Below is a useful troubleshooting guide when having problems setting up your MX Outbound account.

Any known issues.

Always best to check our network status page first, just in case there is schedule maintenance.

Account issues.

Visit the clients area and ensure your account is live and ok.

SMTP Errors and Authenication Errors

The most common authenication problem is incorrect username and/or password.  Remember both the username and password are case sensitive and take care if copying and pasting, sometimes a leading or trialing space can be added.

Try authentication with SSL/TLS turned on and off.

Always best to refer to the setup guide for your device.

Timeouts and Connection errors

Getting timeouts or connection errors?  This could mean your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is blocking, filtering or redirect SMTP traffic on port 25.  MX Tools provides alternative SMTP ports.  The support SMTP ports are 25, 587, 2525 and 8025.

It's also worth checking your firewall settings to ensure traffic isn't being filtering.

Another cause of connection problems can be your Anti-Virus software.  Some anti-virus programs filter SMTP port 25 traffic in order to virus scan your outgoing email, this can sometimes cause a timeout.  If this is the case consider disabling this feature in yout AV program or use an alternative SMTP port (see above)

Search the knowledge base

Please have a look at the support section of this site as there are answers to many common questions and problems.

SPF Records

A SPF record is a type of Domain Name Service (DNS) record that identifies which mail servers are permitted to send email on behalf of your domain.  If you have a SPF record on your domain but it doesn't include our MXTools SPF record this can cause upstream delivery problems.

Use our SPF Checking Tool to check your domain and any SPF records you may have.

More information on SPF records can be found here.

Contact Support

Got this far down the troobleshooting guide and still stuck, then contact support by raising a ticket in the clients area

Troubles logging into the clients area

If after requesting a password reset you are still having problems logging then please complete this form (here) and someone from MX Tools will assist you.