Hi there!
A few days ago, I experienced a situation where all my email stopped working. The last email was received in the evening and then suddenly in morning, all email connections were dead. I use Thunderbird and have several different imap accounts, including Google Mail.
I tried literally everything – switching off/on system processes and services. Downloaded TCPView to see which app might be blocking the ports. I tried to install another emal clients including MS Mail and Zimbra. None of these clients was able to connect to the imap servers.
Then I found some tips to try in the command line:
telnet imap.googlemail.com 993.
This seemed to work properly, so I ended up with even more questions than answeres. Then I was advised to try boot to Linux, so I made a bootable USB drive with Ubuntu – surprisingly, the emails worked. That was a good sign, that the ports are not blocked by router or the internet provider.
Then, I had an idea to try Windows Safe mode. Only a few system services are started in this mode, so there might be a chance to find out which service causes the problems. And surprisingly the emails worked in Safe mode! I was a step closer to solve this issue.
Starting my Windows 7 back in normal mode, I teried to swith various services off via Process Explorer. I noticed that firewall was started in the Safe mode, but the antivirus Eset NOD was not. Then I realized that the antivirus is the only piece of software that was changed (upgrated) during the morning. I tried to turn it off and finally my emails started to work again! 🙂 Then I switched off checking the port 993 and integration for Thunderbird inside NOD preferrences. This whole troubles took me the whole day and a piece of night to solve.
So, a few tips for you, when something similar happens to you.
1) Check the firewall. Try to turn it off for a minute.
2) Check antivirus settings – stop the resident agent or turn off as many options as possible. (Pausing the service didn’t work for me, the emails still didn’t work)
3) Check the processes that are running, if there is something suspicious that you dont know. I advise to use Process Explorer instead of the native Task manager.
4) Try to log into Safe mode – keep pressing F8 before Windows start loading – after you reset your PC. When you see the Windows logo, it’s too late.
5) Try TCP view and check the connection that your system has to Internet. Check for suspicious connections or processes. You can also use a command “netstat” and “ipconfig” in the Command line.
I hope my experience helped a little. Best Wishes!
