URGENT: Still having email issues? Post your email status here! Refer Cox Support to this thread.

Exactly, my son has not received all the test email to his att.net and gmail.com email accounts. He was prior to 4/24/17. They’re being queued on the Cox outgoing SMTP servers. All the sent emails are in the sent box on Cox’s WebMail, but seem to be queued on the Cox server.

Thank you so much for your reply.

Hi KevinM2;

I know you’re busier that a one legged man in a kicking contest. I can tell because you are not completely reading my posts that describe in great detail my experiences with Cox Webemail over the past 13 days. What is the point of sending a link to all my threads to cox.help@cox.com? No one there will receive it. It will end up in the sent box, but you won’t receive it. All my sent emails are queued somewhere within the Cox email network. With all do respect, I’m getting frustrated doing all the leg work for the Cox IT Division. I will attempt what you as just to make you happy, but I am confident the email will not be received at Cox.help@cox.com.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cox would receive it because it's a different network connection.  When you send an email to another domain (ATT or Google), Cox will forward it (supposedly) on an Internet connection because it's outside the Cox domain.

If you address an email within the Cox domain, it's just a server-to-server connection.  The server agent will route the email to the correct server according to the user account (for example, Cards47) as opposed to mail-server listings on the Internet.  I forget the technical name of "mail-server listings" so I just made that term up.

***EDIT:  (30 minutes later) Internet mail servers use Pointer Records (PTR).

Hello KevinM2,

I have not been able to send emails from my iPhone using the Mail client in the phone ever since 4/24 but only WHILE I'm at WORK on WIFI.    I can't even reply to one of my own emails and can't send a Reply to myself.    BUT....once I turn off WIFI and go back to AT&T or go home and use my home WIFI it works Ok.        Yes....I have performed all of the recommended port and security settings.    Yes....I can send email to myself and Reply to that same email if I'm using your webmail in a browser.     Yes....I've done as Cox recommended and I got the IP address from when I'm attached to work WIFI and then checked the ip address to see if it's blocked using the Cox web site that you had previously recommended and the IP address from work is not blocked.

BTW....I was never informed of any of these Cox email security changes.    I never received a flyer in my monthly bill and I never received an email from Cox to my primary email account warning me of these impending changes.     The only way I found out about these changes was from reading these Community postings.    You must have a huge number of Cox customers that are having issues and don't even realize that these Community forums even exist.

SO....bottom line is that I can not send any emails to anyone (including a reply to myself) while I'm attached to my work WIFI.     This was all working before 4/24.

Thanks for the tip, SpongeBob128, really appreciate it. From what you just told me this is totally and absolutely on Cox. We as users have absolutely no control over whether a DNS server has reverse lookup or not. For crying out loud, we’re the customers, not the friggen IT Tech department. I hope KevinM2 reads your reply and can look into what you described. That’s the best and most logical thing I’ve read concerning Cox’s email issues yet.

Thank you so much for your reply.

Definitely a Cox problem.  When you addressed email to ATT and Google, you did not get rejects.  The email has yet to deliver, but you didn't get rejects.

When you addressed to a valid address on the Cox domain, you did get rejects.

These processes involve different server agents so you're getting differing results.  The problem is on the server...not with your settings.

You know it and I know it, and perhaps if Cox reads your post, then they’ll know it. Now what the heck are they going to do and how much longer will it take? What a mess.

Thanks for your reply.

It is a mess.  The servers processing "in-house" email (stays within the Cox domain) are broken.  Outbound Internet email is broken.  At least you get email.  Blah!

Looks like the Cox Support Forum Moderator got bored and bailed. I wish they understood that we’re engaged concerning this issue and are actively trying to help them solve their own issues.

Right now, Cox email is FUBAR ;)

I feel your pain. I went to my Son’s house and used his iPad to send an email to cox.help@cox.com as KevinM2 suggested. You can see what I wrote above when I replied to KevinM2. I know when I used my Son’s email address to send an email to Cox that they would get it as I CC’d a copy to my Cox email account and I received it. I just check my email account on Cox via their WebMail page using Safari and I received it. Therefore, I know that the Cox email account cox.help@cox.com received it as well. The only problem is, will they do anything about it? Considering how long you’ve waited, I not sure I would want to hold my breath. 

Thanks for posting your reply and please update if you get a response or anything changes.

I have now contacted Cox No Support five times regarding this matter, most calls involving escalation to Tier 2.  I am now 9 days into a promised 1-2 day managerial callback (and reqjuested another one yesterday).  

Yes, I've changed my password and reset it for my devices.  It makes no difference in the failure to send mail via SMTP.   The first time that you try to send a message you get this error :

"Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.cox.net was lost in the middle of the transaction. Try again."

If you then immediately try to send again you get this error : 

"Sending of the message failed.
The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.cox.net timed out. Try again."

For whatever reason I am now able to send messages via my iPhone, at least of yesterday afternoon, and at least from within my own home on wifi.  Will try again out in the real world later today.  But the problem continues for my laptop running Thunderbird.

For the record I use this same Thunderbird installation to manage seven (7) e-mail accounts, only one of which is with Cox.  None of the other accounts are having any issues with either POP or SMTP.

What's your Timeout setting?  Perhaps you could try increasing it.

I really wish I knew. The only solid answers and feedback I’m getting on this thread, since I started it, is from people like you who are having issues. There are several posters that have a clear understanding of what the problem is, yet Cox keeps coming up empty. It kinda funny, Cox always wants us to keep trying the same fixes and workarounds while expecting a different out come each time. I believe Einstein called that the definition of insanity. 

Leatherlady, why don't you just change your login?

https://webmail.west.cox.net

There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t want to use your email client since Cox gives you the settings to do so. My email client logs in to both the incoming and outgoing Cox email servers. I can receive email, but the fun happens when I go to send it. The email client sends it just fine and I see it in the sent email box. I login to the WebMail page and the same email I sent is also in the sent box. The problem is that the email is queued somewhere on the Cox mail server as no one actually receives an email from me. I proved that by not using my email client and only using the WebMail page. I can send and receive, but nothing gets sent from the Cox mail server to the recipient even though it’s in the sent box. That WebMail page is in-house on Cox’s servers. At this point it has nothing to do with the setting on my computer. I’m only using a browser to access Cox’s email system. It ain’t me or us, it’s Cox!!

I think when Cox’s tech support wants me to describe what’s happening, I’m gonna cut and paste what I just wrote over and over again until they get the picture and that “Aha” moment.

After more forum reading, I see what my problem might be - Windows XP.  The operating system itself may not have the wherewithall to conform to the new security standard, regardless of what Outlook version you might be using.  But I can send emails!  And sending emails was the main issue being addressed by the new security protocols.  Just as confused as ever. . . . .

That's weird.  My send through Outlook makes it to the Cox Webmail and then on to the intended recipient - not stuck there like yours.

I see what my problem might be - Windows XP.

Thunderbird works just fine on XP. Hate needing a second email client judt for COX! Fortunately very little of my email uses my COX address.

Hello Cards47.     I have the exact same issue as you.    I have a number of emails that I sent yesterday from both my iPhone mail client and ones that I sent directly from Webmail and they all say Sent object in Webmail but they have not reached their destinations.    Some of these emails I’ve sent to other email addresses of mine (my work and my @hotmail) and they aren’t arriving.   I don’t have understand why these emails are all disappearing in Cox email servers         This is all very frustrating 

I have someone at Cox looking into all this and the tech I’m working with will call me tomorrow. So I’ll let ya all know how it goes.

I’m working with Carol and Nicole out of Virginia on their Cox Social Media Support Specialist team. We’ll see what happens. Looks like my Microsoft Certified Network training is coming in handy after all, now that I’m retired, lol.

I hope they'll look into my receive issue as well as y'all's sending issues.

My son has AT&T and has had no issues for years. Hasn’t ever had to contact tech support. I’m looking into that since Verizon fiber optic isn’t available at my address. I don’t know about Santa Barbara, but depending on your address in Orange County, the ISPs available are few.

I have been having email issues for over three weeks, almost a month. Almost all of my problem is I can't use the search function. Each and every time it gives some kind of proxy error or other timeout error. I've been screenshotting the errors several times a day for the past two weeks. This happens on every single browser no matter what wifi I'm in. Also, I ONLY use webmail.  I too was told I would get a phone call (no call) and they even had me change my password to something they could see in order to "fix" it. I do not feel comfortable with that, but if it is necessary to fix the problem I was OK with it.  I've never heard back from them, and have spent hours and hours on the phone, chat, email, and cox connect app. They've had my password for over two weeks

That’s just wrong on so many levels. If Cox stands me up today, I’ll have my son setup an email account at Gmail, have him setup my iPad email client with the new email, move over to AT&T as my ISP, and cut Cox loose. 

Yea they told me since email is s "free" service they aren't obligated to fix it. One of the cox connect agents told me to make another email account since cox gives you ten accounts lmfao right like I should just abandon my account I've had for 10 years.

First of all, it is not a free service. It’s part of your ISP service that you pay for. Second, I made a second email address with the same results. Insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Since their WebMail is failing to send email, that’s all on Cox.

I'm chiming in to report that I am experiencing the same problems listed by the other posters in this thread. I have burned up several hours of time on Cox chat and phone “support” to receive only the scripted responses to check settings over and over again, reload SW applications, upgrade to the latest SW and refer the problem to Microsoft because “it must be a Microsoft problem.”

The latest round of problems started on 24 April 2019 (17 days ago). This coincides with the latest known Cox initiated email server changes. ALL of our devices are affected as follows:

Windows 10 Pro desktop using Microsoft Outlook 2016
I ended up reinstalling the complete Microsoft Office SW to be sure I was starting fresh. The Outlook auto settings process won’t connect to COX at all even though I can see that it properly discovered the COX server names and port numbers. My internet research found that many users have historically had the same issue with COX servers. The COX rep would not acknowledge that fact and said I should contact Microsoft.

iPhone X
Intermittently will not send or receive email even though it has a strong cellular connection AND a strong Wi-Fi connection. Sometimes we can get email to work if we turn off the Wi-Fi and therefore force the phone to use the cellular link. When working we have seen up to a 5 hour latency between sending and receiving an email from one of our cell phones to the other.

Samsung Gallaxy S7
Same issues as the iPhone X

Windows XP Pro desktop using Microsoft Outlook 2003
Yes. I know it’s old but it was working fine up until 24 April 2019. It will currently still reliably send emails (So it is still connecting to the COX server) but the incoming email completely stopped on 24 April 2019. I even deleted the account and re-entered all the COX setup information. That didn’t change anything. Outgoing still works but incoming does not work at all.

All of my incoming and outgoing email is visible on the COX web-mail site and I am using only 2% of my allotted 2 GB of email storage. I do not want to use the COX web-mail as my primary email interface application.

I too am extremely disappointed in the COX service. It appears that they have farmed out the email service and do not have the expertise to troubleshoot and correct the problems. At the end of one chat session the support rep started pitching an additional cost upgrade of my COX “service.” This was after he acknowledged that he had not solved my problem. I had to respond three times that I was not going to buy in to a larger bill. I felt like he just wanted points for up selling and didn’t really care that my email was not working.

Additional information...

I loaded Outlook 2003 on a Windows 7 Pro laptop and successfully got email working (Send and Receive) using the Cox published parameters for their IMAP server. However, I found that my Inbox messages older than 3/24/2019 are no longer shown. I logged into the the Cox WebMail and the WebMail inbox also is now missing the messages prior than 3/24/2019.

this is a new and distinct problem, Therefore, I will start a new thread about the missing emails on this forum.

Hello KevinM2

My email issue is so bad now that it doesn’t even work when sending emails via your browser based myemail.cox.net webmail.    Whenever I send a new or do a Reply to an email it never reaches its destination.    I’ve had a ticket open with Cox support since last week and nothing has been fixed.  I even tried replying to emails sent to me by the Cox Support person I spoke to and she did not receive my replies.    My replies do appear in my Sent Objects folder of webmail so they appear that they were sent successfully but they never reach a destination.  Why would these emails show up in my Sent Objects folder of webmail but then not reach a destination and not give me any feedback that they are not being sent?   Why is it someone can’t quickly identify this and fix it?   

Hi KevinM2. Thanks for responding. I would have responded sooner but the Forum email notifications, which I did turn on, are not being received by me.

I am missing emails from my inbox on the host web server on myemail.cox.net. (What I referred to as "Webmail") All the emails older than 03/24/2019 are missing.

I am currently focusing on getting a new computer configured using Windows 10 Pro and Outlook 2016. I have manually entered the email server information from the Cox website and I cannot get Outlook 2016 to connect to Cox using either POP3 or IMAP.

I have even completely deleted Microsoft office 2016 and re-installed. There are various postings on the web by others having similar cox email issues. I would like to hear if anyone has a solution that I can try.

MissyKay, you have a point about this thread being so large since I started it, but it has turned out to be a log of all the problems and troubleshooting the customers have produced to assist Cox concerning their inept attempt at their, so called, Email Security Update. Clearly this is on Cox to fix this and has absolutely nothing to do with user error.

With that being said, I have created an outside email account (@outlook.com) at MSN.com. Once all my email contacts have gotten the update and all email is transferred, Cox will be gone from life. My new ISP will be AT&T using their email account. The outlook.com email account from MSN will be my backup once my AT&T account in online. Stick a fork in me, I’m done with Cox forever!

BTW, what you discovered about the BCC was brilliant. I hadn’t even thought about that combo. Your point about the “To:” recipient NOT receiving email and the “BCC:” recipient actually receiving email shows me that Cox has even more issues than they thought.

I find it very disheartening how Cox support has basically ignored all this user troubleshooting. I believe Cox is in denial and, for some reason, they believe denial is a river in Egypt. I can no longer be upset with Cox as this has all become just laughable.

Cards47, I definitely support the thread (and value) of this present discussion - my comment re the length simply reflected my being unsure I was inserting my contribution/question in the appropriate spot.   Will also add I just got off the phone with Cox IT Support again - was told I should go to the web site:  spamhouse.org and enter my IP address and request it be "delisted" - as that was potentially the reason why my emails were not being received by my contacts whose email addresses were through Comcast.net.  Not an IT person, myself, but this seems like a step one shouldn't have to take simply to ensure a typical day-to-day email exchange with friends.  Would welcome anyone's feedback on the spamhouse.org suggestion by Cox.  Thanks in advance.

Seriously, that’s not on you and is Cox’s responsibility. They’re deflecting again and you shouldn’t have to do they’re job for them. I did not take your  comment about the size of this thread in a bad way at all. I know it can be daunting, but it now has become a running history with support from your fellow customers. As I said, your info about your BCC test was awesome, wish I had thought of it, LoL.

Hi Kevin - I do not receive any notice or message - never have.  That's the biggest issue.  There's been no way to know that emails are not going through as they appear (as they always have) in my "Sent" folder.  I only know that in the past few months two of my frequent contacts (Comcast users) now no longer receive my emails (based on their lack of response and my calling/texting them to repeatedly ask, "Did you get my email???"  To which the answer is always, "No."  Other contacts do receive my emails with no troubles.  Then there are those emails recently sent - to which there are no replies (and no other way to contact the recipient) - - so I can only assume they were 1) received but ignored OR 2) never received like the Comcast accounts holders.    Also - please see my other post related to this:  forums.cox.com/.../sent-emails-successfully-reaching-bcc-parties-but-not-the-intended-to-recipient

I'm not 100% certain but I think my issue when I'm at work on wifi is that my company doesn't provide a Reverse DNS lookup for when the Cox SMTP servers are trying to accept my SMTP connection and authenticate who I am.     Just like you.... when I'm at home on WIFI or just on AT&T cell service everything works OK.    I've already asked our firewall people here at work to see if packets are flowing from our network out and back to/from SMTP.COX.NET port 465 and the packets are going back and forth and not being blocked.      BUT....apparently if Cox can't get a good result from the reverse dns lookup then they reject your connection.       If you look in other threads you'll see this mentioned by Cox support.    Look in this discussion:

https://forums.cox.com/forum_home/internet_forum/f/internet-forum/23071/blocked-ip/88476#88476

I've asked my company if they can allow the reserve dns lookup and I was told No that because of security reasons they won't.      So....if I need to send an email from my iPhone when I'm at work I then have to turn off WIFI to go back to AT&T wireless and then send the email.