • FH

    I’ve had the same problem for a couple of weeks now. At first, it started slowly: the access to my mail account was cut off and came back and cut off again… And it has been cut off completely for a week or so.

    The support staff gave me the instruction to change pop3.email.msn.com to pop3.live.com, as mentioned by others. It just did not work.

    Has anyone solved the problem?
    I am changing the IP to earthlink, once and for all. I’ve waisted so much time on this problem.

    FH

  • Mike

    Hi all,

    I was just wondering if POP access to MSN mail has been restored. I am a Mac user (don’t everyone sigh at once), and am considering getting Qwest DSL with MSN. I don’t have a way to get http mail in any mail clients that I’m aware of. If POP access is available, it would be a breeze.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Mike,
    I can’t speak for anyone else, but mine is working OK. Knock on wood! LOL
    Ron

  • Mike

    If MSN mail is available by POP, why don’t they say that it is? I saw something earlier about a “legacy” MSN account. Is POP access only available to old accounts that originally used POP access, or is it available to anyone with MSN mail?

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Mike,
    I’m not sure. I have a old MSN account myself. That could explain why mine is working. Just a guess on my part.
    Ron

  • Mike

    Thanks for the responses, Ron. The life of a Mac user is so easy, yet so complicated. LOL.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Mike,
    Your’re welcome. Have a good one.
    Ron

  • Josh

    Hi All,
    I had the problem with my POP3 access on msn.com around one month ago. I could send, but not receive, e-mails. I could get at them on the server (at hotmail.com). After one week or so, the problem went away.
    As of a few days ago, I cannot send or receive. I can still get at the e-mail on the server. The new server settings – pop3.live.com and smtp.live.com (and the change to port number, etc.) – do not make one bit of difference. Any ideas? Perhaps Microsoft is simply trying to piss us off so we’ll stop using their free POP3 service!
    Thanks -
    Josh

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Josh,
    Thanks for the info.
    Ron

  • Tom

    I was having a problem getting my MSN email in Outlook which had been working for months – it just up and quit this week. After much computerbating I found this site – and was glad to see I wasn’t the only one. I was even happier to discover this post:
    George – May 14, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
    Thanks George. I can get email in outlook again.
    I don’t understand why I needed to do this since it had been working for months the other way. Must have been one of those Microsoft inovations Bill Gates is always talking about.
    Thanks again Geoege.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Tom,
    Thanks for the comments.
    Ron

    PS
    George aka: Stephen Boots
    2 thumbs-up

  • Laura

    THANKS! QWEST tech support was NO HELP at all. This site saved me. I use Outlook to check my work account through a pop account.

    I could recieve fine (they were working)
    But couln’t send because smtp.email.msn.com would totally fail.

    THIS WORKED (George’s May 14th post sugggested)
    SMTP address: smtp.live.com

    My POP was fine, so I didn’t change anything. I did have to check in the Advanced tab that the SMPT server required secure connection (SSL). My
    port numbers stayed 25 and 110 because it was only my SMPT, not my POP3 that was giving me issues.

    IT WORKED! THANK YOU ALL!

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Laura,
    Thanks or letting us know.
    Ron

  • BG

    I’ve been at this for 3 days now, on and off. The fix posted by George – May 14, 2007 @ 4:29 pm (thanks for the tip) worked for me ONLY when my email address MATCHED my user name; in other words, my user name has to include the @blah, blah.com (before it only had the name part). It’s still working….for now.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi BG,
    Thanks for sharing the info.
    Ron

  • Paul McGahee

    Well after much research and trial and error I HAVE SOLVED THE PROBLEM. Its called HOTMAIL Popper heres the link http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/ IT WORKS with all POP MAIL e-mail clients. I’m using it with MS Outlook 2000. Theres a free trial and then $17.50 for life to purchase it. Very simple download and easy set up. Only thing is that if you try to modify the pop settings in Outlook using the existing accounts you have set up, it wont work that way. You literall need to download the HOTMAIL Popper and then set up new mail accounts within your e-mail program.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Paul,
    Thanks for the information and link.
    Ron

  • Laura

    Just bought a new “OLD” IBM THinkPad 600… It’s old, but works great for what I need… web and word processing.

    I can recive email through Outlook Express 6.0, but can’t send at all. The SMTP is at smtp.live.com and in the Advanced tab, the SMPT server required secconnection (SSL) is checked. THIS WORKS GREAT on my desktop computer, but not this one.

    Could it be a version problem with my outlook express??? Or a security problem because the computer is too old??? Would love ideas… thanks.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Laura,
    Take a look at the Advanced tab and confirm your ports and ssl settings match what is on the system that works.

    Advanced tab can be found under Tools – Accounts – Properties.

    Ron

  • nelson

    I’ve just set up an account on gmail for my father who has an existing MSN account. I have tried unsuccessfully to get the msn email routed right to the gmail account. The following is the error message I receive:
    ” Server returned error: “Connection timed out: There may be a problem with the settings you added. Please contact your other email provider to verify the correct server name and port.” ”

    What should I do to fix this problem? I appreciate any information.
    Thanks a lot.

  • Angela Brooks

    how to I get my hotmail account to come through my microsoft outlook?

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hello Angela,
    Here is a link from MS on how to setup the account:

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287604

    Hope this helps. Ron

  • GOOSE

    Geez Ron,…..This is almost as good as the grocery cart articles!

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Paul,
    It should get even more interesting now that MSN has changed once again. I’m not sure if we will need to change email account, or if the MSN will remain the same.
    Ron