And now Mail…

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
May 25th, 2003 • 9:13 pm

Today appears to be a day of major irritants. After Radio basically doing whatever it pleases, now Mail decides that it doesn’t want to send my messages out anymore…

I get the typical “Sending failed. Do you want to try with a different SMTP server?” alert. I don’t want to try with a different SMTP server, because it won’t work. (These other SMTP servers are protected against outside users using them to send out mail, of course.) I have no idea why my regular server did not work this time.

So I have no choice by to click on “Send later”. Then I go to the “Out” box, open the message, and click on “Send” again. Same error message. I DELETE the message altogether, and create a new message with the same account and try to send it. Same error message. I quit Mail and relaunch it and create a new message with the same account and try to send it. Same error message!

The only solution I’ve found in such situations is to create a new message with the same account, try to send it, get the error message, and let Mail queue for sending “later” (whenever that might be). Then I create a message with a different account, and try to send it. After a lengthy “busy” signal, it finally goes through. And then miraculously the other message that’s stuck in the “Out” box finally gets sent properly through the SMTP server that Mail says doesn’t work!

Grrr. I think that, whenever a sending process fails (for whatever reason), Mail somehow “deactivates” the SMTP server in question. But the only way to “reactivate” that SMTP server that I have found is to try and send another email using a different account, with a different SMTP server. That miraculously reactivates the SMTP server that was stuck.

What on earth do people do if they only have one email account? Throw their hands in the air in frustration? I suspect that doesn’t help reactivating the SMTP server, though.

Why the hell do we still have to deal with such flakiness for basic functionality on a daily basis? It’s not like I’m trying to do anything fancy! I just want to UPDATE my blog or send an email. Geez.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect, once again, that the problem is linked to the fact that I’m using a modem connection. For the past several years now, Apple and other software vendors have been blatantly ignoring the needs of people stuck with modem connections. And I suspect no one is bothering to fix the bugs when they affect such connections only. Their software developers are too busy playing Unreal Tournament games with each other over their T-3 connections, probably… Shame on them.


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