Thunderbird, Office365 and BTConnect

[king arthur]

This one's got me a bit stumped.

I have several email addresses, one of them a btconnect.com that I've had for ages. Some years ago they moved the service over to Office365. Until recently I was using Windows Live Mail as my desktop email client and everything was okay, but since that's no longer supported I switched to using Thunderbird.

I thought everything was okay but today I go to send an email from the btconnect account for the first time since the switch and it wouldn't send. So I searched for the correct settings and came across this https://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail... I have all those settings correct as far as I can see, but all I get is the pop up box saying "Connected to server..." and it sits there doing nothing until it times out. I've tried changing to port 465, no luck. Tried with authentication and without.

In Thunderbird it only asks you for a password the first time you send an email from an account, then it remembers it for next time. This account isn't getting that far. That's the only difference I can see between Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail.

Anyone?

[jamoor]

Why do you use pop anyway, why not use the web client.

[king arthur]

That's not the answer to my question!

I have my reasons for keeping all my emails in one desktop client instead of logging into multiple web clients.

[Paul Drawmer]

I use BT for my outgoing server, and I've noticed several 'can't connect' errors over the last week.

[HantsRat]

Office 365 is exchange based. Ditch POP/IMAP and just use the default office setup.

[Sheepshanks]

Paul Drawmer said:

I use BT for my outgoing server, and I've noticed several 'can't connect' errors over the last week.

I don't know if there's any link but I've got some old BT Openworld email addresses which scan automatically when I open Thunderbird. Some days one of more them will error. Leave them and next day they work.

[Mr Pointy]

HantsRat said:

Office 365 is exchange based. Ditch POP/IMAP and just use the default office setup.

Have you checked if Thunderbird supports native Exchange connection before posting the above?

[king arthur]

Well I'll be blowed....

Fixed it. Despite what BT say, in the account settings, in the "Edit SMTP Server" dialogue, the "Connection security" option has to be set to "STARTTLS" NOT "SSL / TLS"!!

With that changed, it asked me for my password then sent the email. Happy days.

Sheepshanks said:

I don't know if there's any link but I've got some old BT Openworld email addresses which scan automatically when I open Thunderbird. Some days one of more them will error. Leave them and next day they work.

I think BT Openworld and BT Internet both use Yahoo not Office365 so it's not related. I have three of those and do often see a failure to connect then five minutes later it works fine.

[HantsRat]

Mr Pointy said:

Have you checked if Thunderbird supports native Exchange connection before posting the above?

Nope just presumed any decent email client would have this functionality. It would appear not. Use MS Outlook instead. Much better.

[MintyScot]

HantsRat said:

Office 365 is exchange based. Ditch POP/IMAP and just use the default office setup.

btconnect uses the office365 platform but is limited to pop only. IMAP/Exchange has been disabled for all users.