I’ve had my share of issues with Comcast in the past, and this one is just as frustrating.

Just like many of my issues with them so far, it’s completely inconsistent from market to market, so their support department seems to know nothing about it.

Anyone hosting their own domain somewhere, yet having Comcast as an ISP is continually being forced to jump through new hoops in order to send mail from their own domain.

Until now these hoops have been to verify your outgoing mail settings and change your SMTP port to 587 (or another port for your local market).

Now there’s another inconsistent change that’s not affecting everyone.

As a Portland web host we have three mail servers that our clients use,  and for the past three days, all users that are on our #1 server are unable to send mail to other Comcast addresses.

To make matters worse, Comcast is then misreporting the problem, sending the end user a link, where their page says that their mail server is “blocked as spam”. (For the record, this mail server is not on any spam blacklists at this time).

So, now we are forced to explain to each complaining customer that this is some sort of problem or mistake on Comcasts end, AND we then have to explain that Comcast is also showing them incorrect information.

I have verified that even when you change to port 587 for your outgoing mail server, if the address you are sending to is another Comcast address, then the mail bounces back with this message -

<actualnameremoved@comcast.net>:
Connected to 76.96.62.116 but greeting failed.
Remote host said: 554 IMTA02.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net comcast 208.70.160.19 Comcast block for spam. Please see http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/BL000000

This message says that our mail server (208.70.160.19) has contacted the Comcast mail server, who is blocking the message as spam. WRONG.

Visiting the help.comcast link is of no use to the end user, but as the server administrator I was able to follow the directions and submit our removal request at www.comcastsupport.com/rbl as directed.

Imagine my surprise when I got this e-mail back -

Thank you for contacting Comcast Customer Security Assurance. We have received and reviewed your RBL removal request.

Below each IP address you submitted in your request, we have included the result of our research. Please do not reply to this message.
208.70.160.19

Your request for IP block removal has been denied for the following reason:

- You have been blocked from emailing the Comcast network because we have determined that you are sending email from a dynamic/residential IP within the Comcast domain.

Comcast does not allow subscribers to send email from a mail server other than smtp.comcast.net. All mail should be sent through Comcast’s mail server.

For information on configuring your machine to use smtp.comcast.net, please follow the link below.

http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/BL002

If you need to run your own mail server, please contact our Commercial Services organization at support_biz@cable.comcast.com

Sincerely,
Comcast Customer Security Assurance

Did you note the bolded statement that “Comcast does not allow subscribers to send email from a mail server other than smtp.comcast.net” ?

If that’s really a policy, then why is only ONE of our mail servers affected, and then, only for mail which is sent to other Comcast email addresses?

Do you suppose this is just a mistake by a server administrator who misunderstood the direction he was given?

Or, do you think they were really told to block all outgoing mail from any servers other than their own, and that the change outbound port 25 to 597 fix will no longer work soon?

If you are suddenly having this problem here is a workaround to fix it:

Open your e-mail program and change your outgoing mail server from mail.yourdomain.com. (Screenshots are from Outlook 2007, another nightmare)

Change Outgoing SMTP – smtp.comcast.net and go to “Advanced”

Be sure to CHECK THE BOX (or leave checked) – My outgoing Server requires Authentication”

Then change to “Verify using” and type in your comcast username and pw

BUT WAIT – THERES MORE
In order to get this working, you MUST ALSO change your outgoing computer port to 587 – So I THINK they’ll be screwing this up too.

WTF is going on, Comcast?

Qwest Internet service here in Portland Oregon has apparently begun to randomly block port 25 for its customers, just like Comcast did last year. This renders users helpless to send email using their own domain from their web host’s email server like most businesses do.

Also just like Comcast, they are not doing it to all users yet, and they have provided no notice to users for whom they have done this. It’s only due to spending several hours on the phone last summer that I can offer this solution.

If this has happened to you, simply open your mail client, go to the advanced properties of the mail account, and change your outgoing mail server (SMTP) from Port 25, to port 587, then save configuration, and restart your Outlook or Outlook express.

Port 587 is another port that many web hosts provide for exactly this situation. While I can attest to its success on the majority of hosted mail servers (including our web hosting servers in Portland), it may not work for everyone.

In the event changing to port 587 does not solve your problem, rather than calling Qwest, call your web host, and explain that “you suspect that your ISP has blocked port 25 for outgoing mail. What other port do they recommend you try?”

At that point, they will either open another port, or tell you the existing passport to use for their Web hosting.

The reasons Qwest (and Comcast) have done this to people with no notice escape me, but there ya go!

You’re not alone…
Users all over the country are finding out daily that suddenly, for no apparent reason at all, they are unable to send mail if they want people to reply to their business or personal e-mail addressed other than one that is @comcast.net. This is because Comcast is blocking port 25 , which is your default port for sending email through your mail software.

The error message says (fill in your own X):
The connection to the server has failed. Account: ‘XXXX’, Server: ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xx’, Protocol: SMTP, Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10060, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E

Gee that’s helpful, isn’t it?
If you are using mail.yourdomain.com for your SMTP outgoing mail server, then you get an error saying “unable to connect to the mail server” even though it just successfully connected to the mail server to retrieve your incoming mail. After wasting time calling your web host, and going through various troubleshooting techniques, they tell you to call Comcast.

To make matters worse, users are finding out one at a time, because Comcast is slowly rolling out these changes user by user in individual markets around the country. This month, it’s apparently Portland Oregon’s turn, where I live.

To cut to the chase, here’s the solution:
Change the port your computer is using for SMTP outgoing mail, from Port 25 to one that your hosting provider will allow. In most cases, this seems to be port 587 for Portland providers.

To do this in Outlook -

• Go to tools – e-mail accounts – view or change existing account
• Sselect the appropriate mail account and hit the change button
• Go to the more settings button, and into the Advanced tab
• Change your default port 25, to port 587, and you should be back in business in most cases.

Still broken?

• Added note from comments below – Some people in the midwest for whom 487 didn’t work succesfully chaged to 465 and picked SSL under the “use the following type of encrypted connection” drop down. They did not check the “this server requires an encrypted connection” box.

In Outlook express -

• Go to tools – accounts – Mail tab
• Choose Properties box – Advanced Tab – and from there you can do the same

The reason Comcast claims to be doing this is in an effort to prevent spam being sent by zombie/spyware/virus laden computers using their bandwidth and their Internet connection.

I suspect they are really doing it to limit liability for any future potential lawsuits, and not really to save bandwidth, but I have no problem with that.

The problem with Comcast doing this is that they do not seem to be telling all of their support people, and do not be notifying their customers. This has been going on around the country for MONTHS.

Instead, it takes the end user hours of frustrating time on the phone spent with lower-level tech-support who have no idea that this change has even taken place.

One can only guess how many individual users are still frustrated at this very moment because they are being forced to do their business e-mail from home using their @comcast.net accounts, after uninformed Comcast agents are able to help them?

As a web host, we were forced to spend hours dealing with Comcast before we got an actual answer, and we still lost a couple of hosting customers over it, who were convinced that it must be our fault, since Comcast told them it was.

Great customer service. If there was any competing product in my market I would switch in a heartbeat. I tried once before in 2005 after nearly an entire summer of poor Comcast connectivity.

Thanks Comcast, for valuing our time so very little, in your quest to make mega millions.