Forum Discussion

GeoLynch's avatar
GeoLynch
New Contributor
7 years ago

Sending email while traveling in Europe

When I have traveled in Europe in the past, I have been able to receive emails in my Cox email account on a Windows laptop and an iPhone, but neither of them can send replies or new email.  They sit in the outbox and never send.  I thought I had this solved years ago when the telephone support guy said to use "smtp.west.cox.net on channel 465 with SSL" but that has not worked lately.  I see old postings about some services having cox SMTP servers blacklisted, or something like that.  Does anyone see an obvious problem and know a solution?  

  • Darius's avatar
    Darius
    New Contributor III
    7 years ago

    Geo,

    See my post on 12 Oct. in the thread "What's Cox's plan for customers traveling outside the U.S.?" It details issues regarding both my own experience with Cox email while traveling in Himalayan Asia and general issues pertaining to customers traveling overseas. It won't solve your problem, but it may help you see what you're up against.

    Apparently Cox either programs its servers to block overseas access or uses a firewall to accomplish the same goal.

    As far as I can tell, Cox's plan for customers traveling overseas is like the "super-secret probation" in Animal House. Nobody, not even most Cox support personnel, know about it, it doesn't really serve its intended purpose because in most countries a VPN can circumvent blocking of Cox web pages (but unfortunately not access to Cox's SMTP servers), customers only discover it after they are overseas, and then they're supposed to contact Cox even even though almost none of Cox's communications channels work from outside the U.S.

    Darius

    • Darius's avatar
      Darius
      New Contributor III
      7 years ago

      One piece of clarification: I'm finding that using a VPN sometimes lets me access Cox's SMTP server and sometimes not.

      Still, using a VPN is far from a satisfactory solution, even if it were a reliable workaround. First, most VPNs charge a subscription fee, and Cox has no right to expect customers to purchase additional third-party services just so they can use the services they are already paying for from Cox. Second, which VPN works where varies, and customers traveling multiple places would have to experiment with multiple VPNs and likely pay multiple fees. Third, some countries block VPNs, so it's not a universal solution. Fourth, turning a VPN on and off is subject to human error, so relying on one is not acceptable as a solution to what is inherently a problem with Cox's own policies, procedures, and technology.

      Nonetheless, I strongly recommend using a VPN when overseas because most VPNs encrypt their messages and therefore are more secure. Check your specific VPN as YMMV. But this has nothing to do with the issue of accessing Cox's email servers.

  • BrianM's avatar
    BrianM
    Moderator
    7 years ago
    There is an added layer of security when using Cox email outside of the U.S. If you are currently in Europe, we can put in a ticket to grant you access while out of the country. If you happen to have an alternate email address, you may email our team at cox.help@cox.com. Please include a link to this thread and the email address you are having trouble emailing from.

    Brian
    Cox Support Forum Moderator
    • Darius's avatar
      Darius
      New Contributor III
      7 years ago

      BrianM,

      GeoLynch's post said s/he's unable to "send replies or new email." So how is someone overseas supposed to send an email to cox.help@cox.com if Cox makes it impossible for them to send email?

  • Dr__Azin's avatar
    Dr__Azin
    New Contributor
    7 years ago

    The worst think about this is that from my experience, the Cox SMTP server DOES NOT SEND ANY REJECTION MESSAGE, it simply accepts the mail as sent from your device, and then discards it, never sending it to your intended recipient.  If this was a response to an important message, you look like an idiot because you will never have been responded.  If you were sending an important message, you will never get a response (because it was never sent).  

    I had to switch my SMTP to gmail since I travel often and this was a disaster.    (It has a minor drawback in that I couldn't figure out how to suppress recipients seeing my gmail address and sometimes thinking that is my primary address.)

      • duhmel123's avatar
        duhmel123
        New Contributor III
        7 years ago

        Nice link  Here's what I get

        "Bet you're as surprised 
        as us that this page 
        is missing."

    • Darius's avatar
      Darius
      New Contributor III
      7 years ago

      Dr. Azin,

      My experience was even worse. I got error messages saying my password was bad. So I wasted over an hour trying to figure out the problem, eventually changing the password for my Cox email. Still no success, but by this time my account was blocked on Cox web sites because of too many attempts with invalid passwords. I then somehow managed to open a chat with Cox support, and after over an hour with a Level-1 tech who knew nothing about overseas travel restrictions, etc., a Level-2 told me about Cox's policy of blocking overseas access. The tech said he'd authorize my wife's account and mine, but that was two weeks ago, and it still doesn't work.

      But now, thanks to the misleading error message, I have to go and change the password on all my devices: 3 desktop computers, 1 laptop, 1 NAS server, 1 tablet, 1 phone. What a colossal waste of time. And all because of a totally bogus error message.

      Also, I just got back (to Nepal) from about 2 weeks in Tibet, where the government blocks most VPN's, everything Google, CAPTCHA's, etc. For customers overseas Cox blocks some of the same elements, making it harder to troubleshoot in places like China. (I'd expect similar problems in Iran, Russia, and other places where governments are likely to do such things.) When a government does it, we call it censorship. When a corporation like Cox does it, we call it free enterprise.

      • Dr__Azin's avatar
        Dr__Azin
        New Contributor
        7 years ago

        Well, I suppose you're lucky in that you found a level 2 rep that actually knew about this blocking outside the US :-/  
        It's really bad in that it seems they don't really care about providing a good service and satisfying customers. 

        With this and other mail issues (the biggest now is that with the "new" webmail platform, it's impossible to manage and delete emails by sender or date ranges, where before it may have been a bit cumbersome, it was doable, and this is exacerbated by the 2Gb limit that's been in place for over a decade--when you try to view a lot of e-mails, it takes 5 minutes just to get halfway through the "A's" when going alphabetically by sender, and then you get a 502 server error or 127.0.0.1 error, so you can never view and delete e-mails from senders in the "G's" and "H's", let along L's and M's!), I have been told twice that the best solution is to use another e-mail service.  Really?  Telling customers to use a competitor?   And then they say that the e-mail is just a "free" item, and they only really sell the internet access.  Yeah, right--it's included in the package for a price!   

        So, the only thing I could afford to do since I had critical responses and e-mails for things I had to get done while traveling, was to use gmail.  I see that it's blocked where you traveled, so I suppose you'd need to find another one...  Good luck!