FAQ: I’m receiving email but can’t send

Note: This information applies to users of Windows and Mac

If you can receive but not send email, the two most likely sources of the problem are firewalls and antivirus software.

Antivirus software

Sometimes the communication breaks down between the program that sends your email and the program that scans for viruses. A common solution when this happens is to delete your email settings, restart your computer and put them back in. Here is a list of walkthrough articles for setting up your email account.

http://www.orcon.net.nz/support/gfaq_page/setting_up_email

Another solution is to see our guides about switching off popular antivirus software.

Firewalls

A firewall's job is to monitor Internet traffic on your computer and stop anything possibly malicious. Unfortunatly, sometimes it decides that even legitamate traffic is malicious. A malfunctioning firewall can stop email from being sent.

To troubleshoot, you need to either check your connection or turn off the firewall. Here's how to do both.
Checking your connection

            * Go to the Start menu. Look for "Run" (in Vista, the search box at the bottom of the Windows menu is the equivalent)
            * Type command into the "Run" box. Click "OK"
            * A black command window should open
            * Click in the window and at the flashing cursor, type telnet mail.orcon.net.nz 25 and press the "Enter" key

            * The command window will tell you it's trying to open a connection to mail.orcon.net.nz on port 25

On a computer that has no problems, the screen will blank out and you'll see a welcome message including a line that identifies the computer you've connected to and ends in ESMTP, SMTP, or something similar. This means that your firewall isn't the cause of whatever email problem you're having.

If you see a "Connect failed" message, it's very possible the firewall is to blame.

If this is the case, you can either disable your firewall as per our guides. If we haven't covered your firewall software ourselves, you can try searching for your firewall software's name on Google with "disable" as an extra keyword. Failing that, try calling your firewall's manufacturer and have them help you configure it.