Any IT department will tell you that email problems are by far the most regularly reported from within a company's ranks. And it's easy to see why. Much of our communication in this new digital age is conducted through emails and its important that we have them delivered promptly and securely. Email problems are common however, and a certain amount of knowledge is required to address them, as well as the ability to troubleshoot well.
One of the top email complaints is that it's not possible to send any mail. Your first port of call should be the SMTP server settings, under general email settings. Ensure that your SMTP settings are correct as it will be impossible to gain the connection necessary to send if the server is rejecting your combination - or if you aren't actually reaching a server to begin with.
It's been known that if you leave your email idle for a long time without at least attempting to grab new messages, the SMTP can switch itself off or require a reboot. Save your message and try restarting Outlook, or even your entire computer if you want to check comprehensively.
Occasionally, the SMTP server may actually be suffering from an outage, in which case the only thing you can do is sit pretty and wait for normal service to return.
The next most likely solution is to disable your security software that works in tandem with the email client. Firewalls and anti-virus suites are probably one of the single biggest factors in emails not reaching their intended recipients. If the email still fails to send with security disabled, you may want to call the SMTP hosts and ask for further assistance.
Attachments in emails can also cause an enormous amount of difficulty with security settings. Most email clients have a built in mechanism to deal with the daily assault of spam. And even if you can't see it at work, without that spam filter, we'd be under a constant barrage of useless junk.
If your email client isn't letting you download an attachment, the chances are that the client has detected it as potentially harmful. In some cases, this may be a false alarm. If you know and trust the sender, and are expecting the attachment, it's okay to add the contact to your address book and the safety net should loosen to allow the attachment through.
Failing this, you can turn off security. But this is always a big risk and should only be a temporary solution while you look for a proper fix.
Most email problems are unfortunately born out of the problems that come with protecting ourselves from viruses and spammers. There will always be the odd email that slips through the net and gets filtered with the junk, but the benefit of having protection far outweighs everything else.
If you're worried about losing emails, you can set up a forwarding mechanism to a secondary account. This will ensure that you have two shots at getting the messages.
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