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A couple of days ago, I stopped being able to download my email from comcast via pop3. Every time I ask Thunderbird to get my mail, it says "Failed to connect to mail.comcast.net". Thing is, I can send mail just fine. So I thought to myself, why not just try to ping the servers. This is what I get:

procyon@MSI-GS60-6QE:~$ ping mail.comcast.net
ping: mail.comcast.net: Name or service not known
procyon@MSI-GS60-6QE:~$ ping smtp.comcast.net
PING smtp.g.comcast.net (96.114.157.81) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from omta-po.sys.comcast.net (96.114.157.81): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=60.7 ms
64 bytes from omta-po.sys.comcast.net (96.114.157.81): icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=69.7 ms
64 bytes from omta-po.sys.comcast.net (96.114.157.81): icmp_seq=3 ttl=51 time=67.2 ms
64 bytes from omta-po.sys.comcast.net (96.114.157.81): icmp_seq=4 ttl=51 time=59.7 ms

However, I happen to dual boot this laptop, so I switched over to Windows 10 to try pinging mail.comcast.net from there. Lo and behold: 

C:\Users\Scott>ping mail.comcast.net

Pinging imap.ge.xfinity.com [96.117.3.96] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

So it's obviously not set up to respond to ping, but the domain DID get resolved (to something else) or so it seems. I don't know how to begin to debug this sort of problem. Does anyone out there have any ideas? Comcast's customer support was useless, as expected. Thank you.

LeonidMew
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Scott Jacobi
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    Run nslookup mail.comcast.net in both Windows and in Ubuntu and see if the Server: and Address: line right after the command is the same in both. – Terrance Nov 22 '18 at 05:12
  • Here is how Comcast says to configure thunderbird: link – TonyB Nov 22 '18 at 06:21
  • @TonyB those instructions don't work; that's how the OP already had it configured (albeit for POP). I had the same problem with both POP and then a few days later after switching to IMAP - Scott Jacabi's answer fixed it. – Organic Marble Dec 01 '18 at 21:01

3 Answers3

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tl;dr: This turned out to be an issue with my /etc/resolv.conf file.

Between LeonidMew's answer and Terrance's comment, I was able to piece this together. My nslookup for mail was the same as LeonidMew's. But when I did what Terrance suggested, and tried nslookup in Windows, the Address was pointing to my router at 192.168.0.1. I knew I had seen 127.0.0.53 before when I was Googling around trying to find an answer, and I realized I had seen it in my resolv.conf file. I edited that file, and changed 127.0.0.53 to 192.169.0.1, and my system was successfully able to find and connect with mail.comcast.net. Thanks very much for all of your help.

Scott Jacobi
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    Depending on what version of Ubuntu you can make that kind of permanent as well. Ubuntu 16.04 see https://askubuntu.com/questions/988201/old-dns-settings-keeps-coming-back/988373#988373 and for Ubuntu 18.04 I have found to do https://askubuntu.com/a/1057752/231142 – Terrance Nov 22 '18 at 18:04
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Can you reconfigure email client to use imap? Seems imap working fine, with address imap.comcast.net

nslookup for mail:

$  nslookup mail.comcast.net
Server:     127.0.0.53
Address:    127.0.0.53#53

Non-authoritative answer:
mail.comcast.net    canonical name = imap.ge.xfinity.com.
Name:   imap.ge.xfinity.com
Address: 96.118.242.201
Name:   imap.ge.xfinity.com
Address: 96.118.242.237
...
LeonidMew
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  • This helped me to find a workaround: I switched to imap.ge.xfinity.com while I was figuring out the method in the other answer. +1 – Organic Marble Dec 01 '18 at 21:01
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Change from imap.comcast.net to imap.ge.xfinity.com and it will work. Above post shows issue.

Crosscourt
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