Thunderbird won't connect to the Internet

[dtref]

My Thunderbird won't ESTABLISH a connection to the Internet.
If I am already connected, it retrieves and sends emails without a problem.

Thunderbird 7.0.1
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: Normal password
Under Options>Advanced>Connection Settings: checked "Use system proxy settings"

If I am not connected to the Internet the message that pops up immediately in lower left corner when I click on Get Mail is, "Looked up pop.sonic.net..." That message just stays there. There is no activity. However...

If I am connected to the Internet, the messages are:

Looking up pop.sonic.net
Connected to pop.sonic.net...
Connect: Host for **** Contacted...
Then T-bird checks for messages and downloads them

Why won't T-bird establish the connection?

Thank you for any help... Diane

[thulsa_doom]

Diane,

Is your system set to dial automatically when a connection is not present? This can be set on any recent Windows system through the Internet Options control panel under the "Connections" tab.

[dtref]

Hi John,

Thank you for your response. I had that Setting at "Always dial my default connection". I changed it as you suggested, closed my Internet connection, and tried to "Get Mail" in Thunderbird. The response was the same as before, ie, "Looked up pop.sonic.net..." so I changed it back to "Always ... default..."

Do you have any other thoughts? I really appreciate your feedback!

Diane

[virtualmike]

Do you see this behavior with any other programs that access the Internet? Does your browser go to web sites right away, or do you see the "Looking up..." information in the status?

[mrandera]

I am having the EXACT same issue & error message with Thunderbird AFTER upgrading from Win 7 to Win 8 yesterday.
I seem to be having similar issue win Outlook also.
So it looks like "something" needs to be tweaked on the email clients to access Sonic.net after moving to Win 8.

Note:
I can surf the web and several other apps can connect to the Internet with no problems. I can also successfully ping sonic.net from that Win 8 computer.

Any thoughts from the Sonic's world class support team to get around this issue?

Thanks.

[virtualmike]

I am having the EXACT same issue & error message with Thunderbird AFTER upgrading from Win 7 to Win 8 yesterday.
I seem to be having similar issue win Outlook also.
So it looks like "something" needs to be tweaked on the email clients to access Sonic.net after moving to Win 8.

Hmmm... you made a change to your local computer, the mail clients stopped working, and you think that it's Sonic.net's responsibility?

Find a command-line telnet program and try this:

telnet pop.sonic.net 110

You should see:

+OK Dovecot ready

Type:

user <your mailbox login name>

You should see:

+OK

Type:

pass <your password>
(note your password will be shown to you)

You should see:

+OK

This will show whether your computer can access the mail server.

[mrandera]

Hmmm... you made a change to your local computer, the mail clients stopped working, and you think that it's Sonic.net's responsibility?

I am not sure what's the use of this sarcasm... I NEVER said this was Sonic's responsibility!
This is a forum after all and I just wanted to see if other folks were having the same issue when moving to Win 8, including Sonic's support folks. That's all.

I still appreciate you taking the time to share a few things to try. I'll will definitely try these telnet commands.
Much appreciated.

THANKS

[virtualmike]

Sorry for the sarcasm--the comment about the servers needing tweaking is what led me to believe you felt it was Sonic.net's issue.

The fact is the servers are agnostic to the user's operating system, and usually don't even know! All that matters is they get a connection from another computer, and that computer sends the appropriate commands (the "protocol") to open the mailbox and access the stored email.

My concern is that the upgrade introduced some changes in Windows' networking, such that Thunderbird believes the computer is not online. The error message suggests Thunderbird isn't talking to the mail server at all.

[Guest]

I have windows XP and thunderbird just stopped getting mail for me with
the looked up mail. my isp. I have not changed anything and thunderbird has worked flawlessly for years
until now.

[virtualmike]

What is the exact error message you are seeing?