There appears to be a link between the difficulties and Nortons and PCCillin anti virus.

If you have / are / or every get a message saying that you are unable to contact the mail server, then a check of the mail settings may reveal that the mail server settings have been changed or corrupted.

To overcome this if customers goto Outlook Express. - Work in offline mode.
- At the top of Outlook Express select the Tools option which will bring up a menu.
- Go down to Accounts (3rd from the bottom) then select the mail tab. You should have a connection in the mail tab like mail.halenet.com... Mail Default. The .au is hidden.
-Click once on the mail.halenet.com.. then select properties. This will bring up your mail properties.
-Select the servers tab at the top. Your incoming mail server is a POP3 server. In the Incoming and Outgoing mail server address boxes it should have mail.halenet.com.au If not change it to mail.halenet.com.au and select Apply and OK.

Then try your email by clicking on Send and Receive and going online. If this fails to fix the problem then you may need to Remove the mail.halenet.com.. mail default account from your mail properties, then click Add and follow the wizard. Again when prompted for the mail servers they are mail.halenet.com.au for both incoming and outgoing.