I am getting aggravated with modern technology, This is a re-write of what I started earlier when all of a sudden the power went out, this is a common occurrence at my house and it occurs on a regular basis about every 2-3 weeks for no apparent reason. The power stays off for about 1 to 5 minutes and the the lights flash and then comes on again. Of course when this happens I have to reset all the clocks in the house and it causes other problems "Only a Fool" should dare mess with! My satellite and my Television. When the power does come back on the satellite always goes into a "searching for signal" mode. When it finds it then has to download 5 different updates and that takes up to 5 minutes. Meanwhile my TV screen switches to an unknown feature called "TV Guide" which I have never been able to get to work. The only way to get rid of this is to find the TV remote which I never use as my satellite remote does everything else and press the TV guide button on the TV remote, my TV in the bedroom does something similar except it goes to a menu which I can only get rid of with also with the old TV remote.
And then there is the computer, as I stated earlier I had just gotten started when I lost everything due to the power failure. This has happened to me several times when I was working on a project such as the family cookbook or the family calendar. Since then I have learned to save my project every time I make an addition or a change.
I think I have become a computer junkie and I need a fix every day by working on a project or sending or receiving mail. You know the old saying "You never miss it until you don't have it"? With me this is true of email. Yesterday morning when I clicked on the send & receive button I kept getting the message " An unknown error has occurred. Account: 'George', Server: 'smtp.fuse.net', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: '421 Service not available', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 421, Error Number: 0x800CCC67
I called Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown and they spent about an hour trying to solve it, They said to give it a few hours to see if it would start working. no luck, I then checked the internet and there were 8 million hits on this subject. Apparently this is a very common problem but not one of the hits offered a solution. Later that day I called Zoomtown again and talked to a different technician, By the way it is a pleasure to call some one like Cincinnati Bell and to speak to a person without a thick Indian accent (which I cannot understand) This person referred me to several senior technicians who also could not solve the problem until I finally talked to one who said he knew exactly what was wrong and only 24-48 hours would solve it. He said there are some internet sites you can visit that if they determine they think you are a spammer your email address would be put on a "Blocked List" Your email address apparently has an IP address which changes daily for some reason, As soon as my IP address changes again I would be able to send mail again. I looked mine up today on the internet and it is 72.49.251.32. So I spent the day email-less and I actually felt help-less. But this morning it was working OK again and all is well with the world. If this ever happens to you you now know what to do, NOTHING! but wait.
And then there is the computer, as I stated earlier I had just gotten started when I lost everything due to the power failure. This has happened to me several times when I was working on a project such as the family cookbook or the family calendar. Since then I have learned to save my project every time I make an addition or a change.
I think I have become a computer junkie and I need a fix every day by working on a project or sending or receiving mail. You know the old saying "You never miss it until you don't have it"? With me this is true of email. Yesterday morning when I clicked on the send & receive button I kept getting the message " An unknown error has occurred. Account: 'George', Server: 'smtp.fuse.net', Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: '421 Service not available', Port: 25, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 421, Error Number: 0x800CCC67I called Cincinnati Bell Zoomtown and they spent about an hour trying to solve it, They said to give it a few hours to see if it would start working. no luck, I then checked the internet and there were 8 million hits on this subject. Apparently this is a very common problem but not one of the hits offered a solution. Later that day I called Zoomtown again and talked to a different technician, By the way it is a pleasure to call some one like Cincinnati Bell and to speak to a person without a thick Indian accent (which I cannot understand) This person referred me to several senior technicians who also could not solve the problem until I finally talked to one who said he knew exactly what was wrong and only 24-48 hours would solve it. He said there are some internet sites you can visit that if they determine they think you are a spammer your email address would be put on a "Blocked List" Your email address apparently has an IP address which changes daily for some reason, As soon as my IP address changes again I would be able to send mail again. I looked mine up today on the internet and it is 72.49.251.32. So I spent the day email-less and I actually felt help-less. But this morning it was working OK again and all is well with the world. If this ever happens to you you now know what to do, NOTHING! but wait.
3 comments:
Computers - can't live with them, can't live without them. I was just thinking today how aggravated I get with mine sometimes because I have to wait, yet it is another world from my first or even third computer. I wonder if my impatience with speed bleeds over into my everyday life outside of the computer. Probably.
Hi George, I'm a friend of Cathy's from many moons ago. I visit Cathy's blog every couple of days and happened to see a link to your posting. I'm a network engineer in Cincinnati. I have a couple of suggestions - maybe it will help.
First off, you can eliminate a great many PC issues by getting a UPS, a battery backup. You can see lots of different models at MicroCenter in Sharonville. Plug that in and connect your PC and DSL modem, along with the router if you have one to the UPS. Now those blips of power loss will not affect your PC. Usually they'll keep everything running on battery power for between 5 and 45 minutes depending on how powerful the UPS is. Most require about 8 hours of charging time before use, so pay attention to the instructions...A UPS is also better for your PC because it conditions the power stream so it's consistent, without the usual variations coming into a home.
On your 421 issue, usually it's either a configuration problem in Outlook Express, or the server that your PC is trying to get to (in this case smtp.fuse.net) is not available. I would suggest asking Zoomtown if you can use their other smtp server smtp.zoomtown.com instead, assuming you're on the zoomtown dsl network, which it sounds like you are. Also, errors when sending to AOL users are very common, because AOL's mail system frankly is a mess. Their efforts to reduce SPAM have caused more problems than they've solved. I encourage people I know to use something else.
Error 0x800CCC67 is the real key here. 421 in and of itself is very generic, which is why you found so many hits. If you look here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514 it explains some of the possible reasons for specific Outlook Express errors like 0x800CCC67.
Finally just a couple of security tips - never publish your real IP address in a public place - you don't want to give the bad guys a reason to target you. Best to stay anonymous by changing the address you posted to something like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Readers will understand what you're trying to say without you having to give personal information.
If you don't have a firewall (Windows XP service pack 2 and later has it built-in), you should get one. Zoomtown might offer one free, or Kerio is very good. http://www.sunbelt-software.com/kerio.cfm
Hopefully your aggravations will be few and far between so you can do what you really intend to do, which is share your experiences with others :-)
Mark
Post a Comment