pop3 not working anymore?

Are you using SSL? Also, do you have a antivirus? Is it set to scan inbound mail? If so, try disabling it when the problem is happening and see if that fixes it?

I am having the same exact problem as of today. The web based email works but the pop accounts do not. I am using Outlook and Eudora on two different computers and both are asking for passwords. There seems to be a server issue with Cox. The web portal is working but the pop server does not. I tried switching to smtp but it does not work either. There have been no changes on either of my computers as they are even with different operating systems.

letti001 said:
I tried switching to smtp but it does not work either.

Could you explain this? You mean you tried using smtp.cox.net as your pop3 server?

Also, what area are you both from? I am using Thunderbird 43 and everything worked normally with IMAP. I deleted the account and recreated with POP3 and sent a test email to myself and everything worked. I am in RI.

One thing I did find which was unusual was I could no longer telnet to Cox's POP3 server, but that may have nothing to do with the issue. 

@letti001

From what I can tell it looks like your password may have been compromised.  I suggest going to the webmail page and resetting your password.  Make sure you use a unique password you have never used before with any other site and try your mail clients again.

ON the Cox email setup there are a couple of servers one can use. I had changed to smtp for the outgoing server just to try that. Nothing worked. Also, I have three other cox email accounts and they all work with the existing password. Simply, with Outlook and Eudora, the password does not work but with the webmail the same password works.

ChrisL said:
@letti001

From what I can tell it looks like your password may have been compromised.  I suggest going to the webmail page and resetting your password.  Make sure you use a unique password you have never used before with any other site and try your mail clients again.

Chris...do I need to call Cox Support or will changing the password via the webmail work the same?...thank you.

Hi letti001, if you are already logged in on the Cox website, you can reset the password while you are logged in. Or go to www.cox.com/password
I recommend that you do not choose a password that you have used before.
Please log out then log back in using the new password to make sure it is working.
You will need to update the email clients you use such as Outlook, or Thunderbird with the new password. 

@Tecknowhelp:  I have ssl enabled on port 995 incoming (POP3) and 465 outgoing (SMTP)

I finally gave up with online help, and deleted my email yesterday, then created a new one.  That worked for almost 24 hours (I was getting mail) and now it's back to not working

The error is either a timeout, a 'bad password/user combination, or a 554 denied for too many (the sentence is cut off so I don't know too many what)

I am using Norton Internet security, but turning it off doesn't change anything

RichP714 said:
I have ssl enabled on port 995 incoming (POP3)

RichP714 said:
I am using Norton Internet security,

Depending on the version, disabling Norton just turns off the active anti-virus and not necessary the firewall components like email scanning. As per:

" The emails that you receive in your secure (SSL) accounts are encrypted, and Norton email scanning cannot scan them before they are downloaded to your inbox."

So either 995/SSL with scan off or port 25/no SSL with scan on. I suggest, for testing, setting the client to only display plain text and have Norton only scan attachments. If you want specifics, what version of Norton?

I didn't disable NIS; just turned everything off for 1 hour (v 22.6.0.142), and it made no difference anyway; regardless, the error seems to be with connecting to the mailbox at all, rather than reading from it, and the error fluctuates between "I don't know you' and 'too many ...'

changing the port and ssl made no difference (i'm in Omaha btw)

RichP714 said:
I didn't disable NIS;

My problem was with N360, so possible unrelated. Could you create a test account and use IMAP and see if any better? Then you could migrate your account from POP to IMAP.. You could also try a tracert to pop.cox.net when the problem happens and see if its a connection issue. Last, if you really want to get technical, you could try telnet, but that gets tricky with OpenSSL. See here.

two of the three accounts under the main account started working again last night as I slept; it seems like doing nothing is the best fix, which leads me to believe it's an issue with cox, and an intermittent one, which leads me to believe that cox is trying to squeeze too much service out of its existing infrastructure, which leads me to believe they are then foisting the problem on us by having us reset passwords, clear chaches, flush DNS and all the other stuff that cox support had me try that didn't work.  a dog and pony show.

I'll live with just having webmail for now, but will start researching, in ernest, an alternative provider

@RichP714

It appears your password was compromised as well.  Resetting it to a new password you haven't used before on any other service should fix the mail client problem.