Thierry Volpiatto <thierry.volpiatto@gmail.com> writes:

> Are you sure port 25 with starttls is right? (i use 587 with gmail)

I think so. AFAIK port 587 is used when the authentication is not in
clear text, but encoded via SSL or TLS. This is the German
documentation of gmx concerning the configuration of Thunderbird:

http://faq.gmx.de/messages/mailprogramme/einrichtung/3.html

In "Schritt 7" (step 7) it has a screenshot that shows the settings:
server-name: mail.gmx.net, port: 25, secure connection: never. 

> What do you have in "~/emacs-stuff/mailauth"?
> (you can write the content of this file directly like below)

I (this means my friend) haven't used a credentials file but set the
login information directly in .gnus.el. This is what it looks like:

;; Use gmx smtp server
  (message "Using gmx smtp server")
  (setq starttls-use-gnutls t
       starttls-gnutls-program "gnutls-cli"
       starttls-extra-arguments nil)
  (setq smtpmail-local-domain nil
       send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
       message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
       message-send-mail-partially-limit nil
       smtpmail-default-smtp-server "mail.gmx.net"
       smtpmail-smtp-server "mail.gmx.net"
       smtpmail-debug-info t
       smtpmail-debug-verb t
       smtpmail-auth-credentials 
        '(("mail.gmx.net" 25 "GMX_USERNAME" "GMX_PASSWORD"))
       smtpmail-starttls-credentials 
        '(("mail.gmx.net" 25 nil nil))
       smtpmail-smtp-server "mail.gmx.net" )
 (setq user-full-name "Stjepan Beles")
 (setq user-mail-address "b.stjepan@gmx.de")

> Here is my config with gmail if it can help:
>
> (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
> (setq smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 nil nil)))
> (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials '(("smtp.gmail.com" 587 
> "my_email_adress" "my_password")))
>
> (setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com")
> (setq smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.gmail.com")
> (setq smtpmail-smtp-service 587)

Looks quite similar apart from the port number.

I have the impression that setting starttls-use-gnutls to non-nil is
the wrong way. Except the gmx folks write nonsense in their
documentation (what can be the case anyway). But it didn't work before
either.

A different idea. Is is possible that the MTA (exim4) doesn't allow
passwords to be send away in clear text, which is a damn security risk
anyway. Should we try to install sendmail instead? I still don't know
how I can find out if the error occurs in Emacs or in exim. The
*Messages* buffer isn't very informative in this case.

Greetings

Sven