Problem: When you try to send or receive email, you get an error message. It says the error number is 0x800ccc0D.

Solution: This error is basically saying that your computer cannot connect to the mail server. The most common and obvious cause of this is that you are not connected to the internet at all. To test whether this is the case, try opening a news web page like news.com or doing a Google search (just opening your homepage is not a good enough test, because it may be saved, or "cached", on your computer's hard drive). If this test fails, then the problem is not with e-mail specifically, but rather with the internet connection. For users on dial-up, you need to dial in first, and then you should be able to check your email. If Windows is indicating that you are already connected, try disconnecting and then dial in again. If that fails, try restarting the computer and then connecting again. If that fails, you may have spyware or your modem may have gone bad.

If, on the other hand, you are able to pull up web pages, yet still get error 0x800CCC0D, you should check to make sure the mail servers are typed in correctly. To check this in Outlook Express, open the Tools menu, select Accounts, click on the Mail tab, click on the Properties button, then click on the Servers tab. Or, if you use a different email program, follow the equivalent procedure for that program. The incoming mail server should be pop3.vcn.com unless your email address doesn't end with @vcn.com, in which case put in whatever your address ends with instead of vcn.com (for example, if your address is person@wavecom.net, enter in pop3.wavecom.net ). The outgoing mail server should be smtp.vcn.com or substitute whatever your email address ends with for vcn.com.

Make sure to check the mail servers for all your mail accounts if you have multiple email addresses.

If you still get error 0x800CCC0D, and definitely can pull up web pages (that is, the rest of the internet is working fine, only email is having a problem):

• Restart your computer. This is simple, so you might as well try.
  
• Try disabling e-mail scanning in your anti-virus program. To do this in Norton, double-click on the yellow picture for Norton down at the bottom of your screen by your clock to open Norton. Then click the Options button at the top of the window (if a drop-down menu appears, choose anti-virus), then click the word Email on the menu on the left side. Uncheck both Scan Incoming and Scan Outgoing. Click OK, then close Norton. Try checking your messages again.
• Disable your firewall. It could be blocking Outlook Express, or whatever your email program is, from accessing the internet. McAfee firewall will usually not turn off even when you tell it to, so you'll have to go into the firewall settings and delete your e-mail program from the blocked list, or just uninstall McAfee firewall entirely using the Add/Remove Programs control panel.
• Make sure you recieve replies when you ping the mail server. If you cannot, something strange is going on.
• Try checking email using a different mail program such as Thunderbird, or through webmail on our web site, and see if that works.

Other Cases

You may be able to get mail when you first open Outlook Express, but then get error 0x800CCC0D from then on. To solve this, go to the Tools Menu > Options > Connection tab, and uncheck "Hang up after sending and receiving".

Your email works fine, but error 0x800CCC0D keeps constantly popping up over and over. In Microsoft Outlook, Tools > Options > Mail Setup tab > Send and Receive, and uncheck "Schedule an automatic send/receive every 5 minutes" (older versions of Outlook will have a similar option under the Mail Delivery tab). In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options, and uncheck "check for messages every ... minutes".