I logged on to mail.com and there is nothing there in my inbox or even in trash.

Make sure to also check Spam/Junk on the server.

Sorry, my bad. That's what I meant by trash.

Are there any other instances of Thunderbird or devices (e.g. a mobile) accessing the account?

Does the sender get any error message?

Sorry, to clarify your earlier response. There are only two folders on mail.com. Inbox and trash. There are no junk or spam folders. That's how it's always been.

No, the the messages do not bounce. There are no errors. His emails just vanish into the void.

No, there are no mobile accounts. Apart from the fact that I don't own a cell phone any more (or any portable device for that matter), I would never use a cell phone for email.

It just plain text. No attachments. Not even HTML.

I contacted mail.com but as I don't have a premium account they told me the do not provide support for free accounts.

That's wierd. I typed a response and it vanished. Then as I was typing this a second time I got an email saying you posted another response, but that isn't showing, and my response disappeared again. Third time lucky...

There are no spam or junk folders on mail.com. Only inbox and trash. No. There are no errors. No bounces. Nothing. They just vanish into the void. I don't own any mobile devices. So no, nothing else accessing the account. If he replies to any of my other addresses I get his replies.

oh, geez.... my posts now need moderator approval :( soz.

It is a stupid system... I can't fix it but I can mark messages as not spam.

I contacted mail.com but as I don't have a premium account they told me the do not provide support for free accounts.

May be time for a new email provider?

So this is not a Thunderbird issue, then? Well I guess that is a good thing.

Happy to change email providers. Would you perhaps know of one that meets these criteria

1. Doesn't require a phone number to sign up (I do not have any mobile devices) 2. Doesn't block VPN users (Eg like GMX) 3. Supports pop/smtp. I don't use webmail, only thunderbird. As I'm not mobile imap is of no value 4. If free, or at least doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm on a pension.

thanks

Your VPN requirement is not going to go well. There are very few VPN's that actually support mail clients at all, at least without registering and asking for support to open ports etc. Are you sure it is GMX that blocks VPN's. I can not find much other that a few consumer reports to substantiate that. These guys would have hardly recommended them if they blocked VPN's is my feeling. https://vpnpro.com/email/gmx-email-review/ They appear to be in the business of promoting VPN use.

What benefit do you get from using a VPN? There is very little use using one if you are signed up to facebook, twitter or any of the other social media providers as they are tracking you, via location data you have provided them, cokies already on your system and their widgets on the pages you visit that tell them you have loaded a particular page. So a VPM offers very little there. For business folks that are looking to tunnel from home into their secure work network, a VPN is a godsend. But for general browsing and internet use the benefits fall off sharply if you use social media or have to set the exit point from the VPN to a fixed location to make things like email work.

Most mail providers expect you to log in from a similar geographic location, not doing so using a VPN sets off all sorts of warning with most of them. Including Google and outlook.com

Just to be clear. Location via IP address is rather amusing. Especially if you live outside of a large city/USA. I just checked t5hree sites that purport to geo-locate me. One was out by about a fifteen hundred kilometers. They got the country right. Missed the state big time. The others got my state and country correctly, but missed the mark by almost 300 kilometers. NordVPN who have been advertising extensively in the area recently was one that missed the mark by about 300km.

Why? Cleaner routes Lower latency (Eg. Off VPN yahoo.com is 116ms, on VPN it's 86ms) Marginally improved online safety, security and privacy. I won't buy/sell online or pay my bills via online banking without a VPN I don't use social networking at all. Never will. Indeed, I have block all access to all social networking sites via hosts, and router ACLs, ad blockers, disconnect and more. I block all cookies except trusted sites (like this site and my bank). I use strict tracking protection in firefox. If I can't access a site I move on. Nothing is so important that I need to sacrifice privacy to access a website. I don't own or use mobile devices I'm not in the US. Australia introduced mass surveillance legislation in Apr 2017 that makes PRISM look tame. Google block VPNs. I haven't been able to use their search engine for 2 years. I end up in an endless captcha loop. Just moved to duckduckgo. I would never use google, outlook or yahoo services. Beside which, you must own a cell phone to use them. I have no mobile devices.

Yep, they claim to support mobility but when you move around you do indeed set off alarms. I just tried to post something on technet and since I've reinstalled Windows since my last visit my account verification failed and they've now blocked my account. Don't care. I'll just go somewhere else for support.

When attempting to sign up with GMX I get this error; The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator. Your support ID is: < 3522328377488126997>

I've emailed them about this half a dozen times over the last 6 months. I've never been able to get a reply from them.

Their automated response says this: If you receive an error message during registration stating that "A technical error has occurred," it is possible that your IP address or IP range has been blacklisted.

1. Doesn't require a phone number to sign up (I do not have any mobile devices)

I was talking about an email provider, e.g. like Gmail, not a new ISP. In general, it is recommended not to use the email service offered by your ISP (if it exists in the first place) for various reasons.

2. Doesn't block VPN users (Eg like GMX)

As Matt already pointed out, it's more likely the VPN is blocking mail protocols (POP, IMAP, SMTP).

3. Supports pop/smtp. I don't use webmail, only thunderbird. As I'm not mobile imap is of no value

That's fair enough. Note though that POP is declining, and not every email provider may offer it anymore. There's nothing wrong with IMAP even for a single instance of Thunderbird. The main difference is, with IMAP all your mail is managed on the server.

4. If free, or at least doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm on a pension.

Nothing is free. If you don't pay them money, you pay with your data. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on what you want.

It's hard to give any recommendations. You should do your own research and find something which fits your needs.

I did actually reply to Matt's statements, but that response hasn't been approved. And I did respond your comments. Just hoping the response is approved.

I don't seem to be able to get this quoting to work properly. So...

1. Yes, so was I; although, yes ISPs are just as brutal as email providers with requiring a cell phone to sign up. And I agree with you 100% re using ISP email addresses, though none of the ISPs I've used in the last 3-4 years have offered email services.

2. I've been permanently connected to a VPN for 4 years. With each new year more businesses find new ways to express their hatred of VPNs and people who use them. PIA made changes in 2018 that required people to drop their VPN connection to send and receive email, but after customer backlash they reversed that. I'm not with PIA any more for exactly that reason. Aside from that incident I've never had to set endpoints to cater for email, or drop my VPN to send/receive email. People here work from home and a VPN is required. My Yandex accounts work perfectly with my VPN. I just don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, but it looks like I'm going to have to.

3. I don't think so. I've asked Nord that exact question and they have repeatedly stated that they do not interfere with pop/smtp traffic. I could care less about imap. If anyone would be interfering with traffic it would most likely be the ISP. For a VPN, it's not in their best interests to block services. However, I do concede that VPN IP addresses get blocked. Typically this has resulted in websites blocking me (like askvg), but if people want to block those IP addresses, there's always another website with the same content somewhere else. Lots of people block the old ports 110/25 in favor of the more secure ports, but I don't use 110/25.

I used to have yahoo and gmail accounts. But they've been hacked more times than I've had hot dinners. They are also the least trustworthy. They did not have problems with VPNs at the time I closed the accounts. The only mail provider that has had problems with my VPN is GMX. But as you said. it would seem not in their interests to block VPN users. But since I've been trying for 6 months to get a reply from them and got nothing. all I can do is make assumptions. I've sent them the error id I get and they just don't respond.

I do not want my mail managed on a server. I don't need mobility. All my filters move emails to the desired folders and then Thunderbird tries to delete from pop server.

4. True that. I'm not opposed to paying. But I can only pay what I can afford. Zoho I think has a service for A$1.20 per month. I can afford that. Tutanota, which doesn't support Thunderbird, IIRC was around A$100 per year. I can't afford that.

I've been doing my own research for over a year, and happy to keep looking. I simply asked if you had any recommendations. It doesn't hurt to ask. Sometimes people will go "yeah, I use xyz service and they're great"

Anyway, I think this thread has about run it's course. I posted here in case this was a Thunderbird problem. It appears not, at least, not that anyone has pointed out. A couple of emails my son sent to my mail.com address arrived after 3 days, so who knows. I don't know what the problem is, but as you said, it seems, mail.com is a lost cause.

For now I will create a new Yandex account. They cater for all the criteria. And I will keep looking. Maybe one day I will find something.

Thank you all for your kind assistance and patience.

lol, I just got reminded why I set up the mail.com address in the first place... Some companies, like my brothers bank, my PC parts supplier (which uses Microsoft azure), and google tend to block Yandex emails.

re :One particular address, the one I used for this account wont receive emails from one person. I send him an email. He receives it and responds but I don't get the response.... I logged on to mail.com and there is nothing there

If email is not received onto server then Thunderbird is not going to see something that does not exist.

So it is possible the server is rejecting the email and not passing it into your account. Maybe the server does not like the content or IP address or email address of sender due to server spam filters. https://www.mail.com/mail/spam-filter/

Rrgarding no 'Spam/Junk' folder: https://support.mail.com/email/folders/systemfolder.html

In Thunderbird account 'Junk Settings' have you selected to selected to move new junk messages to 'Junk folder on the account ?

This appears to be worse than I thought. I've not had responses to 10 other emails I've sent across 3 different recipient addresses. Additionally, in an attempt to send emails to people in case mail.com is blocking them, I used my Yandex account. The recipients server (google), is blocking the email and sending me failure notifications.

I would expect if messages are rejected as spam I would get a failure notification (Such as what happens when I send emails to people who don't like Yandex): This is what I get from Yandex: host aspmx.l.google.com[64.233.164.26] said:

   550-5.7.1 The user or domain that you are sending to (or from) has a policy
   that 550-5.7.1 prohibited the mail that you sent.

I get nothing from mail.com and people who's emails are not getting to me tell me they are not getting failure notifications either.

I did manage to send one email yesterday that did get through to the intended recipient using mail.com and he was able to reply. It seems to me mail.com is blocking 99% of my emails both outbound and the reason I'm not getting replies is the recipients are not getting the emails (that's an assumption, not a known fact).

My son says he's also not getting all my emails. We went through all emails I've sent him in the last month and he's only got 2/3 of them.

There was no spam folder in existence on mail.com because I didn't have spam filtering turned on. It's now turned on and the few emails that are getting to me via mail.com are ALL marked as spam and prefixed with [OBORONA: SPAM]

Junk settings for this account are Enable adaptive Junk Mail Controls Move Junk Mail Messages to: Automatically delete junk mail after 60 days

As it turns out, I can't put all my eggs in the Yandex basket because so many people block Yandex. I've even contacted Zoho and a couple of other email providers and I can't get responses from them either.