Can't send email through Vivaldi using VPN
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Re: Vivaldi email send problem
I'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.3 (64 bit) and Thunderbird 52,8.0. I also use Private Internet Access (V80) as a VPN. Within the last several days I have been unable to make an SMTP connection to smtp.vivaldi.net in order to send email. After some experimentation I discovered that disabling the PIA VPN returned things to normal. I tried various PIA servers within the US with the same results. smtp.gmail.com works with or without the VPN enabled. Incoming email is not affected on either Vivaldi or Gmail. -
This is from the PIA forum dated yesterday, May 24th:
"Due to an ongoing and persistent and extensive spamming issue by a customer, we've had to remove all servers from our whitelists. Due to our no logging policy, we cannot identify the customer responsible and as such we've had to bring in a new policy.
By default, Private Internet Access blocks port 25 to prevent our service being abused to send spam email. Customers may request to be placed on the whitelist in order to send email.As part of the whitelisting process, you will be required to verify once per month that the contact email is valid. This is done by an automated single message per month containing a link which will need to be clicked.
In order to be placed on the SMTP whitelist, a user must:
Contact Customer Support requesting SMTP whitelisting
Provide the hostname/IP address for the SMTP Server requesting whitelisting
Ensure that the SMTP server is not an open relay
Provide a point of contact name
Provide a contact email address
Be a customer 6 months or longer
Click the once per month verification emailOur systems will send an email once per month to ensure the contact email address is valid. If the link within the email is not clicked, your IP will be automatically removed from the SMTP whitelist.
For clarity, we automatically whitelist the following mail providers (due to spam filtering within the host provider):
AOL
Google
Mail.com
Outlook (Hotmail)
Yahoo"Subsequent posts list other ports, including port 587 which is the port Vivaldi's smtp server is using. Vivaldi needs to contact PIA support to get the smtp server whitelisted
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@fstjohn
I've just received a reply from PIA helpdesk:
"Thank you for contacting Private Internet Access and happy to assist. Unfortunately, I was not able to ping smtp.vivalidi.net and would double-check the hostname.
We have just recently updated our whitelisting policy for our users, by default, Private Internet Access blocks outgoing SMTP servers to prevent our service being abused to send spam email. You may request to be placed on the whitelist in order to send email.In order to be placed on the SMTP whitelist, you must:
Provide a hostname/IP address for the SMTP Server requesting whitelisting (Only one IP address can be whitelisted per account) Provide us your outgoing SMTP IP address Provide a point of contact name Provide a contact email address Be a customer for 6 months or longer
Please open Command Prompt or a Terminal Window and Type-
Ping (Outgoing SMTP address for your email)
For example: ping smtp-mail.outlook.com"I did indeed open a terminal and performed:
ping smtp.vivaldi.net
No response.
ping smtp.gmail.com
Normal ping response.
The VPN was DISabled for the test.
Why is this? -
@fstjohn Maybe it's time for a better VPN, or maybe you're somehow barking up the wrong tree? I "permanently" use my VPN [a different one to yours], i also cannot ping
smtp.vivaldi.net
, but i have no problems sending & receiving emails with my Vivaldi account in Thunderbird. -
@steffie
Well, it's obvious that PIA won't whitelist Vivaldi's smtp server since, for whatever reason, a ping doesn't work on it. I'll await an answer from whoever in Vivaldi support monitors this forum to find out why and whether it can be fixed. In the meantime, I'm going back to the old standby gmail and notifying everyone of the change. I can't be turning the VPN off and restarting Thunderbird every time I want to send an email. -
@fstjohn said in Can't send email through Vivaldi using VPN:
I can't be turning the VPN off and restarting Thunderbird every time I want to send an email
Of course not -- hence my point about maybe you need a better VPN? I have no such problems as you with my V-email+TB+VPN, but i do not use PIA. The VPN i used before my current VPN also had no problems like yours.
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@fstjohn This forum is the Vivaldi support team. It consists of volunteers who do not work for Vivaldi. The Vivaldi development Team is far too small to have a "support" department.
However, some members of the Team may read here from time to time and you might get lucky and get one of them to try to answer your question, though most of them will not be privy to how the community servers and mail servers are set up.
That said, the community admins are in close touch with the community developers and webmail admin, so what you will want to do to get an answer to your question will be to Send a message to Vivaldi. That contact form goes straight to the community admins, and webmail is part of community services.
My own guess is that the Vivaldi SMTP server is explicitly blocked from being pinged for security reasons, so that it can't be easily hacked into by malicious persons who want to spoof the source of their spam and phishing emails. But that's just my guess. Its IP address (82.221.130.149) is transparent, but it does not answer to pings.
Then too, you are the very first VPN user to complain that they can't send Vivaldi Email. So it's not a problem for most VPNs apparently.
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