RESOLVED-Action Required: Email delays through SMTP
- Posted February 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, Classic Mail, General
***UPDATED INSTRUCTIONS BELOW***
Over the past few weeks some of our POP users have experienced varying delays when sending Yahoo! Mail messages via email clients (such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.). We understand that this has been frustrating, and sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
Recently we began experiencing an unexpected increase in traffic through the servers we have dedicated for POP/SMTP messages. When we first became aware that some users were having their messages delayed because of this we examined the issue, and the initial solution appeared to have the problem under control. However we soon learned that more needed to be done to ensure the levels of service we strive to provide.
As a result we spent the last several days not only upgrading hardware resources for our SMTP servers, but also restructuring the way the bandwidth of these servers is allocated. We are confident that this solution will not only resolve the immediate problems, but also ensure that the systems are even more reliable in the future.
UPDATED: 2/25 - ACTION REQUIRED
It looks like it wasn’t clear where to look or what needed to be updated, so hopefully this will call it out a little better. Most users will need to update the settings in their email client. You’ll need to login to your Yahoo! Mail account and visit the Options area to see your personal settings. We are also updating Help pages, but the best way to get the updated information is from within your account.
- Login to Yahoo! Mail
- Click on the Mail Options link
- Click on “POP & Forwarding”
- Click on “Set up or edit POP & Forwarding”
- Click on “POP Settings” or “View POP Settings”
- Review the settings provided and update your email client to match
Sorry for any confusion!
End 1st Update———
UPDATED: 2/26 - ACTION REQUIRED
It’s still looking my instructions aren’t as clear (or as thorough) as I thought. Fortunately, the Help pages are all updated and provide EXCELLENT step-by-step instructions.
Please click on the following links if you need detailed help for either of the following email clients:
As I’ve also noted in the comments section, some users have found that it worked best when they removed the Yahoo! account from Outlook, and that added it in as a new POP account (rather than updating the existing settings).
End 2nd Update ———
To ensure that your email client is properly configured to access the correct SMTP server you will need to login to the Mail Options of your Yahoo! Mail web account and review the updated settings provided in the POP Access Settings area.
Not everyone’s settings will need to be updated, but these settings could vary by region, so make sure you review and go with what is listed for your own account. Fortunately this is something that you would have done when you originally set up your email client, so it should be a pretty straightforward change.
Thank you again for your patience and for continuing to be a Yahoo! Mail customer.
Regards,
 |
Ryan K. Community Manager Yahoo! Mail |
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- 262 Comments
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Seems to be working with the new settings… great news!
Thanks for the fixes.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Looks like it has fixed the problem. Now I just have to decide whether I should stay with Yahoo after the last couple of very frustrating weeks or go ahead and switch to the gmail account I set up a couple of days ago.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Dear Ryan,
am having difficulties in accessing my email for tha past couples of weeks and have tried all i could but to no avail,i cant send email and i cant go into my email address couple with sending mails through microsoft outlook,am just so fed up with the entire situation.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Okay, my previous comment was premature. Sent 7 messages to myself over the last couple hours. 1,2,5,7 all delivered immediately. 3,4 not delivered nearly an hour later, 6 delivered with 7 minute delay. “Resolved” should be taken with a grain of salt. This is with server name changes in place.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
Thanks for the update… You should e-mail this info to every Yahoo mail Address….
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:14 am
I can’t send mail via Windows Mail keep getting the same error
The message could not be sent. The authentication setting might not be correct for your outgoing e-mail [SMTP] server. For help solving this problem, go to Help, search for “Troubleshoot Windows Mail”, and read the “I’m having problems sending e-mail” section. If you need help determining the proper server settings, please contact your e-mail service provider.
The rejected e-mail address was ‘jjcane64@yahoo.com’. Subject ‘Hi’, Account: ‘pop.mail.yahoo.com’, Server: ‘plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com’, Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: ‘530 authentication required - for help go to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/pop/pop-11.html‘, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 530, Error Number: 0×800CCC78
Please Help.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:20 am
Not working for me. Cannot connect at all with my new settings. Switched back to the old ones for now.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
Wow! What a MAJOR improvement. I was afraid I’d have to make the switch over to Gmail if the speed didn’t improve. But you “got’er fixed”. Thanks!
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
I am still having trouble. Only some mail comes in and only some mail gets delivered. I have not noticed any difference and have been having issues for over a week now. I am running the paid yahoo through Outlook 2003. Can anyone tell me what my Pop and smtp settings should look like. Right now I have incoming at 995 with the box below checked and outgoing at 587 with the box below not checked.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
Amy, you should follow the steps described above, if you follow the screen shot instructions, instructions will display on exactly what your setting should be. (e.g. your 587 outgoing port number is incorrect).
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:12 am
Dear Yahoo,
Yahoo’s communication and transparency on this issue and the many times this same issue has occurred in the past has been very disappointing and is not worthy of such a great company. This lack of daily email communication to is customers erodes customer sat, and erodes your subscription revenues as people defect to Gmail. If Yahoo simply communicates VIA EMAIL all issues in a timely manner with specific fix instructions, customers will be happier in the end.
Yahoo should email the specific fix you prescribe to all your Plus customers (once they are absolutely working consistenly, which currently they DO NOT). I suspect the audience for this message board is extremely limited.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Well, I changed my pop settings to those recommended and now I’m not connecting to yahoo mail AT ALL!
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Well, I changed my pop settings to those recommended and now I’m not connecting to yahoo mail AT ALL!
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 am
Well that cut off too soon. Sorry. I cannot connect to yahoo mail when I try to send and receive (and my settings are correct). I get a socket (0) error. So now what?
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 am
Ok, new error now. I didn’t have SSL checked so I did that and now I get this error: Socket Error: -2146885628, Port: 995, Protocol: POP.Cannot find object or property.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Nothing seems to work. Wish I had Gmail Problem is switching emails in my line of work is like changing your cell phone number. A Death Sentence!!
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Your link says to put “plus” in front of mail servers, the Yahoo Help says not to. Which one is it? I’ve tried both and only one of three emails to myself has come through after a half hour. Why is Yahoo not emailing Plus users notifying them of the outage as well as the new settings. I only know about it from emailing support about 4 times. Bottom line is it’s still not working right, the instructions are conflicting, and Yahoo has done a terrible job of communicating with its users. I’m a shareholder too, and this is very frightening. Do they not realize that reliable email is critical? It’s becoming hard to remain faithful to Yahoo.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I have been unable to access my e-mail on the web for over three days now. This the message Yahoo shows when clicking on the mail button:
“You’ve stumbled upon a temporary problem we’re having with Yahoo! Mail. Usually this problem gets resolved quickly, without you doing a thing. In fact it may be taken care of now.”
Temporary??? It’s been three days and reporting the problem does nothing except generate a boiler-plated response from Yahoo.
To me it’s unbelievable that Yahoo has created this mess and it’s hard for me to accept the lack of customer service and poor communication in dealing with the status of the problem.
BTW, call and you will be on hold for at least 30 minutes!
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
i am having problems getting emails they seem to take 2 or 3 days to get to me our other people … is this problem gowing to be an issue for vary long if so please let me know and i will go with some one els thank nicole turley
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Last night and this morning, after making the server name changes, I sent myself (yahoo to yahoo) 12 test messages. 9 delivered almost immediately, one with a few minutes delay, BUT one took 9 hours and one took 11 hours. I can’t accept this performance - and this has been going on for weeks now. Clearly “problem resolved” is not accurate. I expect with all the complaints, this message forum will be closed pretty soon as it was before. I’m fed up with the problems and the lack of communications and responsiveness.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
If my email account wasn’t so important to me, this would be hilarious!
First, I wouldn’t even have known this issue had been fixed–HA–if I didn’t happen to have “Yahoo! Mail Blog” set up as part of my content on “My Yahoo” home page. Even then, it’s something I rarely read. I’m doing well to get the time just to read a few of the top world news articles. I’m a Plus user. Why wasn’t I, or evidently anyone else, notified via email? Great account service–NOT!
Second, I made the changes suggested for Outlook, then sent myself 2 test-emails spaced ten minutes apart. Now, nearly 40 minutes later, I haven’t received either one…not in Outlook, and not even in my YahooMail in-box at Yahoo’s site. I changed back to original settings and sent a test email, which came through immediately, although it got filtered to my YahooMail spam folder, lol!
Hey Yahoo, I hope you haven’t patted yourself of the back for a job well done and taken the rest of the weekend off. Your problem, and ours, isn’t fixed.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I am severely disappointed in the way Yahoo managed this hugely significant problem. Denials, blaming users’ software and settings, delays in responding to complaints, all of these were slaps in the faces of loyal, paying customers, many of whom run small businesses from the Yahoo platform. The delays cost many of us missed revenue opportunities and service breakdowns with our own customers. While many communications can be handled effectively via email, there are instances when, God forbid!, a one-to-one live phone conversation with a human being who can actually provide answers and/or help is warranted.
I am sad to say that I am definitely looking for another email/web hosting partner.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I too am very frustrated with your e-mail service. I received an e-mail last evening at 8:40PM that was sent at 1:22AM early that morning. This is totally unacceptable for the Plus service we are paying for. I have tried all of your server recommendations in different variations, and nothing seems to help. In fact, with your settings, sometimes, it doesn’t work at all. Either, get your act together, get everything repaired, or get out of the business.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Referencing my post previous post (4th above), it’s now been nearly 2 hours and neither of my first two test emails sent to myself have come through. Great!
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Still not fixed and I still haven’t received 2 of my test emails. Yahoo should quit acting like a start-up and start acting like the $40 Billion communications company that it supposedly is.
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
RESOLVED! HARDLY! This has been going on for over a week now. Why on earth Microsoft would consider merging with YAHOO is beyond me.
I sent myself a test email to a different email account and it took over 6 hrs before it came.
What will it take to in order to get YAHOO to get this problem fixed?
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I can’t seem to log into my email account at all i get a message saying that internet explorer can’t load page. I talked to yahoo and they blame it on internet explorer i have the latest internet explorer so i know it isn’t the explorer.
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:06 pm
This e-mail mess is so serious that Yahoo should consider selling to Microsoft immediately. If they delay, they likely will have nothing left to sell (no customers).
My business depends on reliable e-mail service. Clearly it is becoming futile to depend on Yahoo. It has been three days without service and I’m still waiting for help. I’m not even talking about using an external mail program (as in Outlook), I’m talking about accessing Yahoo Web Mail.
Did all of the techs go home for the weekend? Does anyone really care? After 15 years of having Yahoo host my web site, I’m at the end of the line. Microsoft should think twice!
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Now it’s been over 6 hours and my test emails have not come through (see 2 previous posts).
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Thank goodness for the CNET forums. I’d never have heard this news otherwise. Does Yahoo! intend any DIRECT communication to those of us who pay for this (ahem) service?
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I am extremely frustrated that I cannot access my email. I get as far as logging into the account and I can see that there are emails there, but then I cannot access them. This has been the case for 2 days now. Can you say brutal. I have important emails to access. Is Yahoo aware of the distress we are all in? I don’t know what to do or if they are even working on this to resolve the issue. We should all start calling their PR Department, since it’s difficult to find the techs.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Both Mozilla and the Internet Explorer are not able to load the page when I try to get into my email. This is day 2
February 24th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I am having difficulties in accessing my email for tha past couples of weeks and have tried all i could but to no avail. I cant send email or reply to the mail that i have received by clicking reply button. I am getting an error as “The page is not responding”. I have a lot of important mails to send and receive, so please solve this problem a the earlist.
February 24th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Dear Yahoo
I had the problems you mentionned. I also received a message that has been posted 1 year ago. I didn’t check if it is resolved yet. But my questions are :
What happen to the messages I’ve sent and until now has not been delivered like messages I sent to a yahoo grup and so far has not been received?
I couldn’t find the “POP Settings” you mentionned in this solution. Can you please provide more info.
Thanks!
February 24th, 2008 at 7:05 am
Your “new e-mail setting” is absolutly TERRIBLE. Please bring back the other we had before. THANK YOU. P.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I have dificulties in open to read the my mesage in my inbox,when I open my mesage to read I see in the screen error report.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:20 am
My company uses authsmtp, all clients are getting failures. I tried the same thing as many others on here, sent emails 1,2,3 about 25% of them get though, then the other 40% come very late, the errors in which are returned by the authsmtp servers are listed below
I have informed Authsmtp to this probelm, usually I always get a support email back saying something, but they are not responding back with anything this time, quite concerning.
Now, I can send from gmail to yahoo email every time, I can telnet to port 25 to any Yahoo MX from my static cable modem, and never have a problem…
It will be one big pain to route yahoo messages from exchange around authsmtp if this continues
**********************************************
** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY **
** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE **
**********************************************
The original message was received at Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:38:59 GMT from outmail128183.authsmtp.com [62.13.128.183]
—– Transcript of session follows —– … Deferred
Warning: message still undelivered after 12 hours Will keep trying until message is 3 days old
OR
Transcript of session follows —– … Deferred: Operation timed out with b.mx.mail.yahoo.com.
February 24th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Sorry, but i’ve run two business’es off of yahoo mail for the past 5 years and upgrading your email system after the fact is not acceptable. I would have been fired by my clients if i messed with their business so badly for weeks, and this has been happening all year not just the past weeks. When i called your hard to find help line to try and get some assistance with this i spent an hour and 15 minutes on hold before i couldn’t wait any longer and decided you just werent taking care of your clients. Therefore instead of waiting another hour on hold or weeks for you to fix the problem, it took all of 15 minutes to set up my business at Gmail. Maybe next time you will put some resources into taking better care of your existing clients and not so much into expanding your business.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I don’t know if this will help, several weeks ago Covad was slow due to maintenance (was an Earthlink customer) problem was it didn’t improve after the maintenance was finished….
I am switching to another ISP provider who is faster, cheaper and dosen’t have out sourced support.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Problem NOT resolved for me either. Have changed my settings, but some emails are still taking hours to arrive. Still getting disconnected from the server while trying to send & receive using Outlook. Having not received several important emails over the past 2 weeks, and also my emails not being received, I feel I can no longer rely on your service, or your assurances that the problems are fixed. Why would I renew my subscription, when Gmail is free and works?
February 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
if your paying for yahoo email, then this is a shot in the eye for yahoo, if you are using free yahoo, now you have a learned a lesson and you should not run a company on free email
February 24th, 2008 at 11:31 am
changed the settings, it worked for a day, now its not working again. Yahoo needs to come clean to users and tell us what the heck is going on, problem NOT RESOLVED.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Helloooooooooooo;
what have you done!
No mail arriving.
I even sent mail to myself to no avail.
I upgrated to the “All-New Yahoo Mail and i still have not received any mail.
I will check my settings to see if there is a problem with the POP.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
It seems like since you made this “update,” some aspects of mail notification have totally stopped working. I still use the classic e-mail (for nearly 10 years, same account) and web-based. New message notifications are no longer displayed on the Yahoo homepage when you refresh the page. At all, ever. I have to go into my inbox to see that I have new messages. No little orange/yellow star by the envelope. I also have Firefox’s Yahoo mail notifier extension that lets me know of new messages. This stopped working at the exact same time - the time of this “update”. I’ve made no changes to my browser or computer, or otherwise settings - simply closed my laptop at night, opened it in the morning to realize that all mail notification had stopped.
This is definitely a technical problem on solely Yahoo’s end.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I can’t believe the message on the blog with the heading “Problem Resolved” is still up. I am seeing the same delays as before with the new settings, and it is very unpredictable. No idea if my messages to the outside world are getting delivered. I’ve had it. Goodbye Yahoo - hello Gmail.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“Resolved” NOT!
Either Yahoo thinks they fixed this problem but they neglected to check their solution (not a difficult test to run); OR
they are just blowing smoke.
Either way, shame on Yahoo! This incident has been mishandled from the beginning and it is only getting worse. The Iraq War of internet email.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Day four and Yahoo Mail Web Mail still reporting:
“You’ve stumbled upon a temporary problem we’re having with Yahoo! Mail. Usually this problem gets resolved quickly, without you doing a thing. In fact it may be taken care of now.”
What a joke!
February 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
still aint fixed.
Yahoo declared victory on Feb 13 like this: “We’ve completed our investigation and were able to identify and resolve
the mail delivery issue.” It was a false declaration of victory — there were still enemies in the trenches.
On Feb 22, they declared victory again with the splashy headline: “RESOLVED: Email delays through SMTP servers” . . . and it still aint fixed. My test on the 23rd took 4 hours to make it from the incoming server to the outgoing. So please, don’t declare victory until you can tell us what you any different this time.
And please don’t put it on me for not having ports and SSL and blah blah blah correct on my client. I know how to read headers, and this is a purely Yahoo problem.
Yahoo should have taken this more seriously when I substantiated it for them on Feb 9.
February 24th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Mail to and from centurytel addresses have had problems for several weeks. Of 3 emails sent from centurytel to my yahoo address yesterday, the 3rd arrived quickly, one came this afternoon, and one this evening. The centurytel user gets this message: 421 4.7.0 [TS01] Messages from (her) temporarily deferred due to user complaints - 4.16.55.1
February 24th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hi all,
-
If you are still having problems you may want to send your account info, the POP settings you are using, and the email client you are using, to ymailblog1[at]yahoo.com.
-
RyanK
February 24th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
I don’t think the problems have anything to do with POP or SMTP settings. It is a problem with a broken system and a lack of customer service. Apparently all of the techs took the weekend off and Yahoo doesn’t care their customers are angry.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
It aint ports and pop settings and SSL layers and all that, at least not for me. I mean, that’s good for some people to know, but it doesn’t fit this problem.
I see that some of the ranters on here are misguided . . . they are blaming yahoo for their connection problems, or they are getting another set of servers involved in the mix, or they somehow aren’t having a problem that this blog addresses: Namely: Email delays through YAHOO SMPT Servers.
But the specific example which i hereby submit is ONPOINT.
Here’s from just this afternoon. A 20 minute delay. Now this is from the headers. I changed a couple of digits in the ID for anonymity, but the times are right. And please don’t say that the clocks might differ by 20 minutes, because then I will just come right back with an even MORE EMBARRASSING example (4+ hours) from Saturday afternoon, Feb 23, a day after Yahoo’s second declaration of victory.
I have sent examples like this (without changing any server numbers or message IDs) to several Yahoo Customer Service people and offered to help . . . over the last uh, lets see . . . 15 days now.
So, for your viewing pleasure, I present proof that Yahoo has a problem:
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp408.mail.mud.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 24 Feb 2008 23:27:07 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 931992.34995.bm@omp408.mail.mud.yahoo.com
Received: (qmail XX085 invoked from network); 24 Feb 2008 23:07:29 -0000
February 25th, 2008 at 12:02 am
How do i go to Yahoo! Web mail account to change the settings when i still can’t even access to it?
Argh!…..
February 25th, 2008 at 3:13 am
The whole mess is inexcusable. I’m gone. Gmail
works better, anyway.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:40 am
where is the fix.. this is a mess. please i don’t want to change my email account
February 25th, 2008 at 6:09 am
I changed my incoming and outgoing to plus.mail…. as recommended. Sent a message to myself from Yahoo to Yahoo using Outlook today (Monday Feb 25), and 10 minutes later it still isn’t here. This is a repeat of a test I did a few minutes before that. However the copy I sent to my Verizon address arrived. And the test I sent from gmail to Yahoo arrived quickly.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Thanks Ryan,
It’s nice to put faces to people who take responsibility. I appreciate your efforts.
Comment by–Keyla B. Ellenwood,GA.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Fixed…. yeah right
Emails still taking 12+hours to get delivered
Sort it
February 25th, 2008 at 8:37 am
On Outlook Express I receive mail (double). I only need one.
Also I can’t send mail. I get the error every time. I have tried working with chat and others online from Yahoo but they cannot fix it. I’m waiting on the phone now for help.