Forum Discussion
Office 2021 Outlook profile email account settings - server names have appended a "." to the name.
Over the past several years, a recurring issue arises where for some unknown reason, the email account settings where I define the POP server (pop3.comcast.net), gets an extra "." added to the name (i.e. pop3.comcast.net.) This seems to cause Xfinity's email servers to perceive my IP address as a SPAM source and they in turn block my address from using their SMTP server for outbound mail. Interestingly, they continue to let me retrieve incoming via POP but not send via SMTP.
The reason I say this is recurring is when it's happened in the past, it was easy enough to just delete that superfluous dot at the end of the name and after 24 hours, Xfinity would unblock my IP and all would be good again. Might not happen again for a year but when it does, I repeat these steps.
Earlier this week however when it did occur again, there's a difference. Now when I delete that extra dot, Outlook is refusing to save the entry with it missing and so Outlook on my PC is annoying Xfinity continuously and the blocks are lasting longer and longer from them. I hope they don't become permanent!
So that's how this is affecting me, and this brings me to my TWO questions:
- Why does this keep happening?
- How can I fix this in Outlook so the proper server names are presented to Xfinity?
I did an extensive investigation and repair exercise using CoPilot's AI guidance. Many, many hours of try this, try that, all to no avail. It basically confirmed that the problem wasn't in my configuration and efforts to override what it thought Outlook was doing that might be causing the append, all failed. It wanted me to open a case with Microsoft but as "just" a consumer, there's no way to do so. I did provide feedback within Outlook but that's generated nothing so far.
This is so impactful to our family, I really hope there's something someone knows to do.
Thank you!
Jonathan
Thank you, Charles, for the reply!
A couple of things to share; many of your recommendations are things I had already tried following suggestions that CoPilot had made (i.e. rebuilt profile, cache flushing, registry pruning, etc.), none of which helped as the dot ALWAYS reemerged.
I was finally able to get my SMTP blockage resolved with support from a Xfinity tech who determined that an automated system integrity mechanism had improperly blocked an entire range of IP addresses that my ISP was using, with mine caught up in it. Once that had been removed (and that security mechanism adjusted to prevent a recurrence) my access to SMTP was restored. This was in spite of the fact that Outlook is still appending a dot to the end of the pop server name. I did ask him if that was what was causing all these problems and he told me "no", it's irrelevant.
Hopefully this won't recur again but I also learned that Xfinity is in the process of outsourcing their email services to Yahoo and have begun converting their customers over to Yahoo servers. So, in the long run this issue with Xfinity will just go away (to be replaced by Yahoo issues???). ;-)
Thanks again!
Jonathan
2 Replies
The recurring issue with an extra trailing dot being appended to the POP server name in Outlook is related to how Outlook and Windows handle fully qualified domain names (FQDNs). In DNS standards, a trailing dot signifies an absolute domain name, but many mail servers, including Xfinity’s, do not expect or properly handle this syntax. Outlook’s internal DNS resolution or profile management sometimes automatically adds this trailing dot when saving settings, especially if the profile data is corrupted or cached improperly. This behavior causes conflicts with Xfinity’s anti-spam measures, leading to blocks on your SMTP access.
To fix the issue, the best approach is to recreate your Outlook profile from scratch, manually entering the server names without the trailing dot to ensure clean configuration. Additionally, consider flushing your DNS cache and resetting your network settings to avoid stale or corrupted data affecting name resolution. Using an external DNS server like Google’s or Cloudflare’s may help prevent unwanted automatic changes. If problems persist, temporarily using the SMTP server’s IP address instead of its hostname or modifying your local hosts file to control resolution can be effective workarounds. Ultimately, keeping Outlook fully updated and checking with Xfinity for any whitelisting options are recommended to minimize service disruptions.
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Don't forget to mark as solution if my answer suits youThank you, Charles, for the reply!
A couple of things to share; many of your recommendations are things I had already tried following suggestions that CoPilot had made (i.e. rebuilt profile, cache flushing, registry pruning, etc.), none of which helped as the dot ALWAYS reemerged.
I was finally able to get my SMTP blockage resolved with support from a Xfinity tech who determined that an automated system integrity mechanism had improperly blocked an entire range of IP addresses that my ISP was using, with mine caught up in it. Once that had been removed (and that security mechanism adjusted to prevent a recurrence) my access to SMTP was restored. This was in spite of the fact that Outlook is still appending a dot to the end of the pop server name. I did ask him if that was what was causing all these problems and he told me "no", it's irrelevant.
Hopefully this won't recur again but I also learned that Xfinity is in the process of outsourcing their email services to Yahoo and have begun converting their customers over to Yahoo servers. So, in the long run this issue with Xfinity will just go away (to be replaced by Yahoo issues???). ;-)
Thanks again!
Jonathan
