Last week I had a problem with my BT Broadband connection: despite my authentication settings being correct, their SMTP server suddenly wouldn't accept my own domain address in my e-mail From: field. Only the btinternet address would work. Since I'd not done anything, clearly they'd made some configuration change.
This was a pain in the backside. I had either to switch to a btinternet address (which looks amateurish), tell e-mail recipients to ignore the From: address and reply to a different one (which also looks amateurish as well as being messy), or find another SMTP server (which would probably cost). BT Broadband's helpline was unable to help, and told me a) there was no way to configure to use my own address and b) they couldn't offer support for Pegasus Mail anyway.
I Googled, and found their advice to be completely wrong. There is a fix. You log on to BT Yahoo! using your btinternet address and password (i.e. the ones you use for SMTP authentication) and go to Mail / Options / Mail Accounts. There you find the option to add non-BT e-mail addresses that you want to send from. Problem solved: now I can used my own domain address again.
I don't know if this fix is generally known, but it's not exactly a positive sign that BT Broadband can't/won't tell you about it.
Addendum, March 28th: I find, at last, that this is acknowledged on the BT Yahoo! Service Status page:
BT Yahoo! SMTP Security Upgrade - March 2008
As part of ongoing security enhancements to BT Yahoo! email, we have upgraded the security to prevent emails from being sent from client applications (Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird etc) when the "From" email address is not either a BT Yahoo! email address or a validated alternative email address. If you see an error 553 message, you will need to validate the email address from which you wish to send. Step by step instructions can be found at BT Yahoo! Mail Help.
Fair enough. But what baffled me, and many others, is that the relationship between BT Broadband access and BT Yahoo! wasn't made clear to me as a customer. Like many others, I was given the SMTP access details on signing up for broadband, but never realised that they also accessed BT Yahoo! webmail or that BT Yahoo! handled SMTP traffic for BT Broadband.
Addendum #2, March 31st: it is now becoming clear that this unnannounced security upgrade caused widespread problems among BT Broadband users. It'd be interesting to know how much money BT made from unnecessary calls to its helpline. See The Register: BT 'security upgrade' causes email headaches.
Yes... from now on every non-bt email address has to be notified as mentioned... what a painful and long winded process though! What other isp puts their customers through these "hoops" to do something which should be so simple.
ReplyDeleteIn desperation, I have just voted with my feet and switched from BT Broadband to Plus.net for which I pay £5 less per month, get 15GB download limit instead of 10GB and they use a "relay" mail server for outgoing mail without the dreaded SMTP authentication. I have had intermittent problems ever since the SMTP Authentication system was brought in! Enough is enough!