The main problems that can give you the Failed Permanently error while sending emails are: the email address is misspelled or doesn’t exist, or ,after numerous attempts, the receiving email server is not accepting emails from VCN.

Often times, rechecking the spelling and resending is the quickest solution for this problem.

If you need more information or have questions about an email problem like this, please contact our Help Desk with the error message you received and the date and time the message was sent.

If you have sent an email from your VCN account, and the intended recipient did not receive the email, and you have not received an error/bounced message, it could mean that VCN’s email server is temporarily overloaded or the receiving server is experiencing temporary problems. VCN’s servers do try to resend emails for approximately one day. If the email is still not sent after a day, you will receive an error message. You can check our Announcements on our main page for any VCN server problems, or contact our Help Desk for more information.

There could be many reasons a message was not sent or received, it could be the sending and/or receiving email applications, the sending and/or receiving internet connections, the sending and/or receiving servers, spam filters and blacklists, or someone mistyped an email address.

For problems during sending, most times whoever sent the email will get an error message. If you are having problems sending from a VCN account, please get an exact day and time the message was sent so we can check our servers for error messages. Also, you can look at our help section onManaging the SPAM filter, at the bottom of this page, to see if the email was accidentally blocked as Spam.

This commonly occurs when you switch your internet service provider. You can receive VCN emails from any internet connection; however, you must send email through your service provider’s servers. If you are sending mail through VCN Dial up, your SMTP server is mail.vcn.bc.ca

Most commonly, this happens when received emails have one or more attachments that are too large to download with dial up, using Outlook/Thunderbird. The emails get “stuck” and when you try to get your messages again, the server starts sending you all the messages over again.

There are a couple quick fixes you can do, you can either login through our Webmail to delete/move the email from the inbox, or temporarily use a highspeed internet connection to quickly deal with the issue. If you do not have access to highspeed internet, we do have two public computers that are available at our office on 280 – 111 West Hastings St.

1. Open “Mozila Thunderbird” and select Email:
2. Enter the following:
   • Name (the name that will appear on e-mails sent)
   • E-mail address
   • Password
3. Press “Continue” button when finished:
4. Select POP3 (keep mail on your computer):
   
5. Click on the “Manual config” button:
   
6. Look at Incoming Server settings and check that these values have been configured automatically. Otherwise, type in the following:
   • Incoming: POP3
   • Server hostname: mail.vcn.bc.ca
   • Port: 110
   • SSL: STARTTLS
   • Authentication: Normal password
   • Username: Your VCN email address without the @vcn.bc.ca
7. Look at Outgoing Server settings (SMTP) and input the information below. (Using VCN’s outgoing server requires you to register in advance):
   • Server hostname: out.vcn.bc.ca
   • Port: 587
   • SSL: STARTTLS
   • Authentication: Normal password
   • Username: Your VCN email address without the @vcn.bc.ca
8. When you use VCN’s dial up connection:
   • Server hostname: mail.vcn.bc.ca
   • Port: 25
   • Select No Authentication
9. If you are using another ISP please use their guide.

To use the webmail program called ‘SquirrelMail’ you can login at the following address:http://mail.vcn.bc.ca

SquirrelMail offers an interface to your mail inbox that has lots of features and options, including:

1. a folder system
2. a filter system
3. spellchecking with several international dictionaries
4. several colour schemes
5. and the ability to translate your messages using one of several translation servers on the Internet

E-mail any problems, comments, or suggestions you have with SquirrelMail to [email protected].

How to check folder size

Follow below steps to check your folder sizes.

1. Sign in into your account through http://www.vcn.bc.ca.
2. After you logged in into your account, click on “Folder Sizes” on the left column as shown below:
   
3. In the new window, you can see the sizes of each folder depending on the number of emails and their attachments you have moves/saved in those folders.

** Always try to keep your folder’s sizes small and below 100MB. If your account is large, you may not receive emails and communications.

1. Under You can configure Email…, type your Email Address and Password
2. For What type of account is this?, choose POP3.
3. Under POP3 server, it should be mail.vcn.bc.ca
4. Press Next
5. For the SMTP server, it should be mail.vcn.bc.ca as well.
6. Please uncheck the box where it states “Required Sign-in”.
7. Press Next
8. For Inbox checking frequency, you can leave it to Every 15 minutes
9. Press Next
10. For Give this account a name, type for example, Luis’ VCN
11. For your name to be on outgoing messages, for example, type Luis Panagua
12. Now, you have email on your Android Phone.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Then, go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Choose Add Account.
4. In the screen with different email options, choose Other.
5. Now, press Add Mail Account.
6. And, then fill your information: Name, Email, and Password.
7. The next step, under Incoming Mail Server, is to fill in the Host Name, mail.vcn.bc.ca,User Name, and Password.
8. Under Outgoing Mail Server please follow the instructions provided by your Internet provider.
9. Press Next and you will be done.