Cox messed around with smtp today, as they promised. They now block all outgoing port 25 and force you to use their mail server or log onto a machine outside their network to send mail. Whatever they were using did not play nice with Balsa directly, so I had to set exim to use their smtp and tell balsa to use the local host.
An hour long conversation with their 2nd tier tech support was useless because they are only trained in Outlook Express. They "don't support any other client" and can't tell you what their mail server expects except as an Outlook walk through. Any and all questions were met with hostility and resentment and I was left with as many questions as I could think of. They don't authenticate based on assigned IP address. They don't take user names and passwords to send mail. Exim will send your mail if you specify their smtp server as yours. They won't talk with balsa. I did not try other mail clients. pop services continued without a problem. Their web thingy, limited to 10 megs of messages, would send mail but would only change the "reply to" identity rather than the "from". Anyone else have stories to tell?
