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POP3 receiving email troubleshooting

Errors receiving email in your POP3 email clients (like Outlook Express or Outlook) are almost always caused by the wrong settings.

Check the following to diagnose the error and get you working again.

Check if the email account is setup

To establish an email account at your domain name you must create the account with your control panel. Login to the control panel at www.yourdomain.com/cpanel/ and click on the "mail" menu.

You then have the option of displaying existing email accounts, adding additional ones, and resetting passwords. Confirm that the account has been created or create one if it has not.

Check your username and password are correct

Outlook express and most other email clients require the full email address as the "username". If your email address is john@john.com then that is your username, rather than just "john".

Some programs reject the use of the "@" symbol in the username of the account. In this case, a plus (+) symbol should also work correctly.

If your email client does not require the full address as the username (like Outlook), simply use the account name. eg. "john" from the example above.

If you have forgotten your password, this can be reset with the control panel.

See if your email username and password are valid for Webmail

By going to www.yourdomain.com/webmail/ you should be able to enter your username and password and login to your email through our web-based email.

If you can get in your username and password login is fine. If not, you should go to the "mail" menu in the cPanel control panel and create the account, or reset its password.

Check if your email client is not using secure authentication

When using Outlook Express this is checked by going to the "tools" menu at the top of the screen. In the tools menu select "Accounts". Click on the "mail" tab, and click (to highlight) the account in question.

By clicking the "properties" button, and then the "servers" tab, you find the options for using secure email authentication. The checkboxes next to "Log on using secure password authentication", and "My server requires authentication", should not be ticked.

Confirm you are not behind a proxy server, firewall, or ISP blocking access

Some computer networks have restrictions on sending and receiving email. They prefer to only allow access to people surfing the web. Normally only sending email would be blocked, but if the checks above have not fixed the problem it might be worth looking into.

Check with your computer technician or ISP (Internet Service Provider) to see if they are blocking access.

See further email FAQs or our FAQ categories for more information.

Please contact us if you have a question that is not answered on our site.