anybody using Entourage OS X with Comcast?

[leftofthedial]

Since I transferred my Comcast broadband account to my new place (or more accurately, since the installer ran the comcast installer), I can't send or receive mail with Entourage. I get connection failures on all my email accounts when mail.comcast.net tries to connect to actsvr.comcastonline.com, fails, and times out.

Comcast support is less than zero help. They inform me that they don't support Entourage (news to me) and since I can get on the Internet, it's not their problem. It's true. I can use comcast web mail. Never mind that I've been running Entourage since the day I first installed OS X and that it worked fine at my old place at 11:00 and stopped working at 12:00 at the new place the minute they ran their Installer program.

Anyone else have similar issues?

Comcast says they do support Outlook Express (running under Mac Classic) and Mac Mail.

Outlook Express fails identically to Entourage. According to Comcast support, this is my problem because I can connect to the Internet, so it's not their fault. (Gotta love circular logic.) Mac Mail actually works. If it had any features at all, I'd just switch from Entourage, but I have years of tweaking and organizing built into Entourage.

I've been really happy with Comcast until now. I've only had a couple of problems, once when they switched from attbi to comcast and once when the cable modem started failing intermittently.

I guess I'm venting as much as I'm asking for help from anyone with an idea how to overcome these connection errors.

[Bonobo]

1. I do. Pls. describe problem better. Sounds like settings problem.

[leftofthedial]

2. my accounts are all set up with correct servers, accounts and passwords

(I've quintuple checked, plus they are the same that have been working fine for years)

After the installer ran the Comcast Install program (allegedly to configure the modem), I noted that my default browser had been reset to IE (I've used Safari for a while now) and that my browser preferences were all set back to default. Nevertheless, I can get online and browse the Internet no problemo.

I launched Entourage (having changed nothing from the settings that worked with Comcast just an hour earlier at my old house), hit "Send and Recieve." It failed and has consistently fialed in the same way despite me deleting and recreating all my accounts in Entourage, checking and rechecking my account settings and passwords.

The status bar tells me that one of my email accounts (not my default account, interestingly) is trying to connect to actsvr.comcastonline.com. After a minute, it times out and returns 4 error messages, one for failing to retrieve mail for each of three email accounts and one for the failure to send a message in my outbox. I get the standard 23016 error "Could not retrieve mail from the account "my email account. A connection failure has occurred." (or in the case of the message in my Outbox, which says "Mail could not be sent from "account name."

I can use webmail at mail.comcast.net, but that does me no good for my other accounts and is very limited compared to Entourage.

nowhere on their materials or their support website does Comcast say they do not support Entourage. In fact, they have fairly extensive information about setting up a comcast email account on Entrourage. But their phone support people are adamant about them not supporting Entourage. Use Mac Mail or Outlook Express, they say. I fired up Mail, set up my comcast account with all the proper settings and was able to retrieve a batch of mail from the comcast server. Since then, though, I can't receive or send with Mail either. I get the same timeout "connection failure" failure that I get with ENtourage. Outlook Express also fails just like Entourage.

[Bonobo]

3. I never used any "Comcast Install program" and frankly, that sounds like

your culprit to me (but I am no expert).

>The status bar tells me that one of my email accounts (not my default account, interestingly) is trying to connect to actsvr.comcastonline.com.

This sounds suspiciously like it is the source of the problem.

[leftofthedial]

4. my thought too

but Comcast is no help except to tell me that it is normal for mail.comcast.net to connect to the actsver.whatever.

I got Mac Mail working sort of.

Nowhere does the Comcast support website, the materials in their "welcome" packet or anywhere elses say that they don't support Entourage. But call support with an Entourage problem and that's the first thing they tell you.

[Ready4Change]

5. I recently had errors in permissions involving entourage.

I've actually no idea what entourage is. My iBook started acting really slowly, so I turned off the airport card and things improved. I then did some disk repair and it reported, amongst other problems, errors with the permissions involving Entourage. Afterwards my connection is fine.

Maybe something lately has screwed those up, and if you repair the things will be ok?

Just my shot in the dark. Hope you find a solution.

[geekgrrl]

6. try putting your whole email address in the user name boxes-

that works for a lot of dsl/cable connections. In your account settings where it asks for your login name and password, put the entire email address.

just a thought!

also check the send/receive server settings.

[meegbear]

7. I'm using Entourage for Office 2004 with no problem

Here's a link to Comcast's FAQ for Entourage

http://www.comcast.com/Support/Corp1/FAQ/Faq2_213_0.html

Good luck. PM if you need help