Hi, everyone. I need help with an Inbox that won't open, but I need to provide a preamble to explain.
I have two computers, one with Windows 10 where I use Outlook with an IMAP account, and one with Windows Vista where I use the old Windows Mail program (from 2006) with a POP account (all emails directly downloaded to the computer). Any emails sent to my address come from my Bell server to both computers simultaneously. This has worked well for years. But two days ago something major went wrong.
On the Windows Vista system, when trying to virus-scan a file with Norton, Norton (against my wishes and without being commanded to) decided that in order to interpret the file it needed to download the latest Norton Updates. But I had been warned never to update my Norton on that computer, because neither Norton nor Chrome any longer support Vista. That had not been a problem, as the outdated versions of Chrome and Norton still worked fine, still pointed out dangerous web sites, etc. But now Norton unilaterally updated, and after that, I could not any longer do Norton searches or get the little green icons telling which sites are safe. I can still search using Google on that computer, but I no longer get the warning icons and therefore it's a risk to click on any site.
Further, I can no longer log in to my Bell Mail on the old computer. It just "hangs up" endlessly, and I can never get to the sign-in menu to look at my mail on the server. (Needless to say, I'm typing this from the new computer where I can log into Bell Mail.) But all this is preamble to the problem I need help with.
So right after this happened, I stopped being able to receive incoming mail on the Vista Windows Mail system. I can still open Windows Mail on the Vista computer, and read all the old emails, and can even send new emails from that computer to my new computer using Windows Mail, but I can't receive any mail on the old computer. I keep getting that standard error message that has been discussed many times here:
Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Account: 'Bell mail', Server: 'pophm.sympatico.ca', Protocol: POP3, Port: 995, Secure(SSL): Yes, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F
So, I tried to phone Bell to get help tonight but the office is closed after midnight. (I'll try again tomorrow.) Anyhow, there's no guarantee that a Bell technician could solve the problem faster than experts reading here.
So here is what I tried so far: I went into my account to check to make sure Port for incoming mail is still 995. It is. And SSL is still active. Then I went (on this new computer) to my Bell Mail and tried, for the heck of it, to forward an email from the server to my old computer. No go. The forwarded email comes here to the new computer, but not to the old computer.
Note that everything was working fine on the old computer -- the Vista system, the old Bell Mail program, the older version of Norton, the older version of Chrome -- until after the aforementioned incident happened.
I had the bright idea of using System Restore to restore my Vista system to a date before Norton updated its version, but though System Restore when through the process, and everything seemed to go normally, at the end it said that my files were not restored to the earlier state due to an unspecified error in the process. I tried with two other earlier restore points, and got the same result.
I can live with the sabotage of Norton on the Vista system, but for my purposes I *must* be able to have mail sent to the old Vista system. I must get the incoming mail working again in the Windows Mail program. As I said, the whole program works fine -- reading, sending, forwarding, etc. -- it just cannot bring any new mail into my Inbox since May 26th.
I thought of calling Norton and asking one of their technicians to take over my computer remote, but I'm afraid they will say they no longer work with Vista systems (even though it's Norton's fault the Vista system screwed up, for updating without instruction to do so). But I may still try to call them.
I don't think Bell does the remote computer takeover thing.
Any solutions? Suggestions?
