Eventually all administrators will have a user come to them and complain about not being able to send email. They will find that while they can’t send email they will still be able to receive email messages. There are many reasons why this can happen and I have posted about many of those reasons already. One such error code that you’ll most likely see in these situations is the 0x800ccc7d error. The error message will usually say that it is a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) related error.

Remember that when you set up Exchange Server to use Secure Sockets Layer for Internet protocols such as Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), you may want to use a certificate that you obtain from another source, such as Verisign. It is possible that an SSL error is related to a corrupted certificate. But most of the time the error is related to configuration settings between the email client and the server.

This is the error message you might see:
Server Response: ’250 HELP’. (Account ‘mail.<servername>.com’, SMTP Server: ‘mail.<servername>.com’, Error Number:0x800ccc7d).

Another variation on the error message produced will be a short message such as “Unknown Error: 0x800CCC7D”. This will happen when a user tries to send a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) message in Outlook 2002.

Continue reading Troubleshooting Error Code 0x800CCC7D