I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads, but my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE, and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2, with all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the Hotmail account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I prefer) running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?

Post any error messages you're getting in their entirety, Laurie.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
"Laurie Canham" wrote in message ...
I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads, but my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE, and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2, with all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the Hotmail account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I prefer) running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?

might extend the timeout value under account settings advanced tab.

there are timing issues with hotmail these days. it always fails for me on the first try, immediately tell it to check and it makes the second time.







"Laurie Canham" wrote in message ...
I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads, but my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE, and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2, with all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the Hotmail account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I prefer) running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?

It's not a timeout issue. Hotmail has altered their system not to accept
the first SYN packet from a mail client that's trying to poll for hotmail
messages. If you cancel and try again immediately it will always work on
the second connection. You will then be able to re-poll successfully for
the next 5 minutes or so. If you wait longer than this you will have to
reconnect to get it to work again. If you only connect once and wait, it
will hang indefinitely and finally give you an error. I have no idea why
hotmail has done this, but it's quite inconvenient.

If anyone knows why hotmail has done this, I'd be interested in their
reasoning.


"mikey" wrote in message
...
might extend the timeout value under account settings advanced tab.

there are timing issues with hotmail these days. it always fails for me on
the first try, immediately tell it to check and it makes the second time.







"Laurie Canham" wrote in message
...
I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads, but
my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE,
and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2, with
all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went
back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the Hotmail
account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference
with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found
intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I prefer)
running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?

"particle" . ..
It's not a timeout issue. Hotmail has altered their system not to accept
the first SYN packet from a mail client that's trying to poll for hotmail
messages. If you cancel and try again immediately it will always work on
the second connection. You will then be able to re-poll successfully for
the next 5 minutes or so. If you wait longer than this you will have to
reconnect to get it to work again. If you only connect once and wait, it
will hang indefinitely and finally give you an error. I have no idea why
hotmail has done this, but it's quite inconvenient.

If anyone knows why hotmail has done this, I'd be interested in their
reasoning.


"mikey" wrote in message
...
might extend the timeout value under account settings advanced tab.

there are timing issues with hotmail these days. it always fails for me on
the first try, immediately tell it to check and it makes the second time.







"Laurie Canham" wrote in message
...
I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads,
but
my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE,
and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2,
with
all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went
back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the Hotmail
account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference
with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found
intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I
prefer)
running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?

Thanks for all these posts guys, sorry I haven't responded earlier, but I've
been having some network problems.
Actually, the problem SEEMS to have gone away - I'm getting proper
connections at the moment.
Will monitor it and report any further occurrences.

"qiu" wrote in message
...

"particle"
. ..
It's not a timeout issue. Hotmail has altered their system not to accept
the first SYN packet from a mail client that's trying to poll for hotmail
messages. If you cancel and try again immediately it will always work on
the second connection. You will then be able to re-poll successfully for
the next 5 minutes or so. If you wait longer than this you will have to
reconnect to get it to work again. If you only connect once and wait, it
will hang indefinitely and finally give you an error. I have no idea why
hotmail has done this, but it's quite inconvenient.

If anyone knows why hotmail has done this, I'd be interested in their
reasoning.


"mikey" wrote in message
...
might extend the timeout value under account settings advanced tab.

there are timing issues with hotmail these days. it always fails for me
on
the first try, immediately tell it to check and it makes the second time.







"Laurie Canham" wrote in message
...
I have seen reports of something like this behaviour in other threads,
but
my problem is subtly different.
I have been a free Hotmail account user for years, accessing it via OE,
and until recently this has worked fine. I am using OE6 on XP Pro SP2,
with
all (I think!) the latest updates applied via MS Update.
I did have a look at IE7, but for various reasons, uninstalled it & went
back to IE6.

My problem is the well-posted one of not being able to access the
Hotmail
account, either at start-up or when doing a Send/Receive. The difference
with me is it works sometimes and not others. I have always found
intermittent problems the worst - there seems to be no consistent
pattern.

It seems not to be related to whether I have IE (or Opera, which I
prefer)
running, nor Windows Live Mail Desktop, which I am having a look at.

Any ideas?