# blocked ports in Computer



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

Hi,

The ports to connect to the email of my server provider were working until ten days ago, and now they are blocked. Same thing happened some weeks ago and I couldn't solve it so I ended up reinstalling windows xp. I don't want to keep on reinstalling windows to solve this problem, clearly it doesn't solve the origin of the problem, which I have no idea what is it.
I thought it was a problem with the router, but today I went to a friend's place and he uses similar ports to connect to his own email server, and in my computer those ports were closed. And we were using his router, and he could reach the ports, while I couldn't. So I believe the problem is in my computer and not in the router. But I have no idea at all about how to solve this.
I did opened the ports on the set up of windows firewall, which is the only firewall I'm using. the antivirus I'm using is avast, I read about it, and it does not block ports.
I got the software TCP Port Opener, and it's not opening the ports I need to open (TCP: 465 SSL SMTP, 995 SSL POP, 993, SSL IMAP, and 2875) 
I also got Open Ports Scanner, thinking some application would come up using these ports when OPS would scan them all, but they don't seem to be in use on the scan list of ports in use there. 
I have no idea what is causing this, but I know until few days ago Thunderbird Mozilla was still downloading the emails from my server, just not anymore, again it stopped working. 

:4-dontkno


Thanks!


----------



## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

I have never ever had to open ports for email to work under any ports used wheither they were the default ports or SSL ports.

You mention "my server". You hosting your own email?


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

Hi Wand3r3r,
I meant the server where is my website and therefore my email accounts, it's not a gmail, or yahoo, or any of those kinds of email, but one with my own domain.
And yes, me neither, never had to set a port for this. I'm thinking if it would be possible I got some weird spyware or trojan maybe. Though the anti-spyware softwares are not detecting any.


----------



## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Which ports are blocked?

These should be open depending on the security or no security type you have an the server

POP3 - port 110

IMAP - port 143

SMTP - port 25

HTTP - port 80

Secure SMTP (SSMTP) - port 465

Secure IMAP (IMAP4-SSL) - port 585

IMAP4 over SSL (IMAPS) - port 993

Secure POP3 (SSL-POP) - port 995

Opening more ports than in neccessary can be a bad idea.


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

these are the blocked ports that are causing the trouble:
465	SSL SMTP
995	SSL POP
993	SSL IMAP


----------



## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

how do you manage the ports. through the router/firewall?


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

Greenbrucelee 
not sure if I totally understant what you want to know... but
yes there's a router and firewall is only windows firewall. 
thing is that the problem is not the router, because as I mentioned before, today i went to a friend's and he had these ports opened on his computer, connected to his home wifi, and me, connected to his home wifi, didn't have the same ports opened.
on windows firewall the ports are specifically opened, I did so way before manually, on the "exceptions" box of the settings for windows firewall
i hope that answers the question well


----------



## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

you shouldn't have had to enter the ports for email to open them. try deleting these exceptions and see what happens.


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

i did it, but does not seem to work


----------



## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

can you ping the email server?
can you do a nslookup of the email server?

Any other accounts on this email server and are they having issues?

What is the exact error when thunderbird fails to download email?
Is this also with sending email?


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

I'm going nuts with this, so much I even decided to re install windows. I did it. and now I'm back i checked the link to see if the ports are open, and they are still blocked. Is it possible is a hardware problem?

Wand3r3r I don't know what do you mean with ping the email server, neither i know how to do a nslookup of the server. Looking on internet if I'll find an explanation on how to do so.
there's no error on thunderbird, it just says that it is going in the server, even says it's checking the server, but then it doesn't download any mails. and i know for sure there are many now there. 
I'll try right after I finish re installing and re setting thunderbird, but i'm almost sure it was sending email with no problems
could be that the problem is in the server?
I'm hosting on Bluehost, and I asked them help, and they said there's no problem with the server.


----------



## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

he means ping the ip address of the server.

i.e go to cmd prompt type ping and whatver the ip address is of the sever. Ping can tell you where the network is failing or how long it takes to do a round trip (from your computer to another and back again)


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

Thanks for the explanation greenbrucelee!
to ping the email I'll have to ask to the people at bluehost to help me. I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning, I spent all night already re installing everything and it's late. I'll be back tomorrow. I'm kind of hoping that if computer and me sleep well, tomorrow we'll be fine (miracles happen)
for now, thanks for the support still. and g'night


----------



## sonkko (Oct 25, 2011)

It's been some days since I last posted here, I have been terribly busy and trying to solve this problem since that's turning into a nightmare.
So this is the story.
I called to my ISP to ask for support, and it took days for them to understand they needed to send someone that really would know more than just fixing cables and connecting modems. Finally during last weekend I also talked with the support people of bluehost and they asked me to do a tracert to my site, and from there we find out there's a problem on the route of internet (i'm sorry i don't know all the technical words to explain this better), somehow there's a problem with the ISP of my ISP. Terrible news because here that means I could spend years trying to explain this to Chinatelecom and I won't see a solution.
Yesterday then came other technicians, finally with their own computer (!). And so with them I checked the problem with the ports, and their computer could see those ports open. So the ports problem then is now back again to my computer only.
The other problem, the one to connect to my server and website, that are terribly slow right now here, that one is now a second problem, and I don't know, but it seems they are not related.
So, today I got this application called TCPview, and it seems that is possible that Avast could be blocking the ports. I'm not yet very clear on how to use this software, but it's looking like that.

So, I'm starting to think probably the most practical solution is just to move to other server providers at this point. Hopefully located in Asia, so I don't go through the problems zone that seems to exit between here and the States.


if anyone has a better idea, i'm still investigating and thinking of solutions, and trying to find the way to open these ports


----------



## TheCyberMan (Jun 25, 2011)

If it's just the one computer then try uninstalling all security software temporarily but make sure you have copies to re-install beforehand and see if issue disappears.

Had you installed any software of any ilk prior to issue appearing?

Use autoruns to disable processes or .exe files checking for email connectivity between disables.
Link below:
Autoruns for Windows 

Can be time consuming with autoruns.


----------

