After the 4 Feb 2025 update, Outlook New can't connect to my email provider

what setting specifically in norton 360 did you change?? i went in under security.. advanced.. smart firewall. and looked at program control and under there microsoft outlook is allowed for all. thats the only place i see outlook. so where did you change your settings??

Hi there,

It's buried pretty deep - and as seems fashionable these days, every time I delve into the Norton Menus they seem to have changed. But the problem is that the updated "New Outlook" is no longer being recognized by the Norton Firewall as being Outlook. Norton thinks it's some newly-installed unknown browser-type App, trying to access the email website. (Which is why it's sometimes working ok for people using other, different email server protocols.)

So please try this:

Home>Security>Advanced>Smart Firewall>Click on "Settings" Gearwheel>General Tab>Automatic Program Control>>Select "Smart" mode !

Hopefully that lets Norton recognise any Apps changed in this way as "benign" without creating any severe vulnerability. If you don't want to let Norton go "Smart" in this way I think it's possible to tell it specifically that the updated Outlook App is OK.

Best of Luck! Please let us know if it works for you?

regards 'geezer

Sorry but that does not work. Giving up on New Outlook. Sticking with Thunderbird. It worked the first time and every time. NO fuss no muss. Microsoft get your act together.

Sorry but that does not work. Giving up on New Outlook. Sticking with Thunderbird. It worked the first time and every time. NO fuss no muss. Microsoft get your act together.

Hi James, sorry to hear it didn't work - glad you have a viable alternative though at least. I'm losing faith in Microsoft these days TBH. . . .

oki FINALLY found the problem and know how to get around it. its NOT norton after all. its my VPN.. and i have never had an issue with it when it comes to outlook.. EVER.. until recently. some update or whatever changed it. just out of curiousity.. i disabled my VPN and tried getting my mail again. and POOF.. its all came in. so now what i have to do i guess is disable my VPN every time i want to get mail and then reenable it. not a really big deal. but am curious as to what actually changed.. something in an update messed it up. but i have it back now. thanks.

When your VPN is disabled, your E-mail client is sending an IP-address that was supplied by Charter to Charter's mail-server, to authenticate your request to send/receive E-mail.

When your VPN is enabled, your IP-address is sent to the VPN-server, and the VPN-server sends its IP-address to Charter's mail-server. Then, Charter's mail-server does NOT authenticate the IP-address of the VPN server. Thus, your E-mail usage is blocked.

Check your E-mail configuration, so that it sends your Charter E-mail ID and the associated password before trying to send/receive E-mail. That IP/password will be passed "through" the VPN-server, and Charter's mail-server will authenticate your E-mail client.

So, it is possible to send/receive E-mail when the VPN is active. Nice!