smtp.talktalk.net down?

[PeterParslow]

For the past 24 hours+, my wife & I have been unable to send emails - two separate accounts, two separate Windows laptops. Our email clients ask us to enter a password for smtp.talktalk.net - but they already "know" the password: they've been working for some years.

I can ping smtp.talktalk.net, but perhaps it is not responding (properly) to send mail requests?

Anyone else affected? Anyone fixing it?

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Peter,

Glad to hear that your issue is now resolved, thanks for letting us know

Chris

[PeterParslow]

Your email was aggressive, asserting that my problems were all my fault for not following password guidance that you then gave. You then suggested that TalkTalk could close my accounts due to no fault of my own.

As you say "TalkTalk Support, all yours. Good luck." (not sure if that's referring me to them or them to me, but never mind).

The problem which this thread is about has resolved itself.

You have warned me of potential future problems; for that I thank you.

[Gondola]

The tone of my email is serious. But as you're intent on doing your own thing and ignoring security advice and ignoring dates on Internet content then you're on your own with all of the consequences.

TalkTalk Support, all yours. Good luck.

[PeterParslow]

I will try to avoid the tone of your email, and concentrate on the actions.

"Your email password is NOT compliant with the required security" - as I said in my last post, both of us are now able to log in to smtp.talktalk.net with our respective email account names & passwords. If TalkTalk wants/requires us to change our passwords, making them more secure - which is quite a reasonable request - then I would expect to hear about it e.g. with my bill; not in a Community dialogue about a probably unrelated issue.

"All mailboxes must be listed in an active customer MyAccount in the Mailboxes list." - I don't know why TalkTalk has never associated my OneTel email addresses with my TalkTalk account in order that I can manage them. As you say, at present, there is nothing I can do about this - but it hasn't seemed to matter for the past 10 or more years!

"Orphan email accounts not linked to an active customer MyAccount are liable to deletion. " - I seriously hope that if TalkTalk plans to delete an active email account that I've had for some 25 years they give plenty of warning! It is my login to countless websites and know by probably hundreds of correspondents. It would take some time to migrate all that.

"MyAccount processes are not the same as they were 5 years ago. Quoting a 5 year old 2018 post from this Community that was correct at the time is clearly NOT the current 2023 advice from TalkTalk" - I suggest that TalkTalk makes some SEO tweaks and perhaps curates the community, so that more recent advice becomes discoverable, rather than a search pulling up the old community post.

"Via webmail a user can set up password recovery Reset details" - do you mean click the "Forgotten your password" link at Sign in - TalkTalk Mail (even though I haven't forgotten it)? That does take me to TalkTalk - Webmail - Reset Password which you describe as the "password reset journey". Thanks for that hint - I can use it to change my onetel account passwords, once I spot that the same password applies to WebMail, IMAP and SMTP. But as my systems are now working fine, I'm not sure why I should?

[Gondola]

Your email password is NOT compliant with the required security. The minimum requirement is: 

• UPPER and Lower Case letters
• at least One Number
• No Spaces and 8 characters minimum
• at least One of these special characters
  ! ( ) - , . ? [ ] _ ~ ; : ' @ # $ % ^ & * + =

The SMTP servers that are directly called from email client software will carry out password strength checks. The SMTP servers called from the webmail platform are authenticated from the platform so can therefore still send TalkTalk Mail even though a weak login password is accepted. TalkTalk reserve the right to suspend accounts with weak passwords if suspicious activity is detected.

All mailboxes must be listed in an active customer MyAccount in the Mailboxes list. Orphan email accounts not linked to an active customer MyAccount are liable to deletion. Currently customers cannot add orphan email accounts to the customer MyAccount because the current mailbox migrations to a new mail platform require the mailbox names to remain static during the migration phase. TalkTalk Support here can authorise the adding of the onetel email address to an active customer MyAccount after going through the required customer security checks that will include verifying the registered email user is the customer account holder. 

There are multiple protections applied to the MyAccount processes and one of those is that the device requesting a password link will have a token added and that token must be in place to carry out a password change. Hence the requirement for the device and browser to remain the same throughout the password change process.

MyAccount processes are not the same as they were 5 years ago. Quoting a 5 year old 2018 post from this Community that was correct at the time is clearly NOT the current 2023 advice from TalkTalk so I'll give you the required information below. Via webmail a user can set up password recovery Reset details and then use the password reset journey without needing to login to a customer MyAccount to change / reset the password.

The TalkTalk Mail Support Hub is your go to resource for information, guides and Community support for TalkTalk Consumer home broadband and MailPlus subscribers.

Select here:
 TalkTalk Mail Support

TalkTalk Mail help
 Using TalkTalk Mail

 Changing your email password

 Email settings and device setup guides for TalkTalk Mail

[PeterParslow]

Just entered my wife’s password into Outlook again and it works now. 
so it was some transitory thing 

like so many IT/internet faults

[PeterParslow]

My password was already 9 characters, mixed case letters & numbers. It seemed unlikely to me that it was too weak, given that it's acceptable for IMAP and WebMail.

You are right thought that the SMTP was wrong; I need to use  587. It's working now on my laptop (Thunderbird).

My wife's password is weaker, but there's nothing I can do about that - she/we can't change her password through the WebMail client (perhaps because her email address is part of my TalkTalk account), and we've never been able to see the OneTel email addresses at Manage your TalkTalk email address, let alone what is announced there:

"We have temporarily removed the create/delete mailbox functionality as we are performing some backend maintenance work on our email platform. We expect this work to be completed by September. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause."

So the advice at Reset onetel email password - Page 2 - TalkTalk Help & Support doesn't currently work (even allowing for the interface changes, so "Manage Webmail" isn't under something called "My services". 

An aside, quite often I can't even log in to My Account at TalkTalk, getting this rather incomprehensible message:

"To keep your account secure the link must be opened from the device and browser it was requested. Please try again."

& having to switch to 2FA.

[Gondola]

If you think the passwords are weak then they probably are.

 The requirement is multicase letters and numbers and a symbol to a length of 8 or more characters but I recommend 12-15 in order the attain the necessary level of security.

Using port 465 and SSl/TLS security does not work for TalkTalk Mail's outgoing SMTP server.

Thunderbird setup for onetel

[PeterParslow]

Thunderbird describes the settings as:

Description: TalkTalk
Server Name: smtp.talktalk.net
Port: 465
User Name: *****@onetel.com
Authentication method: Normal password
Connection Security: SSL/TLS

Outlook (once I dismiss the 'new password' dialogue is of course hard to copy/paste, but basically the same. I haven't ticked "Require log-on using Secure Password Authentication" but "My outgoing (SMTP) server requires authentication" is ticked, with "Use same settings as my incoming email server" selected

[PeterParslow]

On my wife's computer, where the issue first arose, she's using Outlook 365 under WIndows 11.
I've just added this SMTP server to my computer: Windows 11, Thunderbird. 

The SMTP settings are as described at Email settings | SMTP, IMAP & POP3 | TalkTalk Help & Support.
They are different TalkTalk email logins, both in the @ontel.com domain - often a poor relation since TalkTalk bought them (10 - 20 years ago!)

On Thunderbird, I get the message:

"Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.talktalk.net failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again."

Outlook just prompts for a new password for smtp.talktalk.net. This is new behaviour (last couple of days) - before that, she was sending emails fine.

It could be that both our passwords are considered weak - but somehow strong enough for IMAP!

[Gondola]

Clearly not down as I've just been sending mail from TalkTalk via the smtp.talktalk.net server and Thunderbird and that was promptly received in Gmail.

The smtp servers will detect a weak password and reject that. They'll also reject insecure sending and unauthenticated sending.

I assume you're sending TalkTalk mail and not personal domain mail? What email software are you using? What's the laptop operating system? What outgoing email settings are you using?