Using Alternative SMTP Server

[threadbare]

Originally Posted by Niggle

Sorry just a typo by me, the SMTP server I use for my pavilion account is simply mailhost.pavilion.co.uk (no smtp is mentioned for the server name). I have not changed any settings (knowingly anyway!), and all was working fine until 9th Nov. when there were problems.

I did a telnet and connect OK (AFAIK) got a message "220 smarthost4.mail.uk.easynet.net ESMTP Exim 4.10 Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:44:27 +0000" after typing telnet mailhost.pavilion.co.uk 25

Thanks for your prompt replies, any other ideas, or do any one know what Ntl have been doing with their mail servers, have they changed a setting for relaying as they are trying to cut out spamming?

this is not caused by ntl. the blocking is being done by pavilion. if you wish to send mail then you need to specify smtp.ntlworld.com.

[Niggle]

Originally Posted by threadbare

this is not caused by ntl. the blocking is being done by pavilion. if you wish to send mail then you need to specify smtp.ntlworld.com.

Absolutely right threadbare, I did email EasyNet support and Ntl support and got a reply from EasyNet as below (still awaiting one from Ntl!)

The problem is that you are connected via NTL but are trying to send email through our Mail Server. As you have found, if you connect through us you can send with no problems.
You have to send email through the SMTP server of the ISP that you connect with. This is an anti-spam measure and is being introduced by all ISP's. If you wish to rectify this problem without having to keep dialling the Pavilion number, you will need to change mailhost.pavilion.net to NTL's SMTP server.

I gave this a try and it's working fine again now.