Frequently Asked Questions about Mail Services

Revised: June 25, 2008

Q: What clients may I use to send and receive e-mail?

A: The kinetic Service does not require that you use a specific client. You can use any client you would like as long as it supports the following: POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) for receiving mail; and SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol), authenticated SMTP, and SSL/TLS for sending mail. These standard protocols are supported by most modern e-mail clients. See Configuring MOREnet-hosted E-mail for general and client-specific configuration instructions.

Q: I'm trying to send mail using a network connection away from the office, but it won't deliver the mail. It keeps reporting a 'relay access denied' error.

A: MOREnet mail servers are configured to only send mail from a valid customer account. This is accomplished by validating incoming mail via authenticated SMTP and SSL/TLS. Ensure that your e-mail software is configured for these settings. For configuration instructions, review Configuring Your Client for Sending and Receiving Mail.

Q: I'm having trouble sending and receiving e-mail with Netscape Messenger 4.x. What should I do?

A: MOREnet highly recommends using current e-mail software. Older versions of e-mail software have been problematic with the use of authenticated SMTP and SSL/TLS.

Q: Why do I consistently receive a failed login error message from Outlook Express 6? I'm using multiple identities in the mail client.

A: Several customers have confirmed that they receive this error message when they use Outlook Express 6 version 6.00.2800.1106 with multiple identities and do not select the "Save Password" setting for each identity. In each case, Outlook Express prompted for a password and the correct password was provided, but they always receive the failed login error message. These customers report that this problem appears inconsistently on multiple systems using the same version of Outlook Express. They also confirmed that following the procedure below allowed all of the problematic systems to retrieve and send e-mail:

1. When prompted for a password, minimize the main Outlook Express window.
2. Type your password in the Password field and click OK.
3. Restore the main Outlook Express window and follow standard procedures for retrieving and sending e-mail.

Q: When I view the Weekly kinetic Service Usage Report that is sent to administrators, I see that several accounts are consuming lots of disk space with e-mail. However, when I view these accounts in kinetic Manager, the Mailbox Status area reports much smaller mailbox sizes. Which is correct?

A: The usage report is correct. kinetic Manager was created before Webmail became a part of the kinetic Service. The Mailbox size shown in kinetic Manager is only based upon the size for new and unread messages. It does NOT include the size of the Drafts, Sent, Trash and other personal folders used by IMAP clients and Webmail. This issue will be addressed in a future release of kinetic Manager.

Q: My account holders are consuming lots of disk space with e-mail. How can I decrease this usage?

A: Consider the following:

• All mail messages consume disk space. If your organization only uses Webmail, all of the messages are stored on the server and contribute to your disk space usage. Your account holders must delete messages to consume less space.
• Desktop e-mail clients that use the POP protocol are usually configured to store messages on the local system. When the messages are retrieved, they are deleted from the server and do not contribute to your organization's disk space usage. This behavior is the default with most clients configured to use the POP protocol.
• Desktop e-mail clients that use the IMAP protocol typically store messages on the server, but account holders can create local folders for storing messages. When a message is moved from the Inbox to a local folder, the message is removed from the server and does not contribute to your organization's disk space usage.
• If your account holders are using Webmail, they should occasionally delete the contents of the Sent and Trash folders. If the Trash folder contains messages, you can easily delete them by clicking the "purge" link that is displayed next to the Trash folder. Note that "purge" is not displayed if the Trash folder is empty.
• Consider using desktop e-mail clients configured to use the IMAP protocol. IMAP desktop clients provide a unified view of account holders' mailboxes since Webmail also uses IMAP. The account holders will be able to view and manage the Sent and Trash folders in both their desktop clients and Webmail without discrepancies between the two. The account holders can also create local folders in their IMAP clients and move messages from their Inboxes to the folders to use less space on the server. For more information about using desktop clients in addition to Webmail, see Using kinetic Webmail.

Q: Questions about WebMail?

A: See the Using kinetic Webmail documentation or the WebMail FAQ.