Orcon POP/IMAP stopped working on holiday, Webmail continues to work fine.

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon POP/IMAP stopped working on holiday, Webmail continues to work fine.

Kelpies

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#302146 1-Nov-2022 15:17

I have a customer that traveled to the Philippines recently, the moment she tried checking her Outlook over there it failed and hasn't worked since. Her iPhone and iPad stopped working too but she can still use Webmail.

Once she was back in NZ I tried every imaginable setting to get it working, starting with the official settings. We changed her email password via the Orcon website which worked for Webmail but made no difference for POP/IMAP.

We contacted customer support and they did confirm that connections from overseas can be blocked but after a few days got an email back saying the "fault was closed as we do not support the setup of your email through any 3rd party clients, apps or websites." but also "We have checked your email and confirmed there's nothing on our end that will stop it from being setup through other apps".

I've been setting up email clients for over 25 years now and it just refuses to work. The error message is always "Authentication failed", the only other time I had a webmail working but POP/IMAP not was on Spark and it was a password mismatch between webmail and POP but a password change fixed it. Does anyone have ideas that might help us get it working?

Thanks in advance.

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#2990636 1-Nov-2022 15:51

It has been a while since I tried it myself, but were you using the SSL POP/SMTP settings found here ?

As I recall, you had to use the SSL setting to send email from outside of the Orcon network (such as from a different NZ ISP).

If that isn't working then maybe they have a blanket block on overseas connections now (?) spammers and all.

Kelpies

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2990718 1-Nov-2022 18:41

Yes we are definitely using those website settings (tried both types). It looks like she was originally using the unencrypted settings and ports.

The interesting thing is that the customer is no longer overseas and is back on her home Orcon broadband but all mail clients still seem to be blocked. I thought she might have somehow inadvertently installed a VPN but that wouldn't explain the iphone/ipad not working.

I think I may have to forward all her Orcon emails to gmail and let Outlook connect to that.

Kelpies

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2991543 3-Nov-2022 15:51

Just to update while trying to configure Gmail to send via the Orcon account this error message was received "550 you are attempting to send from a black-listed username (*******)" the actual username *ed out.

Ive forwarded on this error message to Orcon so hopefully some resolution.

yitz

2080 posts

Uber Geek

#2991627 3-Nov-2022 17:49

If you don't get any luck through the normal helpdesk, could be worth PMing one of their representatives on here:
https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=81&topicid=265353&page_no=2#2400844

It's possible that it's a proactive step by Orcon/Slingshot/Vocus, once they find you are transmitting your user credentials in the clear in a way that can easily be harvested from an overseas IP, to suspend access to your account via POP3/SMTP until you change your password.