Comcast doesn't support email on Android?

[Markbnj]

My old man recently upgraded from a flip to an S4, his first smartphone. I'm trying to help him get his Comcast email setup. Originally he called me because he was in the middle of a chat with a rep who was trying to get him to activate some setting or other for XFinity Connect. I told him to bail on that because all he needed was a standard email client.

Act II. He had previously tried setting up the standard email client and hadn't had success. He reported that auto-discovery didn't work and he didn't know the manual settings. So I decided to set up my own Comcast account on my S3, where I already had my work Exchange account, as a test. Auto-discovery of Comcast settings failed for me as well, so I entered the settings manually. Following the Comcast recommendations here did not work. I kept getting "Could not safely connect to the server," which was an interesting error. I searched around a bit and ran into the suggestion to set security to "SSL (Accept all certificates)." I did that, and using port 995 for incoming, and 465 for outbound I finally got it working and moved a few test messages around.

Act III. Called my dad back and walked him through the settings. No dice. Regardless of the settings we used for inbound/outbound the client configuration would fail with "Cannot connect to server." We're both on Comcast's network. Both of our phones were connected to wireless. Same exact settings. So I told him to call Comcast and tell them specifically that he wanted to use the standard Android client to get his email. He did, and after a long wait got to someone who told him "We don't support email on Android other than through XFinity Connect," and refused to help further.

Anyone run into this stupid policy? Anyone know a way around it? Anyone have any clue why it would work on my phone and not his? We're talking about email. The whole thing seems a little ridiculous.

 

[DeviousTrap]

It'll work fine. What you need to do is get IMAP access to the account, that way it'll be synced with webmail and the phone.

Request IMAP here: https://xcsignup.comcast.net/onboardingapps/imap

Then use these settings: https://xcbetasignup.comcast.net/win8/win8.html

It should still work the same way yours did (with POP3), so I bet he has a typo somewhere in the config. Regardless, IMAP is the correct (err modern) way to do it.

 

[cronos]

That's pretty stupid. I don't have any experience myself but that is very unlikely. Email is just email, and based on that setup page you linked, it's pretty standard protocols that they're using. There's no reason why any mail client wouldn't be able to use it.

Have you tried having him set this up using a different connection (mobile data, or wifi other than his home provider)?

If it is the mail client-mail server connection (or setup) that's the problem, then the problem will exist no matter what connection the phone is on. But if it will connect just fine while the phone is connected to (let's just say) wi-fi on Starbucks, then maybe it's his home connection that somehow prevented it to work.

Or maybe it's just as simple oversight as not check the 'SSL' option just like what you did, so you might want to double check all the settings again.

 

[mike5757]

I was able to get my Comcast e-mail set up on my GS4 in the native mail app both by just entering my e-mail and password, and by doing the manual setup and choosing SSL for both incoming and outgoing mail. I'm not sure why he can't connect. Perhaps he's accidentally entering comcast.com instead of comcast.net? He could also try a different e-mail app since Samsung's isn't really anything special.

 

[Markbnj]

As far as the supposed policy is concerned, I'm only relating what they told him. I haven't seen anything official. It would be a really dumb policy if it in fact exists, for reasons already noted.

The protocol: we're using POP3 with "Delete mail from server" set to never on both Outlook desktop and the Android (Samsung, I guess?) mail client. I agree that IMAP is a more modern protocol, but it should work the same way for him via POP3 that it does for me, and I don't want to add another variable.

With respect to the auto-config: it's possible he mistyped something, but I definitely didn't, and it didn't work for me either. The difference is that the manual settings work for me, but not for him, and as noted we're both on Comcast's network via wireless with good connections. As proof of that he ran the XFinity connect app on the same phone, at the same time, over the same connection and it pulled the test emails I sent to his account, no problem.

Very odd.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Try another email client or a website to verify the connection.

I can't link you from here (blocked), but Mail2Web has an advanced login that lets you input username and server names manually. If that works (with his login info), I bet it's an issue with the email program you're using. I can't see comcast actively blocking a pop3 connection from a phone.

 

[Chocu1a]

I use both the standard Samsung email app & the Comcast Xfinity app. No problem on my Note 3

 

[shortylickens]

I dont even know what my ISP email is.
If they've been sending me messages I aint seen them.

 

[dainthomas]

I haven't used my ISP email since I signed up for gmail eons ago. It's so nice being able to switch service providers and not have to worry about it f'ing up my main email address.

 

[s44]

Comcast has a decent auto-forward. Set that up to his gmail, and have gmail fake the outgoing address if you want.

 

[Markbnj]

I haven't used my ISP email since I signed up for gmail eons ago. It's so nice being able to switch service providers and not have to worry about it f'ing up my main email address.

Yeah I have been trying to get him to switch to gmail. I keep my Comcast account around because I've had it for years. Don't really have a good reason.

 

[cronos]

Comcast has a decent auto-forward. Set that up to his gmail, and have gmail fake the outgoing address if you want.

You can't have a 'true' fake outgoing with GMail though. Your email will say something like "From: xxx@gmail.com on behalf of xxx@comcast.net", which really sucks.

 

[DaveSimmons]

You can't have a 'true' fake outgoing with GMail though. Your email will say something like "From: xxx@gmail.com on behalf of xxx@comcast.net", which really sucks.

They probably do that to stop mail servers from rejecting the mail as spoofed or spam.

More and more incoming mail servers check things like the sender address and the mail server IP address. Since Google is not Comcast, spoofing the sender and/or reply-to would be a red flag.