One of the most common errors that you receive while using Microsoft Outlook is shown in the picture below. This error can result from a large number of possibilities, and we will try to cover as many of them as possible in this post.
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As you can see in the message, it says “Cannot find the e-mail server. Verify the server information in your account properties”. There can be many reasons for why this can happen and to figure out the issue, we need to proceed step by step.
First things first – Is the Internet accessible?
Before we run off to check our server settings, we need to make sure that the basics are in place. Make sure that you can access the Internet. I produced the screen shot above by simply disconnecting my computer from the Internet and then trying to get email.
The simplest way to check if your Internet is running is to open your browser and visit any page on the Internet (you could try visiting http://windowserrorsadvisor.org/). If you are not able to open pages on the Internet, then chances are that your problem is right there. Figure out what the problem with your computer is, fix it, and then try accessing your email.
Okay, so Internet is working. Let’s confirm the settings.
Although, this step usually doesn’t reveal any problem. The reason is that (unless you have recently changed any settings) your settings cannot change themselves, and if the email was working yesterday, there is no reason it shouldn’t work today.
But maybe you just setup your account; or someone (or you yourself) could have changed the settings recently. So, it is necessary to go and verify your settings. The method for verifying your settings is the same as what it took to setup your account in the first place. There are many tutorials on this, and one excellent site is here.
The settings that you enter here should be those provided by your ISP, administrator, or your email hosting provider.
Beyond this, it gets a little fuzzy. Check if the mail server is up.
There are a number of things that we can do here. We can check if the email server itself is running. There are many ways through which you can do this. One possibility is to use a website which allows you to check your email from a web page. While you should be careful of giving out your email credentials on the Internet, there is one particular site that I use quite regularly (and so I can suggest it. NOTE: this is just a suggestion, anything you do on the Internet is at your own risk). The one I use regularly is called Mail2Web.
The idea is to see if email can be downloaded at all. If there is a problem with email being downloaded from an external site like Mail2Web as well, then the problem is not with your Outlook, but with your email provider. Contact the person responsible for maintaining the email server (ISP, administrator, support, etc.).
Finally, there can be other problems.
If you can access the email from an external site like mentioned above, but not from Outlook, there can be many reasons for that still. Some of these are:
- Firewall – Have you installed a new firewall on your computer or your network – this could be blocking default email ports or the mail servers as well. Make necessary changes to the configuration.
- Anti-virus – Have you installed new Anti-virus software? This can sometimes cause such problems. Consult your AV provider’s website for help.
- Corporate Network – Are you behind a corporate firewall? A lot of offices have very strict firewalls, and so you may need to talk to your IT Admin.
- VPN – Are you on a VPN? A number of VPN clients can restrict access when you are connected to a VPN.
There can be other problems as well. If none of the above fixes your problem, you should post it in the comments, and we will be more than glad to help you figure it out.
Post from: Windows Errors Advisor
