Software Development:
Individual Programming

Symptom

Connection problems to a server can have many reasons. It often makes sense to determine whether a specific software cannot communicate with the server or whether the computer in general cannot connect to the server.

Solution

Open the command line (prompt). In Windows you find the command line tool in the program group „Add-ons“.

Enter: telnet [server name] 110 and press Enter. Instead of the [server name] placeholder enter your real server name or the ip address of your mailserver. Example: telnet uecker.bitpalast.net 110

If your computer can communicate with the pop3 server, the mail server will respond similar to this:

+OK Dovecot ready
or
+OK POP3 uecker.bitpalast.net 2007f.104 server ready

You are now connected to your pop3 server. Enter the command „quit“ and press Enter to close the connection to your mail server.

If your computer cannot communicate with the pop3 server, Telnet will display an error message similar to this: Connection to [server name] … could not connect to the host, on port 110: connection failed.

Overview of frequently asked questions