This essentially means that your configuration is incorrect.
What specifically (other than user name and password) is your configuration?
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
Bluehost (the web host for this site) says the email client configuration for this account is as follows (These are the Secure SSL/TLS serttings):
Incoming Server: box###.bluehost.com, IMAP Port: ###, POP3 Port: ###
Outgoing Server: box###.bluehost.com, SMTP Port: ###
(For security I’ve changed the actual numbers to #, but you get the idea – and I did make sure I was entering the correct numbers.)
I haven’t tried the Non-SSL settings, but my understanding is that using those settings could present a security risk.
I’ve tried both the POP3 and IMAP ports for the incoming server. Also, I’m not quite clear whether the Incoming or Outgoing server settings are supposed to be used, but I’ve tried both…
You should be using the incoming server (POP3/IMAP) settings.
I see from the FAQ http://postieplugin.com/faq/postie-wont-connect-mailserver/ that at one time Bluehost blocked those ports. You might check with Bluehost support to see if there is anything they need to set. Be sure and let them know that you need to programmatically check email from your website, not just trying to setup a mail client.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
Okay. Thanks for the link. Hopefully Blue host will unblock the ports for me.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
Hmm – just got word back from Bluehost support (love their response times!). They said they don’t block those ports.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
I just went through and tried every possible combination I could come up with. I even compared the settings to what I have set up for my local email client – nothing.
Any ideas? Is there any way to troubleshoot this? Bluehost said they don’t block those ports, but is there anything that I can ask them to check?
Do you have SSH access? You could try the commands listed in the FAQ link I sent.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
I likely do, but have no idea how to do that 🙂
Maybe BH support can run them.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
Okay, I checked for open ports via PuTTy SSH and got this.
Which means 993 and 995 are not open, correct? Only ports that are open are listed, right?
If so, should I just present that screenshot to Bluehost and say, “You’re wrong – those ports are closed. Can you please open them?”?
No, it means there isn’t anything listening on those ports which would make sense since you aren’t running the email server locally. I’ll update the FAQ so it is more clear.
The next thing to try is the telnet command using the domain of your mail server and the port you are trying to test.
telnet mail.example.com 993
I’ve updated the FAQ with more details on how to verify IMAP-SSL and POP-SSL.
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
BH says to use box683.bluehost.com for the mail server URL, so I entered
telnet box683.bluehost.com 993
That resulted in the following output
Trying 66.147.244.183...
Connected to box683.bluehost.com
Escape character is '^]'.
I didn’t see +OK IMAP, which apparently I should have according to your updated FAQ (your example on the FAQ said you’d see +OK POP3 for port 110, so I’m assuming that’s what I should see for the IMAP port.
Is that good? Bad? Just another step in troubleshooting? 🙂
You need to use the openssl command to check secure IMAP, telnet only works for non-SSL connections.
openssl s_client -connect box683.bluehost.com:993
You should get a lot of output that ends with something like
* OK
Thread Starter
Mark
(@markyork)
Yes, I got a LOT of output ending with * OK.
So that means the port is open, correct? Is any of the output useful/needed for what we’re doing?
