Sorry if this topic has already been covered. I can't see any 'search' feature on the forum, so I might have missed it.

I'm wondering if anyone has any information regarding setting up Mercury for cellphones. I have a licensed copy, installed and working with Outlook clients on the LAN, but I don't seem to be able to get reliable (relatively secure) email send/receive with iPhone and Android cellphones.

I have a self-signed certificate installed and I think I have the correct ports open on the firewall. I prefer IMAP but if necessary then POP is an option.

Anyone know what the settings in Mercury should be and what firewall ports need to be open/forwarded?

Thanks in advance for any hints and advice.

There could be different kinds of problems, such as radio connection disturbances, network configuration errors, or compatibility issues between Mercury and the client app used. Assuming a reasonably stable connection was established it might help if we could see relevant parts of a Mercury session log with failed email access.

No mail between the cellphones and Mercury to generate logs. I think it has something to do with ports, maybe firewall. I just need to know the best settings in Mercury and then i can figure out the ports.

Mercury will use standard ports for all protocols unless explicitly changed to something else. There is information in Mercury help about this for each protocol module.

If you connect to a public address ports need to be open and forwarded to the Mercury server in the firewall. Some firewalls may object to connecting to the public IP address from inside the LAN, if so consult the firewall manual for solutions.

It's odd. The mail server works fine inside the office, on the local area network. I have checked the protocol module ports for pop, imap, smtp, and forwarded them all at the firewall. And yet, connections from iphones located off the LAN to send/receive email, do not work.

What am I missing? Allowed IP addresses or something like that?

If there are no signs of the external connections in Mercury logs maybe there is logging in the firewall that could give some clue? Error message details from the phones might help too.

It's as well possible to test the connection simply by using a Telnet client from a computer outside your LAN. There is a client built into Windows, but you may need to activate it. Then open a command window and enter
telnet <IP_ADDRESS_OF_MAIL_SERVER> <PORT>
Port is 25 for SMTP, 110 for POP3, 143 for IMAP.

Good tip about telnet. it shows that smtp, pop and imap are all open and responding.
Still don't get iphones connecting.

How are you connecting to the server - mobile data or through your own network's WiFi?

If through mobile data connections, you'll need to check that your network router, the server firewall, and Mercury modules all allow the relevant IP addresses and ports.

We've tried all sorts of connections, from internal to home PCs on wifi or wired, and cellphones both carrier internet and wifi internet.
Most things work fine, it's just iPhones that are giving trouble.

Something that did seem to make a difference was changing the user passwords. Which is weird and unexpected. For initial setup purposes I set all the users to the same password, which makes it easier for me to remember. Then we changed one, and that one began to work. I could not find anything in the Mercury docs or iPhone specs that mentioned the required format of passwords, but maybe I missed that.

Anyhow, it worked for one iPhone, but the next one we tried did not work. Different model perhaps, I am still checking.

But I don't think it is a firewall problem because everything else works.

I haven't been following this discussion closely nor have I read through it. I am posting because iDevices were a constant problem for me when I was working with Mercury so I felt compelled to post. Please accept my apology if I repeat anything or suggest anything that has already been ruled out.

One recurring problem with iDevices was certificate handling. I had SSL enabled and used a Mercury generated self-signed certificate. Insuring that the iDevice trusted the certificate was paramount. Each time the certificate changed, there was no way to accept and trust the new certificate on an iDevice. The account had to be deleted and recreated, trusting the new certificate in the process.

Setting up credentials in iDevices isn't intuitive, requiring going into the Advanced area to enable/disable SSL and to set the port. The UI for setting up the SMTP server is different from the one for IMAP. iDevices will change the port to what it 'thinks' it should be. I never figured out what triggered it but I just reviewed the SMTP servers configured on my iPhone and found that two of five needed the password updated and both of them also needed the port changed (I don't do mail on my phone, just testing). An additional frustration, not specific to iDevices, is that each failed authentication attempt triggered a lockout (30 min?). I don't recall if this was on IMAP attempts but am certain that it was on SMTP attempts.

If the server name and the port is configured correctly on the iPhone you should see authentication failure records in the Mercury logs if those attempts are reaching Mercury but the credentials are incorrect. Also, if other devices (PC's, Android) can connect then there isn't any reason I can think of for an iDevice not to be able to connect other than mis-configuration on the device. Don't be shy about deleting an account or an SMTP server and starting from scratch.

FWIW, I had a network installation of Pegasus Mail running in conjunction with Mercury.
Pegasus Mail users (employees) were Mercury local users. Access from outside of the LAN was allowed to MercuryI (IMAP) and MercuryS (SMTP). MercuryI required authentication with local user credentials whereas MercuryS had its own credential list.

Thank you Brian, that explains a few of the strange things we have seen. I will pass your observations to our iPhone tech. It will help, I am sure.

Thank you Brian, that explains a few of the strange things we have seen. I will pass your observations to our iPhone tech. It will help, I am sure.

The somewhat-final resolution of this saga is that it seems to work with popmail, but had more trouble with IMAP. The initial setup on the iphone gives every indication of failing (twice) but then third time is a charm and despite all the same settings that failed - it works.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this annoying problem.

...and then, just this week, the iPhones all started working. Like magic. I cannot explain it, but perhaps the trick with this one is to simply be patient.