Email security settings

Today was consumed with calls to technical support at Cox trying to get my email working again! I got crazy answers like, "all of our email servers are down for a while" and "we no longer service any email other than Cox.net accounts" which turned out to be totally bogus.

Finally with a ton of trial and tribulation I believe I have found a solution for outgoing SMTP if you are using an email provider other than Cox. 

Those of us using port 25 for SMTP in the past suddenly found that our outbound mail was no longer working unless we were specifically using a Cox.net email account.  We were told to switch to port 587 and turn on SSL.

I use Mozilla Thunderbird, so it was under Tools > Account Settings > Outgoing Server (SMTP)

I changed the port, selected that, but could not authenticate using my Cox account userID and password.

Support said, "we do not support other domain email accounts, only Cox.net"

Turns out that is incorrect.  You need to put in credentials for the mail server that you are actually using.  In my case it was webmail04.register.com for my business email.  That comes from your email service provider, not Cox.

Here are the settings that worked for me:

Set the port to 587

Connection Security:  None

Authentication: Password, transmitted insecurely

User name:  Enter the account ID you use for email per your email service provider

Save the SMTP settings.

Then, when you send your first email, it will ask for your password.  Again, not the Cox account password, but the password from your email service provider.

Hope that works for you!