Problem: You can receive mail, but cannot send any mail. Perhaps it keeps asking you for a password over and over ("Please enter your user name and password for the following server.") and won't ever accept the password. Or, perhaps you get an error message, such as:

• "Error 553: Email is not configured to relay mail to address",
  
• "relaying denied",
  
• "one or more of the recipients was rejected by the server",
  
• "your password was rejected by the server",
• error number 0x800ccc79, error number 0x800ccc90,
  

or any number of other error messages. There are a couple factors that commonly cause this.

First, make sure your outgoing server is smtp.vcn.com . Or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to have smtp.wavecom.net . If you have a custom domain, that is, if your address is joe@mycompany.com or something, call tech support at 1-877-288-8389 and we can help you. There is one exception. If you are connected on another provider (for instance, you have satellite internet, but are using a Visionary e-mail address), change the outgoing server to be that provider's outgoing server (but don't change the incoming server).

Second, make sure your outgoing user name is your full email address. Quite possibly you will have just the first part of your address entered as the outgoing user name. That just does not seem to work sometimes. That's why the computer is not accepting your user name and password. It needs to be your whole, complete email address. Incoming username on the other hand can remain just the first part of the email address.

Below are specific instructions for how to make sure your e-mail program has the proper settings to send mail. Follow the instructions for the program that you use.

Outlook Express

1. Go into the Tools menu.
2. Choose Accounts.
3. Click the Mail tab.
4. You probably just have one item in the white area. If you have more than one, that indicates you have more than one email account, and in that case, you will need to go through the following steps for each account.
5. Highlight the account and click the Properties button.
6. Click Servers.
7. Make sure your outgoing server is correct. Usually it should be smtp.vcn.com , or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to put in smtp.wavecom.net .
8. Put a check-mark by My Server Requires Authentication at the bottom of the page, if it isn't already check-marked.
9. Click Settings.
10. Select Log on Using:
    
• For the Account Name, type your entire email address.
  
• For password, type in your email address password.
11. Click OK.
    Click OK again.
    Click Close. Try again and it should work.

Incredimail

Follow essentially the same steps as for Outlook Express

Microsoft Outlook

1. Go into the Tools menu.
2. Choose Email Accounts. Older versions of Outlook may have Accounts or Services. If that's what you have, your steps to follow will be more similar to Outlook Express above.
3. Click View or Change Existing Email Accounts and click Next.
4. You probably just have one item in the white area. If you have more than one, that indicates you have more than one email account, and in that case, you will need to go through the following steps for each account.
5. Highlight the account and click the Change button.
6. Make sure your outgoing server is correct. Usually it should be smtp.vcn.com , or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to put in smtp.wavecom.net .
7. Click More Settings.
8. Click Outgoing Server.
9. Check-mark My Server Requires Authentication.
10. Select Log on Using:
• For the Account Name, type your full email address.
• For password, type in your email address password.
11. Click OK.
12. Click Next.
13. Click Finish. Try again and it should work.

Mozilla Thunderbird

1. Go into the Tools menu.
2. Choose Account Settings.
3. Choose Outgoing Server (the last item in the menu on the left side).
4. Make sure your outgoing server name is correct. Usually it should be smtp.vcn.com , or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to put in smtp.wavecom.net .
5. If you have a version of Thunderbird prior to 1.5, you will have a field here for User Name. Change User Name to your entire email address. If your address is person@vcn.com for example, and User Name just says person, add @vcn.com at the end (or add @wavecom.net, or whatever the end part of your e-mail address is).
If you have 1.5, you need to click the Edit button, and then change the user name to your entire e-mail address in the screen that pops up.
6. Click OK out of it all, and try again. It should work!


Netscape/Mozilla

1. Go into the Edit menu.
2. Choose Mail and Newsgroup Account Settings.
3. Click on Outgoing Server SMTP (the last item in the menu on the left side).
4. Make sure your outgoing server is correct. Usually it should be smtp.vcn.com , or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to put in smtp.wavecom.net .
5. You will have a field here for User Name. Change User Name to your full email address. If your address is person@vcn.com for example, and User Name just says person, add @vcn.com at the end (or add @wavecom.net, or whatever the end part of your e-mail address is).
Note: If you have an older version Netscape, for instance Communicator 4.7, it may tell you "your username is the first part of your e-mail address" and "helpfully" change it back for you. I can't see any way around this, so you'll have to click here to download an upgrade for Netscape, but only upgrade up to 7.2 or earlier because version 8 does not support POP3 email accounts. Or you could switch to a different e-mail program.
6. Click OK, and try again. It should work!


Eudora

1. Go into the Tools menu.
2. Choose Options.
3. Click the Getting Started category at the top.
4. Change User Name to your full email address. If your address is person@vcn.com for example, and User Name just says person, add @vcn.com at the end.
5. Make sure there is a check-mark by Allow authentication.
6. Click on the Sending Mail category.
7. Make sure your outgoing server is correct. Usually it should be smtp.vcn.com , or, if your e-mail address ends in something other than @vcn.com, replace vcn.com with whatever it ends with. For instance coolcustomer@wavecom.net would need to put in smtp.wavecom.net .
8. Set SMTP Relay Personality to <Dominant>.
9. Allow authentication should be checked. Leave the other two check-marked also, unless you know you want to change them.
10. Secure Sockets When Sending should be set to Never.
11. Click OK.
12. Delete any messages in the outbox. Create a new message and try sending. It should work for that one, and keep working from now on.

Entourage (Macintosh)

1. Open the Tools menu and select Accounts.
2. Click on account description, then click Edit.
3. Click on Click here for advanced sending options.
4. Click checkbox next to SMTP server requires authentication
5. Select the radio button next to Log on using.
6. Input your username and password in the proper fields. For the user name, type your full email address.
7. Click close box at upper left corner of small window
8. Click OK and close Accounts window

Tried the steps above and it still doesn't work? There are other things that can cause mail to not go out. Try disabling the email scanning portion of your anti-virus program, and anything else on the computer that could be scanning your e-mail, for instance McAfee SpamKiller or Norton AntiSpam. Try disabling your firewall. Try re-creating the account in your mail program. Try switching to a different email program. For help, call Visionary tech support at 1-877-288-8389. Make a note of any error number or message you are getting, because sometimes we will have seen that particular error message or number before and know the typical cure for it.