Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Suddenly my emails won't go out. I get an error message 4.7.0 saying it's temporary but it has been going on for a couple of hours.

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by rperless

more options

I'm running TB 78.11.0 on a Mac Mini running 10.13.6. Everything was fine until a couple of hours ago my emails suddenly won't go out and I'm getting error message 4.7.0 which says it is temporary and check your message. I tried sending to my wife who has another mailbox on my website, and it won't go to her either. It's not the site. Webmail works. So it must be a TB problem. Please help. I need to send stuff to clients. (I'm a sculptor.)

I'm running TB 78.11.0 on a Mac Mini running 10.13.6. Everything was fine until a couple of hours ago my emails suddenly won't go out and I'm getting error message 4.7.0 which says it is temporary and check your message. I tried sending to my wife who has another mailbox on my website, and it won't go to her either. It's not the site. Webmail works. So it must be a TB problem. Please help. I need to send stuff to clients. (I'm a sculptor.)

Chosen solution

Let's start by exploding a myth. Web mail working does not mean Thunderbird has a problem. Sending using an SMTP server provided by your mail provider is a completely different thing to using web mail which is nothing but a glorified web page. The rule you provider impose on SMTP rarely if ever ally to web mail because the think they have the entire environment under their control.

So lets back up to the error those three digit error codes are issued by your mail providers SMTP server, so they are the ones saying no. A quick google of the error indicates you are sending to much mail in to short a period, but the truth is you need to talk to the people running the server to find out what limit you are exceeding. If in fact it is a limit and not a case of their sever being offline for maintenance.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (3)

more options

Chosen Solution

Let's start by exploding a myth. Web mail working does not mean Thunderbird has a problem. Sending using an SMTP server provided by your mail provider is a completely different thing to using web mail which is nothing but a glorified web page. The rule you provider impose on SMTP rarely if ever ally to web mail because the think they have the entire environment under their control.

So lets back up to the error those three digit error codes are issued by your mail providers SMTP server, so they are the ones saying no. A quick google of the error indicates you are sending to much mail in to short a period, but the truth is you need to talk to the people running the server to find out what limit you are exceeding. If in fact it is a limit and not a case of their sever being offline for maintenance.

more options

I have the exact same problem, and it suddenly started a couple of days ago. It's inconsistent -- some outgoing e-mails it flags, some it doesn't.

I went to my e-mail provider, RCN, and they said, not us, check with your app.

I don't know about "exploding a myth," but something's wrong somewhere and it wasn't anything I did. It certainly is inconvenient.

more options

Ned5,

Matt is right. (Thanks, Matt, for the heads-up.)

RCN hosts my website and our email, and it is definitely an RCN problem. Level 1 people at RCN know nothing and will always tell you it's your app. Always ask for a level 2 tech.

We spoke to a level 2 tech named Donald this morning, and discovered this:

Our outgoing mailbox was on 587 with STARTTLS enabled, password transmitted securely. When I took the TLS off, and let the password be transmitted insecurely, the mail went out.

Donald said that the problem can be dropped packets on the part of your Internet provider (RCN? Mine is Verizon. He says that RCN provides its customers a way to visualize it.) He also said that smartphone apps constantly upgrading or other devices being used could be taking bandwidth. But TLS would demand constant bandwidth that it might not always be getting.

Hope that this has been helpful.