I think we have it fixed, for now anyway. In case it could help anyone else, our server name was pop.centurytel.net That's what the phone co. said it should be and had worked. Our older computer said pop.grics.net ( Name of the company previously) We changed the current computer to grics and it works. Waiting to see if they send us a survey even if they didn't fix the problem. They were very nice and patient, but it still didn't get the email through.

pop.centurytel.net resolves to the IP address of 205.219.233.12 mail.grics.net resolves to 205.219.233.18

So it would appear that there are in fact two physical servers. Having said that I think your issue is going to be ports and security, not server name.

The fact that changing the server name worked almost guarantees that. I am betting the old machine also uses port 110 and has no connection security. Would I be right?

The port is 110 on the old computer and 995 on the newer one ( the one we changed to grics). Is there another port we could change this to? Thanks

I think one of the reasons your provider could not fault the connection settings is that it is your anti virus that is the root cause of the issue.

Historically ISPs used port 110 and no connection security. It was simpler and therefore let to less support calls. The downside was the inherently insecure connection process that saw your user name and password passed across the internet in plain text. (That is fairly easy to intercept.)

Security is becoming a far more important item, particularly to ISPS as their customers just don't take having their accounts hacked well. The result is they are moving to secured connection.

The accepted standards here are Port 110 with No security and port 995 with SSL for POP mail accounts. While these standards are not compulsory they are used by most mail providers the world over

Now back to your Anti virus. As little a a couple of years ago major anti virus programs simply did not touch or scan email that came in over SSL. The data stream was encrypted, usually with a 2048 bit security key. (That is the minimum key length from December 2013). For many years no one really noticed that email over SSL was not scanned. Over the past couple of years anti virus programs have started trying to scan SSL mail connections. Many of the implementation leave a lot to be desired. They use various hacking techniques to decrypt the data. It is not intended under SSL that decryption should occur until it get to the application it is being send to. The result is that the anti virus program often cause more disruption than they save, or in the case of AVG require the setting up of an SSL proxy in AVG and the removal of the SSL in the mail program.

Long winded I know, but the background is really required to understand why I blame Anti virus software and to help your understanding of the process. In the first instance try disabling the email scanner in the anti virus program.

I am persevering with this, as the normal approach with transitions from an old to new server name or old to new ports is about a 2 year window with most ISPs. So while your GRICS server still works, I would assume it has a life of less than 2 years before you will need to have both machines on the new settings