I have emailed support a dozen times, but maybe I will have better luck here. We are trialing a secure email site called S-Mail, which can be found at
www.s-mail.com It actually works rather well and, with their plug-in for email programs such as Outlook, one can send encrypted email to other users which are using S-mail. All of the mail can be accessed either via a regular email program such as Outlook or Outlook Express or you can also use their web mail.
The problem is when you do go to web mail to get mail or compose an email, it times out within seconds to a minute. It is supposed to time out after approximately 15 to 25 minutes. It is extremely reproducible. Sometimes it times out in less than ten seconds, obviously not nearly enough time to check mail, change options, compose email, etc.
Support continues to send me emails which basically mimic the message on the website. The first reason specified by the site is what one would expect. That it would time out due to a certain period of unuse. The second is due to error. The words between the asterisks are from the site:
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Session timeout
There are two main reasons for the "Session Timeout" message.
1. Your mailbox session has expired.
Please click here to re-login.
The session time limit secures your correspondence. If you leave your mailbox unattended for a long time, the system terminates your session.
2. An error has occurred.
The "Session Timeout" error takes place in the following cases:
Your IP address has changed while working in the secure mail system. This may be caused by a number of reasons, the main of which are as follows:
Your Internet connection was broken; after the connection resumed your PC was assigned a new IP address. You can try to get a more reliable Internet connection. Your local computer network has certain settings (like proxy service or NAT service parameters) which periodically change IP-addresses. Contact your local network administrator for assistance.
Please note that when trying to fix the above causes of this error you should seek a situation in which your PC's IP-address is constant during the entire secure email session.
You have some software installed on your PC which conflicts with the "cookies" in your browser. It is most likely a firewall or antivirus software. You need to configure the software so that it does not interfere with "cookies". To be on the safe side, when composing a message, you can also save its contents in the clipboard before hitting the "Send" button.
If the error persists, you may contact our support team at support@s-mail.com. Please include the following in your message: the name and version of your operating system and browser, and type of Internet access (dial-up, local network, xDSL, broadband, etc.).
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The PCs I have tried it on at work all have static IP addresses. On my PC at work, I turned off ZoneAlarm and the antivirus software. We do have a Cisco PIX-501 firewall -- not too sure about the NAT on that, but I don't see why that would effect it. I have made sure that my PC accepts all cookies including 3rd party cookies.
I have also tried it at home with the cookies accepted. I am using Windows XP on all of the PCs and am using a LinkSys router/firewall at home.
I am a bit frustrated, because the software/application works well, but without being able to log in to the site for more than thirty seconds, it is kind of useless.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why I continue to get kicked out of the web site?
Thanks
