Outlook won't send messages from home wireless Internet system

[MoneyGuy]

I'm a financial planner with my own office. I have wireless Internet at the office and also at home. My office computer is a laptop and I run Outlook. Last night I took my laptop home to do some work and tried to send email from Outlook. It got stalled in my outbox and did not send. This morning the email went out immediately when I started the computer at the office. Why did this happen? Is Outlook configured or something to my wireless at the office so when I connect to another wireless signal it doesn't work?

[Bobblehead]

Well, if you had connected your computer through a wire, would the email have been delivered?

I'm guessing the wireless is a red herring.

More probable is your work network uses a different mail server than your home network.

[llama64]

Do you use MS Exchange as a email server? Or is your email service provided by your ISP or some other provider?

As Bobblehead mentioned, it's not likely going to be your wireless network, but more a difference in which server it uses to send email out on. If it's an exchange server, chances are you can't use Outlook to send email from outside your office network (unless you get a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection setup.

Now if it's a POP3/SMTP account, there shouldn't be any problem as long as the servers are visible to your laptop both at work and at home.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Well, if you had connected your computer through a wire, would the email have been delivered?

I'm guessing the wireless is a red herring.

More probable is your work network uses a different mail server than your home network.

To your question, I don't know because I don't use a wired Internet anymore at home (at the office I still have computers connected hardwired - my assistants').

It may be a different mail server. I have telus at both places, but that probably doesn'tg determine the server.

This is really no big deal to me (no major inconvenience) because I so rarely do this and can work around it easily. I'm just curious as to why it won't work.

Is it easy to reconfigure a new server for home and would it affect being able to use the laptop at the office in this way?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Is it easy to reconfigure a new server for home and would it affect being able to use the laptop at the office in this way?

What about what Llama asked? Because if you use an Exchange Server at work, and you then take your laptop away from your work's network, you will need to find a way to connect to your work's network.

Easiest question, is your email address XXX@telus.net or is it XXX@companyname.com ?

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by ken0042

What about what Llama asked? Because if you use an Exchange Server at work, and you then take your laptop away from your work's network, you will need to find a way to connect to your work's network.

Easiest question, is your email address XXX@telus.net or is it XXX@companyname.com ?

I was writing my last post and Llama and I posted pretty close together and I didn't see his until just now.

I'll answer the "easiest" question, as you call it. My email address at work is xxx@companyname.com and at home I use xxx@telusplanet.net. Is that the reason it won't work for me and is it an easy fix? If not easy, I probably won't bother.

[ken0042]

Sounds to me like you have a mail server at work. Basically a mail server sorts the mail. Your laptop has been told to only let "Server A" handle the mail, so when it can't find Server A it doesn't send out the mail.

And the reason is can't find Server A is because it is sitting in a room at your work; protected by a firewall from the internet. And it has to be that way because for every guy like you trying to send mail, there's 1000 other guys trying to hack into that server.

What you need to do is ask your IT department (or IT guy depending on the size of the company): "Hey, I want to use my work laptop on my home Telus connection to send and receive email. Do we have VPN or anything like that?"

VPN creates an ultra secure connection back to Server A back at the office, and then once it can see Server A it can send off the mail.

[DuffMan]

you need vpn or rpc over http at home.

[MoneyGuy]

Thanks for the comments, guys. As I've said, it's not that important to me. I can exist just fine without it. I can go into the Telus website and send email that way. And, Duffman, I have no idea what you said.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

NM

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Thanks for the comments, guys. As I've said, it's not that important to me. I can exist just fine without it. I can go into the Telus website and send email that way. And, Duffman, I have no idea what you said.

I thought all high faluting financial guys, carried blackberries these days anyways.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

I thought all high faluting financial guys, carried blackberries these days anyways.

Ha, not this one. I want a home life.

Now I have a new Outlook problem. Give me five minutes to create a new thread.

[Tron_fdc]

This happens to me as well. I can send and receive on my laptop at work, but as soon as I go home it won't work at all.

Although, when I connect at various internet hotspots around the world, my email sends and receives normally at some of them. It works in some spots I've been to in Australia and Costa Rica, but not in China.

I asked a guy what it was once, and he said it had something to do with your router settings, as a lot of hotels are afraid of people getting in and using their connection to spam people. No idea if that's true though. He said that if I wanted to be able to use my outlook normally at home I would have to somehow configure my router to allow it, or call my ISP (shaw) and have them do it.