Why does my email program fail while sending email through the mail server?

Recently many Internet Service Providers have begun to attempt to control spam by requiring their users to transmit all outgoing email through their own email servers. In order to enforce this policy, these ISPs have placed blocks preventing you from contacting mail servers run by other hosts and companies on the Internet. These blocks typically affect the SMTP protocol which is normally run on port number 25. From your perspective, it may appear that our mail server is not functioning properly, but this is unlikely to be the case most of the time. We go to great lengths to ensure mail server operations are not interrupted for long periods of time.

ISPs do not typically block incoming server ports such as POP3 or IMAP which are used to check and receive mail, so if you are experiencing trouble with these services, you should definitely contact support for assistance.

If your Internet Service Provider is preventing you from sending email through our mail server you usually have four options available to you:

1) Use the alternate SMTP service on port 587. Your ISP will probably not block the secondary SMTP port, and it should function in the same way as the normal port.

2) Use our Secure SMTP mail service. As of the beginning of March 2005, we began offering SSL encrypted email service on the standard port 465. Your email program must be capable of SSL support in order to take advantage of this option. If you use this service, you should use the mail hostname "mail.nozonenet.com" to ensure that your email program is able to verify the security properly.

3) Use your Internet Service Provider's outgoing mail server in place of our mail server. Your ISP's documentation or web site should provide the hostname you need to enter. Usually ISPs recognize that you may send email from alternate email addresses and will allow you to send email with a From: address that is outside your provider's domain.

4) Contact your Internet Service Provider to request additional information on their remote SMTP mail server policy. Your ISP may be able to make exceptions for properly secured mail servers such as ours if necessary.

If none of these four options seems to work for you, please feel free to contact support directly and we'll see if we can find another way to help you send email with your hosting account.