M1 Monterey Email Test just spins

[mikey1299]

I bought a M1 that is running Monterey and my emails now longer work. When I hit the "Test" button I get a spinner above it and nothing else happens. I don't see anything in the log file. The settings have been triple checked with the old system that is still running but on High Sierra. Anyone have any ideas?

[elagache]

Dear mikey1299 and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

I bought a M1 that is running Monterey and my emails now longer work. When I hit the "Test" button I get a spinner above it and nothing else happens. I don't see anything in the log file. The settings have been triple checked with the old system that is still running but on High Sierra. Anyone have any ideas?

Which email service are you trying to connect to?  It could be the case that the operating system upgrade changed the way you need to connect.

Let us know, . . . . .

Edouard

[mikey1299]

It is gmail. It still will not send a test email but the daily emails still got sent at midnight.

[elagache]

Dear mikey1299 and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

It is gmail. It still will not send a test email but the daily emails still got sent at midnight.

If email works part of the time, most likely this is some sort of file corruption.  Can you restore your WeatherCat preferences from a copy that is well before you upgraded?  Instructions on replacing preference files can be found here on the WeatherCat Wiki:

https://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=How_to_create_and_use_a_backup_of_your_WeatherCat_preferences_file

If you haven't created a backup copy, you might be able to restore from something like a Time Machine backup.

Cheers, Edouard

[drewaz]

I'm having the same issue ....  M1 Mac, OS Monterey, Cox internet ...

I hit the test button and get this message "WeatherCat was unable to send a test email ...".  in the past I received custom alert emails but we rarely have weather in Phoenix so my custom alerts rarely trigger ....  I'm not sure when this became an issue.

I deleted the plist file as suggested and restarted the computer, confirmed the settings and still can't send a test email.  I tried SMPT ports 25, 993 and 465.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated!  We're starting our monsoon season and I'm hoping I'll get a rain starting email from WC!

[xairbusdriver]

Perhaps port 587 for SMTP? Cox Email Server Settings
BitRecover™

Does Cox have any new email criteria/password restrictions?

I assume you are NOT having problems with your email app and your Cox accounts, correct?

[drewaz]

Port 587 didn't work and my Cox.net email is working as expected.  the 'can't send' message appears a second after I hit the end email button so I'm guessing there is something local that is responsible for the problem.

thanks for the quick reply!

[elagache]

Dear drewaz, X-Air, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Thanks X-Air for locating the Cox email server instructions.  According to those instructions and the WeatherCat manual (see page 126,) you should use port 465 and have the authentication checkbox checked in the WeatherCat preferences.  If the Cox documentation is still correct that should work.

The other thing to check is whether or not Cox has made changes to their security measures.  The Cox documentation indicates that this email service is deprecated and no longer available to new users.  Perhaps some new security measure has been implemented that your email client has adjusted for automatically, but WeatherCat requires an explicit change such as an application specific password.

Let us know what you discover,

Edouard

[drewaz]

THANKS as always elagache.  you are a savior around here!

as I mentioned in my post, I did try port 465 and the authentication box is checked.  the email I am using is my primary Cox email, I have used it for many years and it works outside of WC despite the fact that Cox no longer offers email accounts.  Luckily (for me) they have allowed customers to keep their legacy email accounts.  The password provided is the correct one for this email account.

the 'failed' message occurs immediately after hitting the test button ... I don't think there would even be time to attempt to connect with the Cox server.  I'm not great at IT issues but it seems to me there is something misbehaving between WC and Monterey (and possibly an M1 Mac) but who knows.

maybe others using Monterey and WC will reply and let me know if all is well on their end.

thank you again for always being around.  you never seem to miss a beat!!!!!  I'll try anything you suggest.

[elagache]

Dear drewaz and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

THANKS as always elagache.  you are a savior around here!

You are welcome for past assistance.  However, I'm not sure what is going on in this case.

as I mentioned in my post, I did try port 465 and the authentication box is checked. 

That is definitely a disturbing result since that contradicts the Cox documentation.

the email I am using is my primary Cox email, I have used it for many years and it works outside of WC despite the fact that Cox no longer offers email accounts.  Luckily (for me) they have allowed customers to keep their legacy email accounts.  The password provided is the correct one for this email account.

So how to you retrieve your general emails from this account?  Do you use an email client or a web interface?

the 'failed' message occurs immediately after hitting the test button ... I don't think there would even be time to attempt to connect with the Cox server.  I'm not great at IT issues but it seems to me there is something misbehaving between WC and Monterey (and possibly an M1 Mac) but who knows.

Unfortunately, it is really impossible to tell from that observation alone.  I assume your ISP is also Cox, so the mail server could be rapidly accessible on their own network.  However, there could be other issues like some sort of firewall restriction that is preventing connections on port 465.

Do you have any idea when this problem started?  Could it date back all the way to your upgrade to the M1 Mac?

The only other thought that comes to mind is how did you replace the WeatherCat preference file?  Is there any chance you replaced it with what was unfortunately another corrupted preference file?  If you have a Time Machine backup, could you replace the file with a very old preference file?  I'm wondering if you could restore the preference file from before you upgraded your Mac.

Sorry, I don't see any obvious cause to this mystery.   Anyone else has something to suggest?

Edouard   

[drewaz]

My Cox emails are retrieved by Apple Mail and have been for a very long time.  I've never had an issue with this set up.  The outgoing port listed in Apple Mail is 587.

I suspect the issue here occurred well before switching to an M1 Mac and Monterey (Big Sur before Monterey).  I'm in Phoenix and don't expect to get any WC alert emails because the weather never seems to change.  We recently had RAIN though and I noticed I didn't get an alert email so I started looking around and found the current problem.  I don't have a back up that goes back that far though.

I followed the (?) Wiki instructions and closed WC, deleted the WC preference file, emptied the trash, restarted the computer and set up WC again using the new preference file so I guess I can assume the new one isn't corrupt?  I tried numerous ports (25, 993, 465, 587) but the result was the same.  I check the box to get daily data emails but ...  no luck with that either.

Everything else WC seems to be working ...  I'll do my best to live without emails lol.

thanks again Edouard!

[Steve]

Probably not the case here, but I'll mention it just the same. Uploading to Weather Underground had similar issues, and it turned out that they stopped accepting characters in the user's password. If your password contains something weird, temporarily change it and see if that resolves the issue.

Probably not, but worth a shot.

[drewaz]

thanks Steve ....  def worth a shot but sadly it didn't work

thanks though

[xairbusdriver]

I think what Steve meant was "special" characters. Not sure the exact "special characters" was ever published here. Safest bet (for WU, anyway) would be anything other than the 26 letters of the English alphabet and the numbers zero through nine. On the other hand, I wouldn't think that a major Internet provider would accept only such a limited range of characters, especially for password where 'more is always better'!

Easiest 'fix' might be to use a completely different email address from a different service. I assume you have at least an Apple supplied (iCloud/.mac/...) addy.

It would be great if another WC user who also uses Cox would chime in with some details/info.

[drewaz]

I think what Steve meant was "special" characters. Not sure the exact "special characters" was ever published here. Safest bet (for WU, anyway) would be anything other than the 26 letters of the English alphabet and the numbers zero through nine. On the other hand, I wouldn't think that a major Internet provider would accept only such a limited range of characters, especially for password where 'more is always better'!

Easiest 'fix' might be to use a completely different email address from a different service. I assume you have at least an Apple supplied (iCloud/.mac/...) addy.

It would be great if another WC user who also uses Cox would chime in with some details/info.

Thanks xairbusdriver ....  so I switched to my never previously used icloud email address, what I think is the correct smtp (smtp.mail.me.com) and port 587 and it still is a no go.  UGH.  I thought for sure this would solve my problem.

I sent myself an email from Cox to the icloud address and it was delivered .....  I know it's a good email.

anyway, my favorite plane is the airbus 350!

Thanks for your continued thoughts ...  much appreciated.