A rather long issue. Since 26th March, when connected to my home WifI / Internet,  I can no longer send / receive emails from one particular mail server - all others work however. Initially I thought the settings of that account were wrong so I checked them. All were correct. I deleted the account and reset them up; I also tried on two different Macs as well as a Windows laptop - each time the same: unable to connect to server. I tried with Outlook and onboard mail programs. No difference.

However, what I discovered was that I  can send & receive emails from all accounts IF I connect via a VPN. My mailserver is located at web0116.zxcs.nl - when connected via VPN or mobile hotspot, I can access the webpage for the mailbox / send & receive emails via either Outlook / Mail program.

If I disconnect from the VPN and use my regular internet at home, to access the mailserver via webmail, it times out, giving an error message that the page can’t be opened because the server where the page is located is not responding.

As said, if I connect via VPN OR via a mobile hotspot, everything works. This leads me to believe the issue is either with my router or routing external to my home - so I restarted my router, rebooted it, reset it to factory conditions. Nothing changed.

What is also notable is that when I try to trace route to my server, when on my home network, it times out after the second step - static.kpn.com (195.190.228.11) and doesn’t go further. If I trace route to any other site, it goes further.

My thoughts are that the routing to my server is disrupted from the Static.kpn.com router when using my home internet. How can I check this out?

What I’ve also done is added DNS servers from the VPN to the list of standard VPN servers but still it doesn’t work for that one email server unless I’m connected via VPN. I asked the hosting partner if perhaps he was blocking my IP address but he said he is not using such technology.

I’m stumped, anyone got any ideas?