Comcast Blocking Port 25?

I don’t have Comcast but Verizon, who tried selective blocking some time last year. They also got into trouble, and soon thereafter a law suit.

As these things do, it ended up being a win for Verizon, as, although they lost the suit, the remedy offered was a lengthening of the customer’s term of service for free. So it basically only cost them for lawyers and court costs. Still, bad press is not good. I wonder who the bright light was that ok’ed this blocking maneuver.

comcast blocked my port 25 for no reason. they will not remove the ban.

I had the pleasure of Comcast blocking my Port 25 inbound and outbound just the other day. However, I’m a NO-IP.COM Dynamic DNS Services subscriber and took advantage of their MAIL-REFLECTOR (allows inbound email on a different port other than port 25), and ALTERNATE-SMTP PORT (allow your emailserver to send email out via SMTP Authentication on a different port other than port 25). I have the inbound email working. However, I’m still trying to get the outbound SMTP AUTH to work (which is a little tricky). I’m confident I’ll have that fixed soon.

But for $60.00 a year for both services (Alternate-SMTP for $19.99, and Mail-Reflector for $39.99), you can’t go wrong.

Never again will you have to deal with Comcast blocking any of your ports. They  No-IP.com] also have services for allowing inbound HTTP on an alternate port as well.

I’ve been a NO-IP.COM customer for nearly 6 years now and I LOVE it!

—cj

Comcast blocked mine about four days ago with NO WARNING. I am going to call the presidents office and complain. This has worked in the past. They now want every one to use a 587, but not ALL software will work with that.

Holy you-know-what! This is my issue too! I have wracked my brain and my computer trying to get this resolved from a software standpoint. Comcast told me it was a NAV or Zone Alarm issue. I have been going NUTS to only find out that it was a Comcast issue all along with port 25. I can receive mail just fine, I just can’t send it.

Sheesh. All that for $55 a month.

Hello, I was blocked a few day’s ago. and thought it was my server, so I started over and reloaded, I just finished and still can’t recieve or send. I will call comcast on monday.

I have had the same issues with port 25 being blocked and have been told to use 587 instead. Using port 587 my third party email addresses now work fine, however the email server that I am running still cannot send or receive mail. I could understand it not being able to send mail, but the not receiving mail has me stumped. However even after changing the smtp port to 587 in the email server settings, it sends the mail but never reaches the destination. I have also tried alternating the pop port to receive mail to no avail.

Any suggestions for a work-a-round to this problem would be greatly appreciated.

The comcast assholes blocked my smtp outgoing… can’t send any mail now. Sent 10 emails to the comcast Helpless desk, and those twits just sit around sucking each other’s dicks.

Just learned that my outgoing email for the past week or more have not reached their destinations. A 30 minute call to cust serv only re-enforced the idea that techs are not hired for their smartness. They had me change to port 587 from 25 but, still my outbound mail is not being rec’d by others. I can rec emails okay but nothing else. Any Ideas folks….or do we just keep calling tech support and bother the shit out of them?

mark

587. That’s what I changed my port to from 25, just as the other poster said, it works fine for me. I am not running exchange servers or anything from my house (I have an office for that..) sooo..

Give that a shot, I use a mac.com addr and it works right away after. I use windows mail/outlook express’s bastard child with OS X mail client.

Cheers!

I was blocked too, in and out. Comcast said that they DO NOT block SMTP in or out. Crap.. So I added the no-ip stuff, works pretty good, although my outbound is still through Comcast (587) via my server, I don’t like using them as a smart host. I think I may be getting blocked in some spam filters (both work addresses seem to be blocking, but still testing) If I did the Alt-port SMTP wouldn’t this be the same thing as I am doing with Comcast?

J – did you set up authorization for SMTP?, Comcast requires it.

The only clue I had a few weeks ago: I got a badly formed e-mail from Comcast claiming I had a virus and urging me to connect to a different Comcast site, download their software and run it. Duh!! No why would a reasonably intelligent person click on a download from an unknown website and let it run software without knowing what it was??? And, I have a strong firewall and up-to-the-minute updates on virus patterns so know that I don’t have any viruses.
As I was looking into what I thought was the spam mail from Comcast, I found I could no longer send email. I also realized that the software on their alternate site was simply a stealthy way to change my outgoing mail port to 587. I did a web search and saw others were having similar problems so changed port on my mail client manually and all is well again.
By the way, Earthlink has also changed their recommended outgoing ports. They didn’t even send a message – my outgoing mail just failed one day. Luckily, it was shortly after the Comcast fiasco, so I knew what to do.

I had the same problem with smtp on my mac. I changed the port to 587 and now have no problem.

They blocked mine too and are telling me I have to use port 587. I am a Lotus Notes user and they do not support this email program. I can’t beleive I wasted two days on thi issue thinking it was something on my end. Any one want to get involved in class action lawuit for all th time and money spent on this issue without Comcast letting us know they did this?

Same deal with me. I just stopped receiving email and I could not send mail either. Scratched my head for a while trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Finally noticed port 25 was being blocke so I decided to check my comcast email account (which I don’t use) and sure enough I got the same malformed email that I had a hard time reading. Claimed that non-solicited email was reported from my ip (total crap). I told them that I had firewall, anti-virus on everything (including mail server) yada yada yada. Didn’t matter. Anyway…

Changed outgoing port to 587 and used auth on the comcast mail server and I could then send email again. (for now)
Incoming is still blocked and I asked them several times to unblock inbound port 25. They said that they could not “unblock it”.

So, that is where I sit so far. Will probably have a friend forward mail to a different port which will work for a while. My guess is that they will continue to block any high bandwidth usage traffic.
They suck, but I don’t have many options where I live.

Comcast did the same thing to me and refuses to unblock my port 25. Now I am forced to either constantly change my Outlook settings or use the comcast web mail. I would be all for a class-action lawsuit, as I am just a home user and have done nothing wrong. This is crazy….

About a month ago, I got the malformed email from Comcast, saying that someone has been sending spam from my accounts (I got one message for each family account). I suspect it was true, since my PC had suddenly gotten slower and taken longer to log in. I was running the latest Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus and also Symantec Personal Firewall 2006, and getting nightly updates and scans. So I was supposedly protected. Outgoing email would not work, but incoming did. They said to change to port 587 for SMTP and turn on authentication. I did and all accounts worked fine – except the email accounts for the domains that I’m running on my server. I turned on authentication there, with port 587, and still cannot get either incoming or outgoing with those accounts, even with smarthosting to Comcast. I reloaded my hard drive, installed their McAfee, and it runs fast now. I emailed Comcast and asked them to unblock me, without explaining the server. They left a voice mail telling me that port 25 is blocked for ALL of their customers, to use the fix, and that port 25 will never be unblocked. They also told me that if I want to run commercial email, to call their business group. That’s at least $95 a month.

At this point, I cannot get the email accounts working on my domains, so I may have to switch to 3rd party hosting, which will be lots more money, and harder to administer. Can anyone tell me if they are NOT blocked on port 25, or know anyone who is not? If it’s selective, I’ll try to change my IP address (dynamic IP with them would not release, despite many attempts – the one time when I want to) or my MAC address. Not sure which they’d use for selective blocking.

I just received that email yesterday also, and this pisses me off since now I cannot send out to any of my other .com emails, if comcast thinks this will last then they’re out of their minds, why not just block port 25 to comcast.net and open it up for everyone else? P.S. I don’t have a @#$%!&@ virus I’ve scanned and scanned and found nothing, plus I use NOD32 which keeps me in top shape most of the time.

HI–
Unfortunately the same damn thing is happening to me regarding port 25. I can receive mail, but can’t send. I’ve had several techies from Comcast to my house and they can’t fix it either. I was told my the Comcast phone techie to change from port 25 to 587 and did so, but still can’t send mail on Thunderbird.

Of course I can use their internet program: Comcast mail, but hate it.

I’m in for a class action suit!
A Comcast VP lives down the street. I’ll contact him and see if I get anywhere.

I too have the same problem, with ports 25 and 587, can get email NO PROBLEM, but can’t send email using Outlook Express or Outlook 2003, and the PEOPLE Comcast hires for TECH SUPPORT(roflmao) are stupider than stupid Then they called Microsoft, the Microsoft rep comes on and says “MAY HELP YOU” well NATURALLY I waited for the Comcast phone tech person to speak on my behalf to Microsoft, but guess what, THEY HUNG UP. I will call Comcast and tell them I’m going to SWITCH TO VERIZON, maybe then they will UNBLOCK this $hit. As I DO NOT LIKE their WEB MAIL program…

I’m on the phone now with a STUPID phone tech person right now, and yes they are still STUPID. I told her I want a supervisor, or PRESIDENT of the company, and that I’m ready to file a lawsuit against Comcast.

I just spoke to a tech named Steve who actually KNEW alot more than the others, he’s putting in an email ticket to tell comcast that port 587, 25, 2525 are NOT working, he told me to tell you all to BOMBARD comcast with calls about this issue as, this guy found the email ticket blocking these ports for my account, I told him there are a total of 20 people on here with the SAME PROBLEM. 1-888-comcast

Port 587 should work for outgoing email, but you MUST also turn on authentication. Comcast’s instructions do tell you how to do this.

A friend confirmed last night that I was lied to, that Comcast is NOT blocking all their customers on port 25. It’s selective. And it probably targets people who run servers, even if they are secure and low-volume traffic.

Someone suggested on one forum that I’m being blocked by way of Comcast rewriting the bootfile remotely on my cable modem. Not true. I restored factory defaults and was still blocked. It’s either by MAC address of the cable modem, or IP address. Normally I want to hold the same IP address for my sites, and it does so for a few years at a time, but the one time I want to ditch it, it won’t release and re-assign a new one.

My outgoing has been fixed since last night AFTER I CALLED AND THREATENED TO SUE, and change ALL 3 of the services I have through them to someone else, within an HOUR all was fine on port 587. If you are still having trouble call the above 800 #, swear at them and threaten to SUE. Don’t select the option for tech, as they are STUPID, go to customer service explain to them that tech KNOWS NOTHING and they will route you to someone that does.

I recently signed up for Comcast service and they blocked port 25 from the get go. 587 seems to be working but the hassle is extremely annoying and the fact that they don’t tell you what they have done without prodding is bad business. Of course they don’t have to provide good service since they have a monopoly where I am. So much for capitalism.

Sure wish I had googled before spending 4 hours fighting on the phone with those Bas#$%%s at Comcast.

I wish I had $1 for every hour I have spent on the phone going round and round with them over the last 18 years. I’d be rich.

I too was lied to about the port 25 block not being selective. I too was never informed of the imminent change. I too am being told that I need to get commercial service to resolve the issue.

One tech in the abuse department is also telling me that it is the fault of my third part server, and that they are not set to listen on port 587. She’s telling me that if my third party server configures to listen on 587, the issue will be solved.

Does anyone know if that is true? My third party server is a secure smtp server. I had configured my Outlook 2002 to access both my Comcast email and my work email so that all can be managed in one place. It worked just fine till they blocked port 25. Now I can receive but not send from my work email.

I was also recently blocked from port 25. I have now switched to port 587 – and for two days it worked fine. But once I left my house to use my work’s wireless – I am being blocked once again.

The tech at Comcast said it was likely because Verizon (and most non-comcast IPs) – block 587 from being used.So if you are traveling (w/ laptop) you have to use Port 587 at home (comcast) and then switch your settings back to Port 25 when using another wired/wireless signal

I’m a sys admin for a IT Co. I just wanted to comment on the port 25 blocking issue. Inshort, ISP’s around the world are finally waking up and figuring out that the cause of spam is… their own users who get infected. The trouble is, they have millions of customers and each computer can send 10-100 spams per second.. that a lot of spam flowing in to the internet. For YEARS admins have been complaining about all these home users… and there has been a very simple solutions, block port 25 OUTBOUND so users can’t send to the internet. The trouble I see is not that they blocked the port, its that they didn’t INFORM their users as to what they were doing and EXPLAIN

The only people affected by blocking port 25, are users who either have a mail-server or users who using a 3rd party system, i.e. work account. Mail-servers should be on business accounts, period. I’ve personally been bitten by the work account issue when I roam on WiFi’s that is why a few years ago port 587 was invented… so you could travel on to anyones network and send email without them blocking your port.

As to the INBOUND PORT 25 BLOCKING, that prob has more to do with their TOS, and not allowing Mail-Servers on residential accounts. As an ISP I can understand why they would block it.. Business accounts cost twice as much as residential service, for the same speeds.. the reason is they are ALLOWED to put on a mail server, usually.

I know their blocking can seem like censorship, but it’s just the ISP finally taking responsibilty for their own users. If you use your ISP as your SMTP, then none of this would be an issue.
Comcast and RR have been blacklisted world-wide many times because their users are out of control. REF: http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/networks.lasso

SplinterFL – Sys Admin – Orlando, FL, USA

I cannot even receive email on the domains that I have on my mail server. They’re blocking that, too. No error message shows up until 3 days later, when the address bounces back to the sender. No error in the email log, so it doesn’t even get that far. Comcast is blocking the incoming as well.

BTW, I installed their McAfee antivirus, and now it looks like I have a virus just two weeks later. Both of my Windows PCs have corrupt pagefile.sys files, set to 20 MB, and despite setting them larger, they will not.

Comcast did the same thing to me. They did send a rather ’spammy’ looking e-mail informing me that I’ve been identified as the originator of spam and that I need to change my port (or follow some links they gave me). Of course my outgoing mail immediately stopped working. I have a few problems with this:
1) As some others have pointed out – the Comcast email reeks of spam. A slightly better version of ‘Citibank needs you to update your info – please follow this link…’
2) They should have given me some more info to help me track down which computer is sending the spam – obvious bet is my son’s, but can’t they give me the IP or something?
3) NO WARNING – Couldn’t they send the email with a “you have a week and then we’re going to block you”? It’s my home email, and I fixed it when I next needed to send an email, but imagine how this must hose some people. I can imagine the ‘bad timing’ scenearios where someone has to do something now, as well as the ‘I don’t know how to’ scenarios that could go on for days….

On a related note – I suspect comcast also blocks outgoing email if I send to too many people at once, I’ve had difficulties in the past when sending to 40-50 people. Also see outgoing mails fail that have two dots after the ‘at’ sign (like steve.smith@command.navy.mil). If I recall the only times I’ve seen this they’ve been military addresses.

I truly hate comcast – will soon be trimming my internet/tv plan way back. I give them too much money.

I just had this happen to me today. It really doesn’t affect me because I do not run my own mailserver, but I’m really annoyed by two things. First, the email I received from comcast said “Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email (“spam”),” which is complete crap. I have 9 computers and all but one are linux/mac. The windows computer is locked down and NAV is always up to date. So I really resent the blanket accusation and I’d like them to prove I was sending spam.

Second, the url in the email to fix this problem had an asp script error and would not run.

I never contacted comcast but my mail was timing out when I’d try to send an email so I went to comcast “help” link at http://www.comcast.net and noticed a blurb explaining how to change the smtp port to 587 so I changed my Thunderbird email smtp port to 587 and problem solved. Surprised that Comcast would block the port 25 (they’re also my ISP) and not tell anyone.

I just got off the phone after a 2 hour conversation with Comcast and my hands are still shaking with anger. After talking to 2 people, they finally transferred me to Network Abuse who told me that the reason I can’t send messages through port 25 since last night was because they detected malaware abuse from one of our computers so they blocked the port. &*^%$@!!!!! Our computers all have great virus protection and the only thing going out of our emails last night were urgent documents and email exchanges with foreign client! They told me that they cannot unblock it and they have to ask me to go to my IT guy and have him set-up another port or what-have-you!!! I can’t believe I’m paying for a monthly service that makes life hell for me!

I keep having to switch back and forth between 587 and 25. My wife also has to on her computer which is killing me since she know zilch about computers. One day 587 works, the next I have to use 25, I have phone , cable and internet through these guys…

Wow. After a little over 2 years of pretty good service I get the Port 25 block POS business. I will admit that I do run a Exchange email server that all my @gmail, @comcast @other domains forward to. I’ve been doing this since I started my service. (First Comcast High speed internet w/ cable. Now HD Digital cable) I send, at most, 3 emails from my server a day. (I usually respond to emails from the actual account they are received in using web mail) I only use it as a central place to read all my emails and easily save them and have control over my mailbox. Why did they just enact this demented rule now? This is seriously extremely annoying. Unless I can find some other way to run Exchange on another port or some other cleaver masking I’m SOL. I can understand where Comcast is coming from; having to deal with the scum of the earth scammers, but for your average person who just wants a simple way to READ their emails in one place, it’s overkill. Worse, is now the other members in my house can’t send email on Port 587. Only receive it. I’ll have to look into the authentication setting.

Anybody else running a webserver and found a workaround?

Time to go on the hunt.

Comcast just did this to me as well. I have a corporate mail server for my company which is co-hosted by another ISP, but I use a Linux Spamassassin box at my home to scan the email and remove spam and viruses. The system is only allowed to forward to my corporate server and does not respond to incorrect mail addresses (backscatter). I realized at first that I could not receive anything on port 25 and called Comcast about it. The technical support person told me that it was probably a policy issue and sent me to Sales…didn’t know why at the time. I told the sales person what was going on and she sent me back to technical support. Now I was speaking to a different technical support person who told me that Comcast does not block any ports anywhere and the problem was with my machine or firewall. Feeling confused, I checked my settings again and determined that it had to be them. I called back and got a different technical support person who eventually transferred me to the mail abuse group at Comcast. They told me that their system looks for “spamlike” activity which includes traffic on port 25 that is not going directly to their smtp servers. I probably have about 50 emails a day (including spam) that pass through the system. The mail abuse person told me the only way to fix the problem is to purchase the business Internet option instead of residential. The rules and policies are different. I actually don’t have a problem with that because it could help block a lot of the spam out there. My problem is the fact that they blocked me without warning and then sent an email to my comcast account (which I couldn’t get to because port 25 was blocked) telling me that I had been blocked. It took me 1.5 hours to get the problem resolved because their own technical support staff do not know what is going on.

I just stumbled across a solution to a similar problem my mother-in-law was having after Comcast took over her Roadrunner account. Changing the Port number did not help, but I found the solution eventually. In the Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings (in Thunderbird), I had to change her username to ALL CAPS. the original username “janedoe2@houston.rr.com” (not her real address) now needs to be “JANEDOE2@Houston.rr.com. (I didn’t check to see if the “H” in Houston really needs to be in caps.) She can still receive emails addressed to her “old” lowercase email address. Of course the Comcast support tech told her that the fault was with her email program, and that they could not help her because they do not “support” Thunderbird. I guess that should be no surprise, as they don’t even support Comcast.

I just went to work on someone’s computer this weekend, and after a long time I finally pin pointed the problem to the outgoing mail port. after contacting comcast 5-6 times, I FINALLY got a good csr who knew what he was talking about. He was explaining that due to spam and stuff, they have started to block outgoing port 25 (std smtp) and only allowing the secure outgoing mail port (587). I complained that they didn’t bother to let anyone know — but none the less, it was a surprise to me they did that (though, it makes sense).

I was recently migrated from houston.rr to comcast.net. After the switch, my Outlook 2003 no longer could send or receive mail. I chatted with ComCast support and even passed on the port numbers I was using for POP3 (port 110) and SMTP (port 25). Support immediately mentioned that they do not support 3rd party products, although they did direct me to some FAQs which were incorrect. After an abrupt end to my chat, I played with it until I finally got it to work. These guys are really a bunch of weasels for changing things and not admitting to it. It makes me want to find another provider. In a nutshell, here is what needs to be done: 1) Change email/pass word settings for account, 2) Set POP3 to mail.comcast.net, 3) Set SMTP to smtp.comcast.net, 4) Go to More Settings Advanced tab and change POP3 port to 995 with encryption, 5) On same tab, change SMTP port to 587 without encryption. 6) On the Outgoing Server tab, check authentication box on the top. Comcast can put that in their FAQ and smoke it

I just got migrated from houston.rr.com to comcast.net. I made the mistake of using their “automated tool” to set up my Outlook Express. Outgoing email immediately stopped after this. The port was set to 587 and it didn’t work. I checked all over the internet and everyone was saying how you now had to use 587, not 25. Well after waiting over an hour for online chat, the guy said to use port 25. I’ll be damned, but it worked. So I asked why did their tool set it to 587 and he said it was SUPPOSED to work, but didn’t and to reset to 25. Nice.

Optonlie also blocks port 25. Tried as I might the server that we get our email from does not accept 587. This is a big issue for my employer who works from hme most of the time. She has to go to the local Pannaras so she can get her email from her Outlook account. I spent 2.5 hours trying to get around the issue, but no luck. I now have to call the email service provider for other options. I was glad to see that I’m not the only one with this issue.

There is a new problem. Comcast mail users ( xxx at comcast.net) are now having much of their email blocked. Just after the fourth of July Comcast mail admins began blocking any internet server or forwarder that they believe passes too much spam.

What does that mean? Your bank, your insurance company, your grandmother, anyone with a legitimate, non-spam email account trying to send you a message will get a reply that they are being blocked for sending spam if their message happens to pass through a forwarding server that Comcast doesn’t like. The Comcast user will have no notice that their email is not coming through. They’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater blocking real criminals like Yahoo, Zoneedit and a hundred other large internet forwarders and ISPs.

How many missed messages makes and email account unreliable? One? Two? Ten? All? None of theur on-line customer service people will address or fix this issue.

If you’re having any mail problems call 1-800-Comcast and ask for billing customer service. Tell them you want a price reduction in the monthly charge until the problem is fixed. If you have an eCare on-line ticket number have them put that on the record too. I got $20 removed from my monthly bill. Only when Comcast loses enough money or customers will they address this.

DJD

Just wanted to add my 2cents… thanks to this thread, and NO thanks to comcast support, I figured out my particular setup.

They blocked out port 25 for no reason as everyone here reports – they CLAIM they sent an email announcement but definitely did not.

customer service claims they are systematically switching everyone to an authenticated port 587 setup to stop malware based spam. Much as it pains me to admit it, this is necessary to stop that problem and I hope all ISPs go down the same road.

I’ve been using thunderbird and the following four things were required to get it working:
1) On the accounts –> outbound server settings, switch to port 587 on the smtp settings
2) check ‘use authentication’
3) in the username use your full email address with the name portion in all caps: JOEBLOW@comcast.net
4)on the actual email account setting itself, (not the outbound server one) be sure to go to the dropdown at the bottom of the settings screen and select the outbound smtp account you just configured.

Without all 4 of those, the connection would just timeout.

If you are having problems you might want to verify that port 587 is open in your local network (cable modem + router + firewall chain) the fastest way to verify that is to open up a command line window and type
telnet smtp.comcast.net 587

if you get a response from the email server, you know that 587 is open for you.

Hope this helps someone.

Jason, Thank you for the instructions on configuring 587. I have a question: in step #3 you mention you enter your username. What if you are using a different webhosting service and different email address than a comcast email address, are you still supposed to use your comcast email and password? (I have never used my comcast account, so I guess I am going to try to set it up just in case… I have been wasting so much time with this anyhow)

However again, I am not even sure that this is the email and password to use if you are not trying to send an email from your comcast account. Any thoughts?

Tech support do not have any clue about Port 25 blocking further more they do not know what is Port 25.

Bell south blocked port 25 4-5 years ago..Now Comcast… I got blocked yesterday…

It Sux…

Thanks
Hakan

This all sounds to familiar. Ive been unable to send emails for 4 months! Comcast nitwits are completely full of sh*t. They claim to have no clue as to the problem. This has cost me $ in my time to figure out whats going on and because I have been unable to contact prospecs for my business. They gave me the same schpeal that I needed to upgrade to a business account, and I scoffed. I pay like 42.00 for the use of internet to connect to my mail server. how is upgrading really going to change anything other then them getting more money? Now reading this I find that I may have had incoming email blocked with ou tmy knowledge!!!!!I am seriously considering contacting a lawyer as I have lost potential business from comcast’s antics. After reading all the different posts reguarding this (at home) I am going to try and get it to work tomorrow at work.

Hey Guys – I just came upon this situation myself

I use Windows Mail on (32bit) Vista Home Premium

1.) I switched my SMTP port over to 587

2.) I changed it over to an SSL

After that it worked fine.
I do agree Comcast service sucks
They have failed their customers once again

Starting from last Saturday, all the outgoing mails stuck in the Outbox of my Outlook. I called Comcast and the support lady just keep repeating “You need to use smtp.comcast.net port 587 for outgoing mail” and refuse to answer why that port 25 is blocked.

4 times comcast has blocked me and 3 times they said that is unblocked but it happen again. I found out they are blocking all mail from ez2.net using there IP. The funny thing is it an reply to a email from a user in comcast.
This is not a surprise I had comcast for cable tv and they were not very good at that so why are they going to change?

Yes those S.O.B.s made the change on me three days ago – i didn’t relize it and keept fooling with my accounts etc. to try and fix it. I run my own server and I have a work around for this in place for other clients now I must use my self I use port 8125, it’s configured on my mail server along with port 25.

Comcast should have notified us.

Yep, they’ve blocked me as well. Both inbound and outbound on port 25. In fact I just got off the phone with them. They tried to convince me that it was in fact that the os on all of my machines (linux,windows and mac) that suddenly put a magic block on the service. They finally just told me that I had to contact the hardware manufacture to have the block removed.

Where do they come up with this shit? Oh yeah, during their two week “how to be a support monkey” training.

Anyway. I can totally see how you can tell your email server to listen on another port, which will solve the inbound problem. But I don’t see how to get around the outbound problem as all other mail servers in the world listen on port 25….

I just recently had this SAME problem. However, does it really surprise anyone that Comcast has done this? They are notorious for their terrible tech support staff and constant tech issues they fail to notify any customers of, or attempt to fix in a timely manner. I’m seriously considering switching our internet provider to another, more reliable company.

Anyways, I had recently contracted a virus on the computer which had attacked the e-mail in Outlook Express. I did a scan and then my own manual scan of folders in the Registry Editor. I removed what I believed to be the virus(es) and then attempted to use the email. It worked! But, not a day later, that suspicious e-mail from Comcast saying I had sent too many spam e-mails arrived. After that, the e-mail has been down for a week.

I’ve been working to fix it for the past 3 hours, and finally Ikon’s post here helped me out… he/she changed over to an SSL. No sooner did I do that did Thunderbird receive the email. How amazing! If this happens again, I will not hesitate to call and stir something up at Comcast.

Hi,
I am throughly fed up with Comcast.
I tried to send out 104 newsletters to my customers only to find that my documents could not be sent and when I talked to 6 technicians I got 6 completely different answers. I spent a total of 10 wasted hours on the computer yesterday trying to get my mail sent out and eventually was told to take off my McAfee security. That was the only way I could get my emails to go through.
Poor service and no communication to customers. I’m ready to change servers.

Had the same issue for the last 2 days where I could not send any email.
I contacted Comcast just now. First thing the tech had me do is put the 587 in. Didnt work and all he could say is. “I don’t know” And that was it. After hanging up with him. I messed around with more options. I had to set the Outgoing server requires auth…. and had to restart OUTLOOK.
I am now able to send email. I have tested and I do get the emails as well as send.

I just happend to fix my Comcast as well by using port 587 and server reqires auth. However, I also have a domain name and use Outlook to get email sent there as well. To receive emails sent there, I have to use server requires auth. for that domain, so I am unable to allow it to use Comcasts server and my emails are getting blocked still. Any thoughts?

Nevermind, just got it working. Had to use port 80 for outoging email, all other setting remain the same. I’m so fed up with whatever they are doing at Comcast!

Is there a class acton lawsuit yet?

I have just had a ruined thanksgiving hoiday because I couldn’t send e-mail with my palm pilot to my relatives.

Comcast told me it worked great if I used their website but my palm pilot cannot use their website because of all the extra bullshit they have on it.

irritated? Yepper-doodle.

I have a number of small clients some of whom use Comcast as their ISP. One of my clients runs a small business and uses a third party for web hosting and e-mail. On several occasions over the past 6 months Comcast has put up a block on port 25 on thrie account. I have spoken directly with the Comcast Security Department who readily admitted to me that Comcast was blocking port 25 on the account. I was told that the port 25 block was put on due to “excessive outgoing mail” on the account. The security department said that they put up the block because the amount of outgoing mail was ‘excessive”. When I asked them how much mail was being sent out they could not or would not tell me. When I asked how much mail could be sent out from a ‘residential account’ I was told that there was no limit. I responded that if there was no limit how could the amount be excessive, to which I got no response.
Comcast then indicated that perhaps one of their computers was infected with a virus and was sending out SPAM and to protect it’s customers Comcase was justified in blocking outgoing mail from that account. Comcast then suggested that this client upgrade to a Commercial Account where amount of outgoing mail would not be monitored and would be unlimited.
Comcast got a little angry with me whan I inquired what the difference was between an unlimited amount of outgoing mail on a Residential account and an unlimited amount of outgoing mail on a Commericial account.
I had their third party email service open port 587 for SMTP and changed the outgoing SMTP port to 587 just to keep them working.
But for Comcast to say that they do not block ports is just baloney as they readily admit to me that they do so. They just justify their actions by stating that they are doing it for your own protection. What a laugh.

wow, i’ve been having a problems for 2 weeks with sending email. I am a comcast user, and apparently they blocked my port 25. I use micorsoft outlook and a couple weeks ago it just quit sending, although I could still recieve. I finally found this forum and played around with my settings. I changed port 25 to 587 and then set “outgoing server (SMTP) requires athentication” to “use same settings as incoming”. This is the ONLY way that I could get my email to work. Thanks for the forum guys!! I’ve spent hours trying to figure out what was going on.

Comcast blocks port 25 at the customers cable modem. They would not tell me what triggered my block. When complaining about my hobby mail server not getting inbound mail, I was told “running a server” violated the TOS (Terms of Service). Only a business account can run a “server”.

The port 587 work around functions for outbound via their servers.

Inbound email to xxx@domainname.com wont work because the MX record points to port 25 at your domainname’s IP address.

I wish I knew a good lawyer.

I know this is an old thread, but you can easily prove it on a Motorola Surfboard – check the logs. When mine was blocked, the name of the file loaded all of a sudden had _b25 on the end – GEE I wonder what that is. Verified that the rest was the same as a friend (sbxxx_Silver) something like that. Anyway, when I called and had it fixed (back in June) any time they claimed they weren’t blocking it I asked, “then tell me what b25 stands for and why my neighbor doesn’t have it.”

My old townhouse had a nice thing called competition and oh do I miss it.

I tried all of the above. Calling Comcast twice. Well I figured out part of my problem. I had my e-mail address in my signature and I also had a link to my website in my signature. As soon as I got rid of the links changed the port etc. everything is fine. I believe that somehow my links are interpreted as spam. The rules are changing and nobody knows! This has been a 3 week problem. Good Luck everyone!

Comcast blocked my port 25 a few days ago. With some trepidation I clicked on the link in the spammy e-mail I received from them, followed the directions, and I can now send mail again, although I haven’t tested whether I can send it to any address I want to.

The apparent reason for their blocking port 25 is that I programmed Microsoft Access to sent e-mail to about 200 members of a volunteer organization I belong to with only a few mouse clicks. I have no server, and these are people who want to receive the e-mail, so it’s not spam. Now I’m afraid to try my Access program with port 587, for fear Comcast will again interpret this as spam and close my account. I, too, am disgusted with Comcast.

Well it is starting in Illinois…

Easy to fix the outbound by changing the port from 25 to 587 and checking use name and password.

That is the easy part..

I run my own mail server and can no longer get inbound messages. Anyone figure that one out?

I have been blocked by comcast. I cannot send email with outlook 2003. Was sent a nasty email that Im a spam sender?!!! My system is as c lean as a whistle. After four very long coversations with absolute idiots in their support division was told to change over to port 587 with Auth. Anyway, did all they said and still cannot send with outlook or oulook express through the SMTP.comcast.net. Keep getting an error about username and passwd even though i have double checked their validity through comcast on the web. Anyone have suggestions?!! I really can not be restricted to webmail useage. Help me please. Comcast are jerks.

Recently I became aware that no one has been receiving emails that I have sent. Apparently this has been going on for several weeks, without me knowing about it.

I have used Comcast as my internet service provider for the past two years, and various versions of Netscape/Mozilla/Seamonkey as integrated web browser/mail reader for many more years.

So far, Comcast has not been helpful in fixing the problem. Their SMTP server is not reporting any error messages when I send emails, or I would have been aware of the problem earlier.

One suggestion that I’ve already tried is changing the SMTP port from 25 to 587. I’ve heard that many ISPs are blocking port 25 to prevent spam. This did not change anything. To complicate things, my wife can still send email on port 25 without any trouble (we share the same Comcast account).

Can it be my computer is the problem? I don’t think so, because the SMTP log file shows that the mail was sent properly to the SMTP server. Right now I’m mystified, but I hope that I can get in contact with somebody at Comcast who knows what’s going on.

I ran into this problem recently. To resolve it, I called comcast’s security team. I told them the issue, why i needed access, and the resolved it. That direct number is 856-317-7272. Listen to the options and select the one pertaining to internet connection and email.

Thanks Enoch! (nov. 27Problem has plagued me for days. Read EVERYTHING on here and followed your steps and before I hit aaply, all of my mail was sent. Had changed port # to 587, but had not set authentication! Great holiday gift! happy holidays!

To everyone having the pot 25 blocking issue, there was a simple fix for me. I changed my bellsouth outgoing server address from “smtp.bellsouth.net”, to “smtp.comcast.net”. Instead of fooling around with port numbers that may or may not work, try this. It’s working like a charm for me. Instead of sending the email through your email server, it sends it through Comcast’s mail server.

Hi all,

Just went throught this exercise with Comcast. I am in Houston. If you call 856-317-7272, ask for Joe. Joe is cool, and smart, and helpful, and knows what he is doing. If you get Giovanni, hang-up, or tell him he should be fired…unfriendly and unhelpful.

I am still having trouble with one of my outgoing mail servers (homestead). The network solutions mail server switched to 2525, and it works fine. 587, 265, do not work on the homestead mail server.

Comcast is trying to do the right thing by moving folks to a more secure port if port 25 has been compromised (at least I buy that story), but they are doing a lousy job of advertising (none actually), and they are keeping the customer service departments totally clueless.

I would like to know exactly how the ’spam alert’ is triggered, and can anyone call Comcast and file a spam complaint?

Obviously the spam filtering process is becoming very extensive… Most web-based e-mail providers consider any e-mial with a hyper link or html format from 3rd party as spam… It doesnt matter what port you use either…. We are all forced to send all mails as plain text asking folks to copy adresses to their web browser… Soon we’ll all be reduced to using fireworks, and the only banners left will be on the end of private jets….. Save your money folks !!!

Same darn issue here. I had my port 25 blocked by comast with no warning. I have access to both of my neighbors routers and tested using telnet. They have been blocked too!

Of course Comcast is no help. They directed me to call Network Abuse which is closed right now. I have a vps server at another location. I just set it up to accept mail on port 26 and comcast isn’t blocking that port. I simply changed by Outlook settings and it is working for now. I will call Network Abuse and see what is going on tomorrow.

Sucks!

Comcast people are complete idiots! I tried to explain to them that I am using them for my high speed internet and that I am trying to send e-mails and can’t get anything out. I have work e-mail that is hosted by the same people that is hosting the company web site. After more than two hours on the phone with them, I could still not make them understand that they are NOT hosting the e-mail account, I just need to use them as the outgoing server. They even had me create a Comcast e-mail account to send e-mail, while I told them, the two have NOTHING to do with one another! IDIOTS! So, with problems still unresolved, I am about to call the idiots again, and find out if and why they are blocking me!

Same here. As of this evening Comcast is blocking my port 25. The support tech said they don’t block port 25, so I wrote a quick socket connect program to prove otherwise. As soon as I connect to a PPTP VPN, port 25 works like a champ – disconnect port 25 times out. The support tech suggested that I call Outlook Express Support (I’m not even using Outlook Express) and that I should use Comcast email instead of my company email servers. Looks like I’ll be switching ISP’s tomorrow. F- Comcast!

I’ve had my email blocked by Comcast at least 5 times in the last 8 months. In the beginning they just bounced back any email I tried to send to people with comcast.net accounts. I’d have to fill out a form including the header of the bounced email, submit it and then wait….finally I just gave up and called my friends with comcast email instead of trying to send them anything.

Yesterday I got the dreaded email from Comcast: “Dear Comcast Subscriber:
ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email (“spam”), which is generally an indicator of a virus. For your own protection and that of other Comcast customers, we have taken steps to prevent further transmission of spam from your computer(s).” – THEY BLOCKED ALL OUTGOING EMAILS!

They sent this email notification to my Comcast address, which I never use, luckily I got a tech who knew enough to direct me to check that account. He also tried to walk me through the fix – BUT – I am on a Mac using macmail and their “one click fix” isn’t compatible.

Searching the internet I found enough info to manually change the port to 587. Once I configured mail preferences to the comcast.net settings I could finally send email again. BUT- I use my home computer to access my work email account which is on a third party server that only accepts port 25 for smtp. So I can send email with the comcast.net return address – but not my work return address, which is unacceptable.

I spent 4 hours on the phone this morning, first with Comcast customer care who gave up when I would not accept her explanation. She referred me to Comcast Customer Security, where after a 45 minute wait on hold I talked with Mark who told me I had a virus on my Mac. Guess what – no I don’t. He said I needed to get the third party server to use port 587. The third party tech support was very helpful, offering much insight into the Comcast rhetoric – but they only smtp port 25. He did suggest I speak with a level 2 tech at Comcast – any one else you get is basically just reading off a script with pictures.

I finally got through to a level 2 tech, spent an hour on the phone trying to get macmail to work with my third party server, no luck. He placed my issue on a “ticket to task” which is allegedly the highest level of service. AND – it takes up to 72 hours to get a response…. I indicated how badly this was effecting my work, he agreed it was a serious issue.

I did get a call back from Comcast Customer Security within a couple of hours!!! (phone: 856.317.7272) They unblocked port 25 “as a courtesy” but insisted I install a virus protection software on my computers because I would definitely get blocked again.

Apparently Comcast said they traced an enormous amount of spam being sent from my modem. Not one of the 3 computers in my home has ever been used to send spam.

How can they trace anything to my modem? The IP is dynamic…..

Called the Apple store to inquire about a virus protection software. They do sell McAfee – but say no one ever buys it because it is unnecessary.

I’d happily switch to a different ISP in a minute – but there are no other companies offering broadband in my area. I’d have to go back to using DSL – which was slower and often went down.

I am extremely frustrated. All this aggravation and loss of service and I’m paying Comcast $59.99 a month??? It is just not right. Put my name on the list for a lawsuit.

As of January 10, Comcast started blocking port 25 and
my outbound email. I’ve had this setup for 4 years with no
problems. I did not receive any notification of the change,
even at my comcast.net address.

I am suing comcast. I need your help, please

Comcast has blocked my port 25 for the past 10 days after using them since cable was offered in Alexandria, VA. I spent 2 hrs with their support, and got a supervisor involved as well. They could not get to this port 587 or their other port 465 work they claim works. They refuse to open port 25 for no reason. Apparently some spammer has stolen one of my email accounts, spammed and now they blocked my outbound mail.
I am now a double victim. From the spammer and now from Comcast.

I am filing a lawsuit to force Comcast to re-store my outbound email by opening the working port 25 since they could offer no remedy or another solution.

They have absolutely no valid reason not to restore my email out. They say we won’t and that it.

Please post your experiences and whatever I can use as evidence of their bad faith and whatever other evidence you have that can help me in fighting this arrogant, vicious beast. I hope I can go as far as to make it class action and also because they are a monopoly in Alexandria to see what we can do to move on that front as well.

Thank you for your support. I believe this is the hurt many feel here.

For those with useful evidence I’ll give my email to collect more direct evidence.

Barry

I am suing Comcast

Hi everyone,

Those of you with similar experience or other experiences that I can use as evidence in court please take the time to write it neatly and email me at Ameran@aol.com
Please let me know if need be you’ll make it into an affidavit so I can make it part of the court records. This part is for later. I am hoping when they see some real legal expenses is on the horizon they correct their behavior.
thanks.
Barry

Folks,

I can only resonate with you all about poor experience with Comcast, although I am not sure that I have been blocked. What I have been experiencing since moving over to their CDV “service” about a week ago is that at about exactly 10 pm EST every night, I suddenly can no longer connect to their SMTP server, using either port 25 or port 587.

The live chat help is earnest but essentially useless. As someone else here said, they are reading from a script and are (I believe) genuinely unaware of what their IT folks must be up to.

I have now called two nights in a row (and filed two help tickets via chat), and they have updated my ticket etc., but I am not getting any sense that they truly realize that they have a serious problem here. I would change service in a NY minute, but the only alternative here is Verizon, which I dread even more.

But I have to say, there is definitely something wrong with this service right now, and it does not work as advertised.

Strange too because I had really good service from them for about three years before my recent “upgrade.”

Add me to any class action suits. I’d say to email me, but as of yesterday, I too am being dry-raped by these ass-clowns and scrambling to find a solution. I’m leaning towards DynDNS MailHop Relay. I already have been using the Outbound service for a year to avoid RBL’s of Comcast addresses. I’ve been a customer of theirs for 5 years. I run a very secure linux box. I work for a network security company! For them to tell me I have a virus is bullshit and illustrates their ignorance. And Chuck Miller I loved your comments about “excessive outgoing mail”. I pay them some rediculous amount per month for Internet and television services. For them to just block without warning is rediculous and given that they are the monopoly here in Seattle, I have no choice but to bend over for it. Telling me I have to upgrade to their business class (even though it’s the same freakin’ cable line and modem and everything) is just extortion. Let’s sue these bastards!

Sheesh, I did some searching and its amazing how many people seem to be having this problem. I still can’t get anything to work.  smtp.comcast.net doesnt work, port587 doesnt work, they were no help, pretty frustrating. It was all working perfect about 2 weeks ago too

comcast just blocked me as well. Technical support was a complete joke.

I just had port 25 reactivated after 4 days without being able to send email. The exerience was not positive for my future with Comcast.

I feel the pain for you all too, but FINALLY got mine working after finding the port 587 fix….or at least it works for me. I also talked to the tech idiots and they kept telling me it was on my end.  Hmm….using Outlook and Thunderbird on 3 different computers and having the same problem..with or without a router hooked up….proves it is NOT my problem. I just wish they would tell people they are doing this block and not deny it. Typical comcast crap.

I found a solution I am going to try from DynDNS: https://www.dyndns.com/services/pricing/#als. It’s only $14 per year.

This is the scary thing about losing net neutrality. Our ISPs can selectively block content and force us to use their SMTP gateway. Will they next choose to make me use their http proxy service to access the web? Will they inject ads into the content? I plan to complain to my Congresswoman.

Had same issue with 2 mail accounts I use on 2 non comcast servers. So they are blocking non-comcast server to server communication. Seems pretty aggressive. I received no warning. I spent 3 hours figuring this out. I don’t have 3 hours for ths BS comcast.

I called TS they said I was not blocked (45 minutes). I proved it was comcast by jumping on a neighbors wireless and being able to send mail to both non-comcast mail serves. He gave me the 856 317 7272 number and they guy told me 25 was blocked for me in 5 minutes. He then told me that I need to contact my hosting company to see if they have an alternate port since 25 is off. WOW.

All this seems very poorly managed. They are treating all of us as if we are all spammers. I am not even using comcast mail server. So they are stopping my from communicating to another server they do not own. So this is not a security issue for comcast. Nor am i a spammer.

Seems like the router guys need to work with customer relations.

Comcast has blocked port 25 twice in the last month. They will unblock it but I have to call. Huge pain in the ass. They said I could have a virus, I don’t, or that its my mail provider and if they are blacklisted or reported as spamming, it could affect my attempt to send mail because they will block port 25 to them. WTF. There is NO mail provider out there that isn’t used as a spamming service. Something needs to be done; soon.

DynDNS has a MailHop Outbound service that allows you to use four alternate SMTP ports with authentication. $14 per year allows you to send 150 messages per day. To me $14 is worth not having to spend hours navigating through phone trees to dead ends with Comcast. The real solution to this problem is to petition congress to prevent ISPs from content filtering. Comcast could start blocking my Vonage line next or degrading the service on it until I switch to a Comcast VOIP solution. That is not an acceptible possibility.

I have had several conversations with Comcast’s first line folks both on the phone and the online chat. All are useless and just lie to you. I had on guy tell me that a notice went out a few months ago saying that port 25 was going to be blocked both directions – but that a lot of people didnt get it. When I asked for a copy, he said he didn’t have it. As I was chatting with him, I called the phone number above and spoke with a gentleman who told me that no such notice went out. Rediculous.

The guy at the Customer Security center told me that port 25 was blocked because of “complaints”. I asked to see the data – logs, complaintts, etc. He said “I don’t have to show that to you, but if you want to keep any server running, you need to upgrade to commercial service or risk being shut off.” What????

I’ve been a comcast customer for years and am now going to cancel. Their tactics and customer support are the worst in the business. I’m also looking at any class-action being filed against these guys. I’m not one of the download whores that suck up bandwidth, but they insist on playing the big-brother card. F them.

I actually have been running a personal Exchange server in my home for years with comcast. I ran into the same issues with sending and receiving mail on Jan10. The fix for sending mail out was fine.. use 587 from my exchange server to the comcast relay. But they were also blocking inbound to my server on port 25 so I could not receive incoming messages on my personal servers.

first line customer support was useless. They had no clue about the working of SMTP and kept referring back to their port 587 solutions – for client to server mail traffic. I finally spoke to Neven at the Customer Security center – number listed above. He basically told me that since I just admitted to running a server, I am in jeopardy of having my account shut off! I asked why inbound port 25 was being blocked in the first place and he something similar to James from above – random complaints. He would also not show me the information he was referring to. Neven also told me that I needed to upgrade to Commercial service to run any server. I said “It’s a personal server in a private residence – not a commercial server.” He said with an indian accent “I’m not going to continue this conversations with you – dirka dirka…”

Ok , I added the “dirka dirka” but you get the idea. These guys are awful. I won’t recommend them to anyone as an isp. FIOS is in my area as well as Speakeasy, a great DSL provider that I have used in the past. I will be switching quickly to avoid every having to deal with these guys again.

Port 25 is blocked.

Comcast SUCKS. They have bunch of people on the support call, brian washed to tell the same sentences again and again, “we support only outlook express. We support only comcast.net“, except these two lines, those super engineers do not know anything else.

They don’t know how much annoying this will be.

We all agree Comcast is not user friendly. But sending email on port 587 works in comcast if you follow the changes in the Outgoing Server settings exactly AND you have to re-program your firewalls. Your router’s firewall is set for port 25 outgoing. That port must be deleted and port 587 added. If you use a spy program with a firewall, that too must activate port 587, and don’t forget Windows firewall.

Jffjone

Comcast telephone personnel leave much to be desired but I did find on comcast the links to Outgoing Server settings for Entourage, Endoura, Incredimail,Macmail,Mozilla, Outlook, Pegasus, Thurnderbird and Windows Mail for Vistal Try this site: http://www.comcast.net/help/faq/index.jsp?faq=EmailOutlook_Express18537&cookieattempt=1

If you’re not using a comcast email address and your port 25 gets blocked, all you need to do is set your smtp server to comcast’s, and set up your mail client to authenticate using your comcast username and password.

Done.

You people make things too complicated.

Chrisssss, I don’t think you fully understand the issue.

I am running an SMTP server using my own domain name (not comcast.net) on a machine in my house. Up until a month ago, I was able to receive and send email without a problem. Now, port 25 is blocked. I can no longer send and receivd my domain’s email. So, when I started with Comcast, this service was available to me. Now, eventhough I am paying the same monthly rate, the quality of my service has been cut. This sucks.

Also, I can no longer serve HTTP request through my domain.

Time to look at alternatives.

Comcast just did it to me too! They will be history later today.
Their service stinks. Worse service in Virginia!!
I am too busy trying to survive to accept this agravation!
Bye, bye Comcast!

hey every one. I just saw that error msg on comcast port 25 blocking.
my mom was dying with out her email, (which is hosted on another website).

i hate using comcast. so i tryed using port 26 and i have sent 3 emails with no problems.

see if that helps

I am a Windows Vista Outlook 2007 user working from home in the Philadelphia area. I began experiencing the same problem (sending email through smtp.comcast.net) about three weeks ago. At first it appeared to be intermittent, i.e., sometimes my emails would get sent and other times they would sit in the Outbox. For the past week, however, I was unable to send anything, so I began investigating the problem. Comcast tech support told me that I had to delete my email account and set up a new one using Outlook Express. In other words, they were clueless! I finally found the advice on rthe Web about using Port 587 instead of 25 and that appears to have solved my problem – at least for the time being. I am irritated to death, though, that (1) there was no notification, and (2) they have still not added the info about switching to port 587 to their tech support script! Lord knows, they’ve had enough time and enough complaints by now!!!

Same problem here, unable to send via smtp. Called Comcast this morning and had no resolution of the problem after being on the phone for 1 hour. Called back later and was then placed on hold and ended up back in the call queue. Called again and finally reached a knowledgeable tech who immediately suggested that I switch to port 587 from 25 and make sure that I send authorization to the server. That worked!
It seems that my access to port 25 was blocked because I sent one email last week to 50+ addresses!!!! It would have been nice if they would have informed me of the change.

We were told they would not fix the problem and threatened to shut our service off for having our own server. Why? Fartknockers…

I had not used my comcast email until recently. Tried it the other day and experienced the port 25 block. Switched to port 587 for outgoing email but still have a problem: Upon attempting to send a test msg Outlook reports: “Unable to send test msg, please verify the email address field.”. The email address field is correct, my username@comcast.net. Tried all caps for username but no success. Anyone have any ideas on this? (Note: I am now able to connect to comcast server via port 587 as evidenced thru telnet command to same.)

Thanks

Re my above problem – after 6 hrs of googling (maybe i’m a poor googler) I finally resolved the problem. Apparently, from what I gleaned, the error msg: “Unable to send test msg, please verify the email address field.” is a known issue in Outlook when testing the account and does not necessarily mean one can’t actually send email. Turns out in spite of this msg that sending an actual email works just fine! Hope this helps someone.

A bit of info for those with outgoing port problems: In addition to port 587, port 465 *with* SSL seems to connect to comcast mail server ok also. To verify you are connecting to the mail server you can:
1. From your Run dialog, enter: cmd
2. In the DOS window that opens, enter: telnet DOMAINNAME PORT#
A successful connection will be indicated; otherwise, the request will eventually time out.

Regarding all the bashing of Comcast help reps, yes many are pretty ignorant – but, it’s not that most don’t want to help, it’s rather that they’ve been poorly trained. So who ya gonna blame? My guess is that thousands of hours of customer time has been wasted due to poor training policy decisions by Comcast (not to mention customer aggravation levels off the meter). As usual, we get less and less and pay more and more. What happened to competence?

Here’s the solution for non-Comast emails.
After much frustration after all my emails quit working 2 days ago I found out about changing to port 587 which worked for my Comast email but not my others. Here’s how I did it in Outlook 2002 when Comcast had no idea how to help me.
Comcast email accts only need to change the Outgoing Server port from 25 to 587 under the Advanced tab in More settings
Other email accounts follow this..
Tools..Email Accounts..Next
Double click the email acct you want to alter
All email accounts must have smtp.comcast.net as the outgoing mail server.
Click More Settings..Outgoing Server tab
Check My Outgoing Server requires..etc.
Check Log On Using and type in your Comcast username and password.
Click Advanced tab and change your Outgoing Server to 587 Click OK and then click Test Account Settings and you’ll be fine.
I called Comcast and gave them the scoop and said spread the word and to have everyone pee in the breakfast cereal of whoever rolled out this change without informing their customers.

Anyone out there on Comcast and using a client program like Pegasus? I found my outgoing mail blocked on Sunday – haven’t been able to send since. Online chat unable to help, though I’ve reconfigured for TCP Port 587. I’m stumped.

Just got on the same boat. Comcast blocked incoming and outgoing traffic on port 25.

The tendency scares a lot. A year ago I rejected Verizon FIOS service just because of the port blocking and stayed with Comcast… Now there is nowhere to go.

I hate SPAM and would accept if provider detects and blocks the misbehaving client till he/she resolves the problem, but I’m not sending any usolicited e-mails, and why to block my incoming e-mails (that is actually worse than spamming)? What if they block my IP phone next or start shaping VOIP traffic to force me to move to their own overpriced phone service?

What else is in the perspective? Charging for opening access to individual services, particular Internet zones or for sending/reciving messages (kind of high tech racket)?

Not good, and nowhere to go

I work in the spam-fighting business and I say good, it’s about time they did it. You want port 25 access? Pay extra for the service. And yes, your email traffic will get monitored for spam content, because it comes with a responsibility of maintaining your computer clean and free of viral rootkits and mailers. Fail to do and have your machine start spamming, and watch it get blocked again. Tuff luck…
/shrug

Comcast started blocking port 25 in both directions here in Chicago today. They are welcome change the outgoing smtp port on their mail server to what ever they like but they are just a pipe to me and this is just as bad as them blocking p2p connections.

Chicago; March 28; Yup…
I won’t waste your time describing the convoluted symptoms during January and February. But on Friday they switched to port 587 and CRAM-MD5 AUTH – which is fine by me (except they always present the same challenge bit pattern, so they’re vulnerable to session replay attacks). I called and acquired an email username and password, so outgoing is back up.

But I’m a (noncommercial) power user with a private domain under which I run my own server on port 25. It’s not an open relay. Occasionally
it forwards a spam that makes it through my filters to one of my kid’s accounts away from home – I counted 2 yesterday and 1 today – no big deal. No operational reason to shut me down.

But as Friday ended I noticed that incoming email was only arriving via
my secondary server which lives on another network. I am not going to let them look at my incoming email – bother enough that they want to see everything outgoing.

So SpeakEasy gets my business first thing Saturday AM! I’ll probably pull the cable TV service too.

I am having the same issue as Greg. I chatted (for what seemed like forever) with a Comcast rep and all I got was ‘e-mail secure-port25@comcast.net to get off the list’. Doing that, I got a message back saying that the e-mail is no longer checked and that basically I was out of luck. I can’t use anything for high speed other than Comcast where I live, so I guess I’m screwed? Anyone have any ideas to get around this? I agree with another poster who said we are paying the same amount for less service!

All I can say is “me too.” Suddenly my emails wouldn’t send and then when I called Comcast, they said “we don’t support Thunderbird.” When I accessed my Comcast email account this morning, Comcast had sent me email notification about this issue and then said my email account was sending out spam. They also said that I probably had a virus, and that is why I had to reconfigure my settings. I had spent days trying to figure this out. So now I’m on port 587 using my comcast email address for authentication, while using Thunderbird on a MacBook Pro and a third party email address. It’s been maddening and frustrating as hell. I still don’t know if I have a virus.

Similar to Greg. Yup, looks like they finally did it here as well (FL).

As of about midnight April 1 — great April Fool’s joke.

Worst part is no competition (FIOS is still possibly years away — that is assuming they don’t block 25).

PS: Denis above I could not agree with you more … what next?

Traffic Shaping?
VOIP Blocking?

All kinds of things to discourage using other services?

Just like there are so many VOIP alternatives these days, there really needs to be some solid high speed data alternatives . . .

Gosh, if only there could be “Open Source”-type (not necessarily Free, but Free of obstruction) ISP hosting

The answer for me was clearly spelled out by Chrisssss – February 23, 2008 @ 6:59 am above.

I run multiple email email accounts through Outlook Express 6. Outgoing email simply stopped as of early this morning, with the dreaded Error Number: 0×800CCC0F. Outgoing works fine.

Comcast’s tech support person was particularly frustrating, unskilled and less than tactful. We tried going to Port 587, with authentification, to no avail. Finally got her to “write a ticket” and still awaiting more from their techies (4 hours later). She could not email me a summary of the call and troubleshooting “because they do not give us access to email”. YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!

In reading through all of the above responses, finally got to “Chrisssss”’s clear explanation to 1) require server authentification; and 2) use the Comcast smtp server AND the Comcast user name and password (that was what I was missing). It now works like a charm. Just prior to that, I also took a previous suggestion to enable Port 587 in my firewall (Norton) and spam (WebRoot) programs. Not sure if that helped, but makes sense. Great forum here! D

Had this issue today, wen through support, to customer service, to retention, to business services, back to support then to Jerry in support, rep# 51002
He was willing to reactivate port 25 for me. I am in IT and have my own Exchange server at home. Had verizon DSL for 10 years with no issue, switch to Comcast and get blocked. Before I mae the move, Local comcast office said it woud not be an issue. Now they want to charge me $95 per month for telecommuter service?

Now to add insult to injury they have had 2 MAJOR outages within 6 days (Sat Apr 5 – I believe this involved a number of US states see: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Suffers-Through-Major-Weekend-Outage-93372) and Fri Apr 11 (probably localized to FL)!! These guys are real winners.

Where is competition when you NEED it??

I have had port 25 blocked in both directions for about a month now. I also am an IT worker and have Exchange at home for learning purposes. As I am not an email admin in my real job, this is very important to my career advancement.

I just spoke with Comcast and got nowhere. I never received a notice of this, which is the worst part of it.

Robert M, how did you get them to re-enable port 25? I figured that if I said I had my own mail server, they would say that it was all the more reason to put a block on port 25. That would be unfair since this mail server in no way is being used for production, and I am the only person who uses it in any way. (It pretty much couldn’t be used as a production smtp server because most other smtp servers would block it.)

My port 25 blocking problem today. After 2 tier 1 support people and a supervisor telling me there was nothing that they could do and to call Microsoft, I was finally routed to the Comcast abuse team…

1(888)565-4329 (make a note of it)
Or abuse@comcast.net

They finally verified that they had indeed blocked port 25 on my modem and after a 20 minute reset, it was unblocked and now works. No one knew anything about it until I got to the abuse team. I was not notified before they blocked it. They can unblock it if you yell loud enough.

One of our public IP addresses was used by a spammer in Russia (if I remember correctly). We put a stop to it and immediately started requesting to be removed from all the block lists around. Currently, 2.5 months later, Comcast is still blocking us. If you go the normal route, they say we’re not blocked. We got on the phone with Microsoft and did a ’round-about’ way that proved Comcast was blocking our IP/domain. I sent that proof to Comcast (not the normal channels) and still have heard nothing. What a $%^&* joke these people are. Unfortunately, we have customers with comast.net emails that we need to be able to send to, so I have to wait it out and get pissy with them.

Comcast Technical Support was useless. Thank you to the notes above I finally asked to be transferred to the Comcast Security Department (1 888 566 4329). In less than 5 minutes I was able to send emails again.
The person in this department explained I need to use port 587 and walked me through the settings for my Thunderbird email client. Because my 3rd party email service doesn’t support connections through port 587, she helped me configured my SMTP to use smtp.comcast.net.

Comcast tech support are helpless. They can’t unblock port 25 because some other office is responsible for the blocks. Tech support does not even have a number for said office. Security assurance can’t do it either.
Earlier this week I found that my modem is responsible for the blocking…what I can’t figure is whether the information is stored on the modem or retrieved when it connects to Comcast. Why do they have mess with my network appliance? Why can’t they do this block on their side?

I have a unix (NetBSD) server for our home e-mail. It runs standard sendmail and is configued to use smtp.comcast.net as a smart relay on standard port. It was working fine up until 2 days ago when comcast changed the e-mail enviorenment for me (in west chicago suburbs). From the previous comments it seems they have been doing this for over a year.
The tech support was clueless when I said unix and sendmail – they kept trying to find out if I used outlook express or thunderbirtd. I finally was able to extract from them that mail being sent from home needed to go to port 587 rather than port 25. They did not mention that authentication was required.
When I discovered that authentication was required I chatted with another support person to find out what credentials were require I asked if they were the credentials used for accessing the web and was told no – just the same ones I used for e-mail – I don’t use comcast email and I could not see how they would know my e-mail username and password for other systems I use. Finally I was able to extract that the web credentials were what were needed.

My next problem was configuring sendmail to be able to use auth. I found some references on the web and had to build sendmail with sasl option. After that I still was getting authentication errors. In more searching on the web there are also sasl plugins for login and plain which were required and for NetBSD they are cy2-login and cy2-plain packages. Once I got those
built and auth info build and pointed to the correct port I could then send
mail from my mail server to comcast.

The next problem was that incoming mail to home server on port 25 was being blocked. I chated with another tech support person who again was
pretty clueless – continued asking what program I was using to read and
send mail. Seem to be difficult to convince them I was not trying to get
mail from comcast.net e-mail accounts. Finally they directed me to a unblock request site where one can fill out a form.

I filled out the form where you give the IP of what is bing blocked – I tried to
make it clear that mail coming into my home server was being blocked not that mail being sent to their smpt server was being blocked – the reason was that they were asking what prevention of spam you were doing to help reduce spam. The turn around was to be 24-48 hours so I started looking for another solution.

I found dnsexit which has a e-mail redirection service – the pricing is based on the amount of e-mail you might need them to keep in the case your server is down. The 10MB limit is for $16/year and has a 10 day trial. It also has some facility to filter spam.

I pointed my MX records to dnsexit and configured my server to accept on port 26 and told dnsexit to send to port 26 and mail started coming in again. I was pretty happy to get this piece in place.

I did get feedback from comcast unblocking area – the e-mail said they had no record of port 25 being blocked and they verified that they were not blocking port 25 access. They clearly were talking about blocking trafic to their system from my system which is not what I was asking about. I verified from another comcast location that port 25 was being blocked to our home and port 26 was not and that I could connect on the home side of the network to port 25 just fine. I send a second request trying to be very clear about what I was claiming was being blocked. I have no great hope for comcast being able to understand what the issue is much less resolving it.

I also observed that mail which had piled up on my server because I had not been able to configure my mail server to the new comcast enviornment that when things were working it looked like once a connection was made it only allowed about 11 nessages to go before it abrubtly closed the conenction. I had about 100 e-mails so I would manually run the queue and get 10 or so at a time.

I am planning on changing the frequency of the queue running so if I have a mail list which exceeds 10 I can get them all out in a reasonable time.
Or set up a cron job to look for the message which indicates that it failed because of too many messages and then run the queue.

This has been a big hassle – I don’t know if comcast sent a notification because I don’t use the comcast email. But changing the port and requiring authentication causes regular users quite a bit of hastle in reconfiguring and major problems for people with their own mail servers. I don’t understand the blocking of incoming port 25 – the vast majoriithy of computers do not have that port open for listening on.

Well I’m done with my rant – I like the speed of comcast but their technical support leaves a lot to be desired.

Had the same thing happen to me — blocked Port 25 and the technical support people responding with the knee-jerk reaction “we don’t block port 25″. The first few times I patiently listened to their diagnostic script – they’re tech support zombies who can’t stray from what’s in front of them — and when I asked for a manager or someone who knows what they’re talking about I got disconnected twice. Only solution was the one from Bill above on April 24 — all I can say is THANK the people on that line for KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT and being able to do something about it. Five minutes with them cleared up a weekend of frustration

Seattle

Same issue: Port 25 blocked due to alleged complaint about spam from my assigned (DHCP) IP [In fact our IP is on the Policy Bock List "PBL"]. Comcast wouldn’t tell me where complaint came from or what it actually was. How am I supposed to trouble shoot their claim that I’m a spam-bot if they won’t tell me what the hell they think is coming out of our computer(s)? I’m using Mac behind firewall and after checking my logs I think they are full of sh*t. [And I also think they lied when they claimed to have sent me notice of the block being put in place; never saw it and they can't/won't send it again.]

I use Eudora (6.2.4) and don’t want to change (it’s the best sorter and archiver I’ve found). With some help from techs at Comcast and searching web, I was able to get main email to work through 587, but I cannot get other personalities to work because the named email is different. And for you folks who just say “use username@comcast.net” that won’t let me post to listserves where I’m only allowed in with my own domain. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Comcast force me to change my listserve enrollments to fit their bogus spam problem.

After wasting half a day, one of the people at Comcast turned off the block on port 25. Don’t believe any of them who say they can’t do it.

Couldnt send email thru outlook or thunderbird, they (comcast support) told me they dont support either and transferrred my microsoft support, who wanted to charge me!

Contrary to what Comcast support said the first time, In Thunderbird I unchecked the “use secure connection port” to “none” and i can now send and recieve.

This did not work thru outlook however.

Hope that helps.

Yet another victim.

I use my own mail server co-located off the Comcast network to send e-mail through using SMTP Auth. They blocked Port 25 out of no where today at 1am. The local tech support person was very nice and even gave me a Security ticket and the number to their security department. She actually understood what I meant when I said, I think Port 25 is blocked. I got on the phone with the security person and talk about treating customers like crap! The person wouldn’t give me their name other than some BS “CSA80″, gave me some line about how its not spam they are blocking but even “Spam like activity”. How could no more than 20 e-mails a day max, being sent to the same IP address for 5 years be “spam like activity”. Then went on these contradictory rants about how they don’t care about the content of the message; I thought thats odd, if they don’t care about the content, then why was I blocked? This person said they could not look up the security ticket number I was given and was all around extremely rude about the whole deal. They gave no information as to if any of my computers were really spamming, didn’t even ask if I had anti-virus software installed or anything. They said that they would remove the block once and if it was put on again it would never be removed. I agree this is total BS and a means to get me to purchase their Business package in order to use my own mail server located off their network to send e-mail to. Their “spam like activity” was just me NOT using their e-mail server. Fortunately Port 587 is fairly easy to turn on via Sendmail so I will have all my mail clients using that port, but its one thing to be lied about it.

i think this whole thing is funny.

Well, first off im here because i just switched internet connections and routers, and im beating my head off the wall on why my mail server can send mail, but not receive it…double checking my mx records, dyndns info…etc

well now i know why!

it sounds like

people who have been identified as “spammers” or people who have virus/spyware infected machines that are being used as a spam proxy are getting their port 25 blocked outgoing…and making them use 587 to send mail…..completely understandable!! serves you right for spamming, or not making sure your computer was up-to-date or protected – i dont even blame them for not contacting the customer….their spending enough time making sure their users aren’t spamming the internet

I know a lot of customer’s i deal with that have comcast for their server, and have mail servers – the difference……they have business accounts, and can receive mail just fine.

I have a residential account and cannot….guess im screwed, unless i want to pay dyndns for inbound mx mail hopping

I think comcast is doing their jobs quite well – this is all put in place to stop unknowing users from sending spam, and forcing you to upgrade to a business account if you want to serve.

I ws able to call comcast and have them un-block this for me..

Just want to thank nottoman and repeat this help info that solved my non-comcast website mail outgoing problem…

Other email accounts follow this..
Tools..Email Accounts..Next
Double click the email acct you want to alter
All email accounts must have smtp.comcast.net as the outgoing mail server.
Click More Settings..Outgoing Server tab
Check My Outgoing Server requires..etc.
Check Log On Using and type in your Comcast username and password.
Click Advanced tab and change your Outgoing Server to 587 Click OK and then click Test Account Settings and you’ll be fine.

Same nonsense with Comcast. 4 phone calls to Comcast denying port 25 blocked. I finally got to ‘Security’ WHAT AN A**HOLE. I was accused of being a sapmmer, threatened with immediate termination of services, refused to acknowledge that I was not using their email services and refused to let me speak to a supervisor. He identified himself at Taj Abuse419. Someone needs to fire this guy, and give EVERYBODY sensitivity training so they treat customers with compassion and understanding. Especially when they F%^& the customers like this.

Irritated in the Bay Area.

Any word on the class action suit? I finally brought my exchange server back to life and plan on using an alt. mail relay service to send mail from my exchange server. Also isn’t there any type of FCC rules Comcast is breaking by not only scala-rating (shaping) traffic but also by blocking specific ports? Seems to me like they are doing is more like controlling information which I would deem unconstitutional.

comcast is a joke! I contacted them five times over two days asking why port 587 wasn’t working in entourage as the recommended alternative to port 25.

I finally called godaddy and they told me to change the port to 80, which worked!

stupid comcast.

alright. i went through pretty much all kinds of torture written in this page. Luckily, after an hour of torture one gentle man got on the phone and simply reset the modem (from his end) and things started working smoothly.

Note, resetting the modem (say power off/on) from your end will not make any difference. Its got to be reset from their end. So, when you see this problem, simply ask the tech support person to reset your modem, sessions …etc at their end.

Just happened to me in PA, philly area. Comcast blocked port 25. Talked to CSR, told ‘em that port 25 “is probably blocked”, she said yes. Redirected me to security guy

who was fairly professional, but told me that “you have so many prorts open you probably have a virus…”. When I said “which ports” and asked to list them all his reply was 21 (FTP),25 (SMTP – email),80 (HTTP – browser),110 (POP – email), 443 (SSL – secure browser again). He said “these ports stay open, they should be closed, it is a security issue, yada-yada”. Seems to me normal internet browsing, don’t see it any other way anyhow, I basically’ve been told to “close other ports, and then we’ll open you a 25 port”. And on my reply WTF?…he sait basically to the extend of “tough luck, you should bet business account”. So I basically told him he should get a better job, maybe.

Now here’s the catch. I called Comcast Business, and sure there’s an account only a few bucks more than current resindetial – $59.95. But, you have to pay $100 installation fee AND have a 1 or 2 year contract signed (fee waived for 3-year contract). I told them I’ve been a LONG time Residential customer, and was basically extorted into using Business (exactly zero speed improvement in my area, CSR checked for me, plus THEIR cable modem), and maybe there’s a way to waive installation fee. Nope, tough luck she said.

COMCAST SUCKS.

This happened to me a few months ago. I swtched to port 587 and all is okay. I am a photographer and I do sent a lot of email but I am hardly a spammer. I don’t think it’s right for THEM to just assume you are a spammer and block the port. That’s what is happening.

SOlutions I’ve read from this page:

Switch to one of the following ports 80, 587, or 2525
Call Tech support and ask them to reset your session
Call abuse at comcast and have them put in a ticket
Do not call the general number, it’s useless.
Switch to another provider
switch mail programs (thunderbird seems to not like any port and is not supported by Comcast (which makes no sense))
Go online to send email (not through them)
Switch to their smtp.comcast.net settings (call and get them)

Right now I use apple mail and I use smtp.mac.com and port 25 was useless. I switched to 587 and have no problems now.

Same here–Comcast blocked outbound port 25 because they determined my machine was sending spam. Neat trick, considering a) I don’t use comcast’s mail servers, ever and b) I’m a security admin, so my machines are as secure as they can possibly be at any given time–I even ran a virus scan after determining what the problem was to be sure. Not on my end.

I think Comcast just dragnets a couple hundred IP addresses at a time on a whim, or if anyone is unlucky enough to end up in the “reply to” field of outbound spam (google “joe job” for more information) and some abuse admin somewhere is too lazy to look at the numerical IP instead of the various domain names listed in the email headers, this can happen to you.

After reasoning with/teaching an argumentative, ignorant, abusive (ha) “abuse specialist” for about half an hour, I got hung up on, called back, got a guy on the phone who knew his /dev/null from his elbow, and had the problem sorted out within seconds. The first guy “warned” me that if Comcast blocked port 25 again they “would never remove it!!!” which made me laugh (yes, out loud). He didn’t like that, so he started probing my cable modem. When I told him to stop it, he didn’t like that either (“Stop what?” “Probing my ports, I can see you doing it.”) so he hung up.

Waiting on a supervisor to call me back so I can condemn the first guy and laud the second, but yeah, in a nutshell, Comcast seems to be firing outbound port 25 blocks out of some sort of confetti-cannon these days. If they ask you to re-map ports, tell them no–you’ve done nothing wrong, so why should you have to go through the hassle of changing your software settings (in some cases, conceivably opening security holes on remote servers you need to connect to) just so Comcast can continue to “manage their network” by basically swinging wrecking balls at it?

For what it’s worth, no one at any part of the “support” chain could give me any indication of either why the block was put in place or identify any spam sent from my IP (ever). Stupid.

If we, as customers, make this one of those issues that costs them lots and lots of help desk time, maybe they’ll stop doing it.

I received the you have a Virus E Mail, claiming I am a spammer? I found out they changed the SMTP port to 587? I changed my E mail in Outlook, My Company Email would not send out, which is a non comcast private mail server, I could send E mail on port 25 using Verizon Wireless card but not while on the Comcast network. What I have done is change my Company Mail SMTP to use Comcast SMTP info. I haven’t done a port scan yet but will later.
The Helpdesk ‘tard informed me this Port Blocking is Comcast wide. Not just me. OF course they are not concerned that you might have more than Comcast mail…

Blocked mine too with no warning. Spent a week figuring it out because they did it silently.

Because of this I am changing isp’s. Don’t support businesses who well you internet services, only to block you silently later. I will pay much more than I was paying with Comcast, but it will be well worth it because I will get full internet access.

I added another pop account to my Microsoft Outlook 2007 client and within minutes got blocked on Port 25 by Comcast. I wasted many hours talking to the pop mail hosting company only to figure out tonight that Comcast blocked the port. I changed to port 587 so I could send out the messages queued up in my outbox, but how long will it be before Comcast blocks me on that port too.

Verizon FIOS is an option in my area, so the minute Verizon is ready to hook me up, I’m totally dumping Comcast. Last year I got rid of my Comcast cable television service to punish them for intermitent Internet problems that ended up being in their facility and not at my home. Comcast is a really bad customer support company so don’t blow a fuse yelling at the low level staff. Instead you should obtain the name and telephone number of their executives and chew them out.

There is no excuse for poor service or diguised upsells from residential to business services. That’s a crock!. I say let’s start a class action law suit against Comcast and stop this practice altogether.

I recently had my port 25 blocked. My wife and I are not spammers, and now we cannot use our Apple Mail to check our email. This recently happened to a friend of mine as well. It appears the blocks are random, as the Comcast Support explicitly told me there is no block on my port 25. I am in the process of contacting the local news to report this incident and make Comcast’s unjust policies known.

Mine got blocked today for no reasonthat I can think of.
Apple Mail now can’t send to my work or another server I use. i am not spamming so this does appear to be random.
Lost a day of work trying to fix it. Apparently I will be cotacted with 48hrs

This has happened to me using both Apple Mail (personal use) and Entourage (for work). I called Comcast tech support and they never mentioned a block on port 25, but suggested I try 587 when port 25 wouldn’t cooperate. It now works. Entourage had been working with port 25 but suddenly stopped. A switch to port 587 fixes the problem.

My mother seems to be having the same problem with AT&T.

Here’s what I don’t understand: why won’t the spammers just move to port 587? How is this a solution?

Geez can NO ONE be specific in this thread??

You need to be using smtp.comcast.net with port 587 not 25, do NOT use SSL or other authentication, but DO offer username/password confirmation through your email client (Thunderbird, etc.) and use your @comcast.net email.

Got the “youre a dirty spammer” email today just after my smtp started timing out. Fortunately for me I didnt have a hard time getting it to work again. Live chat gave me the direct number to the abuse dept and I had it all straightened out in about 5 minutes. I occasionally forward emails to 10+ recipients (friends and family) of entertaining emails I get so I suspect that was why they blocked it. 1st the torrent throttling, then the bandwidth cap, and now this.. I have to wonder what will be next.

in = 110, out= 587, in = mail.comcast.net, out = smtp.comcast.net

I just experienced this problem on all days, Thanksgiving.
We couldn’t send any mail but could receive mail. Comcast is my internet provider but they are not who we go through for our e-mail. We have 2 domains through IX Webhosting and it’s their servers that our e-mails go through. I first contacted them and found out that they don’t block Port 25 but that they have this problem coming past there help desk everyday due to Comcast blocking this port. I then contacted Comcast and simply explained that 1) I wasn’t about to change anything on my end since it has been working perfectly fine for well over 10+ years and 2) I wanted to know why my modem (which belongs to Comcast due to us upgrading a year ago to the digital voice) was selected and Port 25 was all of a sudden blocked. They couldn’t of course tell me why they did this but they did unblock it.

So, if you go through Comcast’s servers to get your e-mail then yes, Port 25 is blocked and you’ll have to set your out going to 587 but if you don’t go through Comcast’s servers for your e-mail and you use their modem, then this is were the block on Port 25 occurs. Call them and ask that the block on your modem be removed and more than likely it will be done in seconds. Problem with them doing all of this is that some of us (including myself) have no clue to what to say to get this problem rectified. The only why I found out was due to the help desk at our hosting company about the block but it was search on Google that I that talked about Comcast selecting certain modems and blocking Port 25 that way.

I started having this problem about 2 weeks ago. Changed the port from 25 to 587, and all was well. As of today, 587 will not work either. I never received any notifications from Comcast….about spam or anything else. I’ve tried it with and without a secure connection. Nothing works. I am still receiving mail…just can’t send. Anyone have any ideas about where to go from here? BTW…my husband’s outbox works. Same account…??

I got blocked without warning by Comcast. They completely blocked my port 25 and left me to work out the issue on my own. I spent about 2 days talking to tech support with my third party email service, my modem, etc etc. It was not until my second call with Comcast that the tech mentioned “oh, you’ve been blocked for SPAM” SPAM?? I do NOTHING suspicious on my computer! Then, after I as transferred to the “secret” Abuse Non-Service, I was berated for being a SPAMMER, told I needed to upgrade to Comcast Business Class, and told “I will fix this later” And that was it. Wow. Yet another reason to hate Comcast. Isn’t this company out of business yet?!?!

Comcast, I am changing service. You lost yet another customer.

Comcast blocked port 25 going out from my IP address 2 days back.
I just got off the phone with a guy from the abuse dept and got my port unblocked after talking to two mindless first level support people (who knoew jack about email or networking).
Hilarious quotes from them:
1. Abuse dept guy: “If someone marks an email sent by you to them as junk/spam in their email client we mark you as a spammer”. I humored him and asked him how he knew they marked my email as junk on their private email client (say a verizon user hits spam on their outlook express). He said that was proprietary information that he could not share. I was laughing so hard. That is NOT possible AT ALL. Email systems are not built that way, nor are spam blockers. The best they can do is put you on a RBL, but they will never let Comcast know to put their own IP address on a RBL.

Anyway – enough fun for a day.
If you have a blocked port issue, ask tech support to transfer you to the abuse dept and ask them (politely) to unblock your port 25.

Thank you for your policing Comcast, but i am doing just fine myself.

The funny thing about Comcast’s process is that they block based on IP address. So if I really were a spammer, I’d spoof a new MAC address on my router, get a new IP – pump a bunch of spam and then get a new IP address after this one got blocked. The poor sob who gets my blocked IP next would get screwed.
This is such an amateurish way of trying to block spam.
Another quote from the same guy on why you’d be blocked:
“If you get a hidden image in your email or happen to forward it or reply to it with the same hidden image (you’d never know anyway since it is hidden), you’d be blocked”.
Or if you reply to a viagra spam email – you’d be blocked.
What a policy – do I really control what is sent to me?
So their algorithm identifies not the senders of SPAM but the receivers – way to go geniuses !

The following listed here last year is the solution.

I just stumbled across a solution to a similar problem my mother-in-law was having after Comcast took over her Roadrunner account. Changing the Port number did not help, but I found the solution eventually. In the Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings (in Thunderbird), I had to change her username to ALL CAPS. the original username “janedoe2@houston.rr.com” (not her real address) now needs to be “JANEDOE2@Houston.rr.com. (I didn’t check to see if the “H” in Houston really needs to be in caps.) She can still receive emails addressed to her “old” lowercase email address. Of course the Comcast support tech told her that the fault was with her email program, and that they could not help her because they do not “support” Thunderbird. I guess that should be no surprise, as they don’t even support Comcast.

EUREKA!!!!

Just wanted to thank you folks for giving me the answer!

When Comcast first blocked smtp port 25 I looked up the answer of changing it to port 587 and my comcast mail worked just fine.

BUT… My other email (via hotpop.com) does not recognize any smtp port besides 25 so I could receive but not send from that address. Changing the port to 587 only gave me a different error, and it still would not send.

I let it go for quite a while, but tonight I needed to send something from THAT address, so I googled it and wound up here. EUREKA!! Not only did I need to change the smtp port to 587 but I also had to change the smtp server to log on using my comcast email address and password instead of “same as incoming” which was my hotpop address etc.

So there’s the secret formula to making it work.
Thank you all so much for helping me fix this mess!
God bless!
~ MomRee ~

I think comcast is a bunch of robbers and bandits, i found a way around their tricks and still run my own email server. I don’t feel I’m breaking my terms, it’s my computer, I’m not doing anything illegal, I just want to be able to further my skills at home. I won’t advertise, but if you want to know my work around – email me, it’s all very easy.

Comcast has informed me that they now use port 587 for email since they have started the smartzones.

I have been blocked on port 25 inbound. I am a geek and I have my own ‘home’ email server which I use to send myself photos I click on my telephone and sort on my ‘home’ gallery using the content in the email with the attached picture. I don’t see this as commercial, I don’t sell anyting, I’ m must using the Internet and I don’t think my incomming port 25 should be blocked. I’ve contacted comcast customer service and they said that the port is blocked because of spam. Spam? I don’t send anything out of this mail server! I specifically dissabled outgoing traffic. There is no way in hell that this server can relay mail or become a spam zombi. hello, comcast, what kind of service is this?

Now it seems I have to pay some other service, like dyndns, to mail relay hop to another port address that is not blocked. WTF am I paying comcast for anyway?

Thomas. How do I get a hold of you? I read your post. I’ve spent many hours on the phone with Comcast (who claims they’re not blocking) and Go Daddy who says they are. I’m realy to tear my hair out. God I’m mad. Can you help me please? Thanks

Comcast blocked me and gave me no notification.
would it helped if i had a business account? i sometimes work from home but no spamming just emails to customers.
Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Thomas,

I’m interested in knowing the methods you have used to get around this Comcast problem. I just found out today that my outgoing mail server is blocked. Now I can’t even contact my own clients!!

Thanks Thomas! Hope to hear from you

We also are blocked on outgoing mail. My boss called comcast and they gave him the run around that we needed some program to clean up our registry files. I don’t know what to do to get this fixed, they are not helpful at all and we can not to our daily business tasks cuz we can not e-mail ANYONE!!!! anyone know the fix to this???

Yesterday (2009-03-10), Comcast started blocking port 25 in my area: Harford County, Maryland. I have a call in to support (but we know how that will work out… 78% chance of screaming).

Since I never use my Comcast email account – and in fact do not know what the username or password for it is: using their server to send my mail is not an option (even if it were an option, I find it morally repugnant).

I was able to do a work around using my firewalls…

At the location with my web/mail server I setup a firewall rule to redirect any connections to the external mail IP on port 26 to the mail server’s internal IP on port 25.

Tested this by changing my mail client to use port 26 – all good… then since I have a firewall at home too (and didn’t want to change all my email account profiles to use the “wrong” port… I added a rule here to say anything going to port 25 send to port 26.

So now if I send an email – my firewall redirects the connection to port 26 then when it gets to the office firewall it redirects port 26 to port 25.

If you don’t have access to (at least) your mail server’s firewall this sort of solution won’t work for you…

Same here. In the morning I found a message I would need to change my port for outgoing mail because they detected “virus-like activity” and that morning they blocked outbound and inbound mail. I have my own mail server, so I need port 25 to be open to receive mail.
They told me I had been reported as a spammer even though Comcast’s spam detection software did not identify me as a spammer and I’m pretty certain my systems are secure.
I changed my configuration to use the port 587 for outbound mail and then spend hours before I realized that they blocked inbound traffic as well.
Now I will probably have to subscribe to a MailRelay service to protect myself from Comcast’s security measures.

Two analysts and 82 minutes of chat, the final comcast message was that Outlook was broken, that their end is fine. Office Repair did not help.

I googled around and found the port25 block issue. They had me use port 587 but no help. I was told that unless I uninstall Office, I would never send mail again. Affter ending the chat and reporting on the survey that my issue was not resolved, a supervior apparently got involved and unblocked the port. 15 minutes later outlook ’spontaneously’ came back to life, sending mail on both 25 and 587.

Biggest problem with any customer service is this: CS is the FRONT of the company, customers first contact. These are also the lowest paid, least educated people – tier one. By definition, ignorance means that one is unaware, so when tier 1 is not informed by the core technical expertise of the company (the engineers) how can they know the right answer. To them, the problem is Outlook, the the engineers it is port filtering. You, the customer gets shafted as the ISP/phone company focuses on revenue margin over expensive quality service.

This is what i got in the mail:

Dear Comcast High-Speed Internet Subscriber:

Action Taken: In an effort to help prevent spam and ensure the security of our network and customers, Comcast has modified your modem’s settings to prevent the sending of email on port 25. That is the default port email programs such as Outlook Express use to send email. We’ve taken this action because we may have detected virus-like activity from your modem or received reports from other email providers that mail from your modem generated complaints from their users. Please read this message to understand how this action may impact your ability to send email and what you should do next.

Comcast Webmail Users
If you use a web browser to access your Comcast.net email, this action will not affect your ability to send or receive e-mail. This action also does not affect any non-Comcast webmail services.

Email Program Users (Outlook Express, Outlook, MacMail, etc.)
If you use an email program, this action will disable your program’s ability to send email until you change your email program settings to send email on port 587. Port 587 uses authentication and is an industry-recommended alternative to port 25. If you use Outlook Express and Comcast.net email, Comcast has provided a simple one click fix for you to use with Internet Explorer. If you use another email program such as MacMail, Eudora, or Thunderbird, please visit our client page for information on how to change the settings for sending email in your email program.

Last night I found out I had the same problem, port 25 was blocked…I called tech support and they were worthless, they kept insisting that port 25 wasn’t being blocked. I was finally given this number to call, 856-317-7272. I was able to get a real person without too much dificulty by following the menu and waiting a couple seconds. It took them about a minute.

If you have this problem, try giving them a call. He said that port 25 should be unblocked. I have not been able to test it yet but I have confidence because it actually sounded like this guy knew what he was talking about.

If that doesn’t work you could also just use port 587 (I think that is it) with the comcast smtp for all your email accounts. It will work and it should look fairly normal, even in the header though alot of the servers in the recieved portion will be comcast servers.

I see they have this on their KB’s:

Port 25 Blocking

* Port 25 is conduit on a computer that spammers can take control of and use to send their spam – often without the user ever knowing his/her computer has been “hijacked”. Comcast works with our customers to block access to Port 25 and protect their PC.
* Comcast recommends that our customers establish a more secure email configuration on their PC – Port 587 – We have made it easy by creating a one-click fix that automatically configures your computers to this safer PC configuration.

The “Security” branch of Comcast told me they had blocked everyone’s port 25. Obviously they lied.

I started having the same issue about a week ago with comcast blocking port 25,,took jim’s advice above and changed my port to 587 in Mozilla Thunderbird and that worked…Thanks jim

Same story. Blocking outgoing port 25. Call Comcast and have the pleasure of explaining what is happening to the tech (to no avail). How and why would they even think of doing this and not notifying anyone of it – especially paying customers? I quickly dropped their service and it was the best thing I have done. In a few years everything will be delivered digitally and that is what is really scary. Does anyone think this forshadows Net Neutrality problems? I’ve worked in other settings as a vendor with Comcast. I can say that they are all about profit. I just don’t understand why you’d want to make your own customers mad in the process. Bad Business Practice. I really hope other people see what is going on and abandon the service for companies that do care about the customer, regardless of profit sometimes.

Comcast sent email to my @comcast.net account informing me that port 25 is now blocked due to a spam report. I verified port 25 is blocked by telneting to port 25 and not being able to connect.

The last time this happened I setup OpenSUSE Postfix to send mail to Comcast smtp server on port 587 while still receiving my mail on port 25.

Now that port 25 is blocked, I signed up for DynDNS.com MailHop-Relay service for my domain @$50/year (~$4/mo). This is far less expensive than purchasing Comcast business class, and does address the SPAM issue because DynDNS.com will pre-filter SPAM and Virus checking for you if you configure their service to do this for your domain.

So my incoming is being provided by DynDNS.com MailHop-Relay service on a different port. And my outgoing is still going through smtp.comcast.com on their secure port.

Spam is the real issue, and I think this solution addresses SPAM, which is costing us all money, one way or another.

I do wish the industry could come up with widely accepted secure email tools for delivery which can’t be spoofed by spammers. i.e. positively identify senders before allowing connection and transmission.