I go wireless, Mail goes crazy

ZRXer · Nov 27th, 2007, 11:18 AM

I tried to set up our home wirelessly as follows: Cable modem hooked up to a wireless router. An ethernet cable from wireless router into an Airport Express. Two computers - an iMac and an iBook, both with Airport cards. It appears that everything with online access (Safari, online gaming, etc) is fine. However, since I've set this up, my Mail.app instantly goes offline. Error message says that my mail server cannot be reached at port 110 or something like that. The strange thing (to me) is that I haven't changed any settings - and everything worked fine earlier. The only difference was that the iMac was hard plugged with an ethernet connection. So why is my new airport connection killing Mail.app's ability to retrieve my mail?

In typing this, I've also realized that my wireless router is redundant - I would only need to run the Ethernet from my cable modem into the Airport Express, correct?

I really have no idea what I'm doing with this stuff - I heard Airport was so easy to set up, which it was, and as soon as I put everything together, I was so excited that I had no issues with Safari, etc. So the only thing that is broken as far as I can tell is Mail. Or more specifically Mail's ability to retrieve or send email.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

johnb1 · Nov 27th, 2007, 06:10 PM

Hmmm..dunno about that...or your isp for that matter
I had a similar situmation at my mom's house (she thinks I know everything, but I don't, just enough to get into trouble..) cable modem to orig. airport...no problem
now...wireless router/modem thingy to airport....no good. Both fight with one another...got an Airport Express and everything's peaceful again...just have to remember to connect to the apple network and not the gateway network (that's the wireless router/modem thingy (we're on telus, who isn't really mac friendly, but we got it worked out eventually) you may have to mess around with various ports (try port 89, I think) ...above all talk sweetly to your isp, and make up a pot of tea(or whatever, 'cuz you will be waiting)

just my 2 cents
JB

ZRXer · Nov 28th, 2007, 10:50 AM

Quick update:

I got a solution on apple.com's support discussions. I was right that the wireless router is redundant. I just removed it from the equation - so now cable modem is plugged directly into the Airport Express and everything works fine and dandy.

I'm an idiot when it comes to these things, so I couldn't tell you why this happened, but this did fix everything, so that's what really matters.