E-Mail Issue, is it Avast or Virgin Media

[thunderbird]

Will try and be as short as possible. Windows 7 laptop, Avast 6.0.1367. In my profile I use Outlook 2010 for an e-mail address with a @ntlworld.com ending and Thunderbird for the other e-mail address with a @virginmedia.com ending. On the wifes profile she uses Outlook 2010 for an e-mail address with a @ntlworld.com ending. Its all been working perfectly for just about a year with no conflicts at all even if I open Outlook and Thunderbird at the same time.

On Tuesday evening 24 Jan 2012 I could not send e-mails using Outlook, got a message saying could not contact SMTP server. Tried the wifes profile, exactly the same. Tried Thunderbird in my profile, no problem, e-mail sent and arrived. Outlook in both profiles was happily receiving e-mails and as I said above so was Thunderbird. Checked setting in Outlook, everything fine, checked settings in Avast, everything fine. Rang Virgin media and got a recorded message saying there were broadband problems in my postcode, left it at that but in the meantime Outlook at managed to send the e-mails that were in the outbox. Tried sending new e-mails but it failed as before and sent later.

Yesterday evening tried again, exactly the same as Tuesday. Rang Virgin Media who said there was a problem with the @ntlworld.com domain and to change the smtp server to a virgin media extension, made no difference, said he would ring back in 10 minutes, that was at 7.30, 13 hours ago, still not heard anything.

Had a play and the first thing I tried was deselecting "scan outbound messages" in the Avast mail shield, don't know why, just a guess, Outlook sent e-mails immediately in both mine and the wifes profile, problem solved, so I thought. When I tried Thunderbird it would not send an e-mail until I reselected the "scan outbound messages" in the Avast mail shield.

Although this is annoying its obviously not the end of the world, only takes a few seconds but I was wondering if the wise of this forum could perhaps have any knowledge about this, maybe I am not the first even though it has to be said my set up is a little unique with both Outlook and Thunderbird on one laptop.

Thanks.

Paul

[thunderbird]

Now appears sorted, looks like Virgin Media have pulled their fingers out.

[xtinguish]

Although Virgin Media have sorted out the ntlworld.com server temporarily, I believe it will eventually be discontinued.  They will eventually send details for you to change to the new server and have made it compatible already. When I telephoned them the other day regarding this problem, I was advised to immediately change the outgoing outlook express smtp server from ntlworld.com to virginmedia.com. This solves any future problems you might have and mine has worked flawlessly ever since including when the ntlworld server was down. Also, you don't need to scan emails with avast as Virgin now use Gmail for all their emails and use ssl encryption and antivirus on everything which seems to conflict with Avast settings.

[thunderbird]

Just to update you all, as xtinguish says the solution was temporary and I have been unable to send e-mails of at least 2 occations since I said it was sorted. My solution of unticking the "scan outbound messages box" made no difference on the later occations. Again I tried xtinguish's solution as originally recommended by Virgin media of changing the smtp server to virginmedia.com from ntlworld.com and it still did not work, only difference was a different error message. All this time the other account I have that I use with Thunderbird instead of Outlook has been fine.

So I set up my old ntlworld account in Thunderbird using the virginmedia.com smtp server and it has worked faultlessly now for about 10 days. So for some reason Outlook does not appear to like the Virgin Media smtp address wheras Thunderbird does not appear to have an issue.

So my solution is to have 2 mail clients accessing the same e-mail address's, luckily with the Virgin Media "recent:" command in the user name they both syncronise messages thus I have exactly the same inbox on both.

Don't think I will ever buy Outlook again, if only I had tried Thunderbird 18 months ago, I would have saved myself £80.