I have never been a big fan of AOL and as result I don’t use it. However, I must support my clients when they have issues and some of them still use the free AOL for email. One client in particular had issues when sending emails. When ever she would compose a new email, reply to an email or forward an email, a little window would pop up saying “The message was not sent because of an error”. This error is not very informative if you ask me. I searched Google for hours and came up with nothing.
Well, I was able to resolve the issue quite simply after digging around the AOL website for a while. Unfortunately, I was not able to call AOL support because they want money for support on their free product. Here is what I had to do…
- Went to the AOL Image Challenge page, logged in and submitted the image challenge. Apparently this process helps to eliminate robots from sending mail from your account. This particular client had some spam and virus issues, so those spambots were likely sending emails from her account. After you complete the image challenge, you should be able to send email from your account. I was still getting that error after doing this, so I moved to step 2…
- I had to reset the Mailbox State, Address State, Calendar State and User preferences. After logging in to your AOL email account, you’ll notice a “help” link at the top-right corner of your page.
Hold the shift key and click that link and a window will open wth all four of the buttons I mentioned before to reset the state of your account. - Now try to send mail. If you followed the above steps correctly, it should work!
References: AOL Help
Brad Laszlo is a Systems Engineer for Prestige Technologies, reigning from Michigan. Brad is specialized in server configuration and manipulation using both Microsoft and Linux technologies, and considers himself to be a novice tech writer (and Bio writer). Brad can be reached at bradlaszlo[at]prestigetech[dot]com or by visiting http://www.prestigetech.com 
Thank you very much! This did the trick! I have been pulling my hair out for hours trying to figure this out. Thanks again my friend!
Hi: My sister is autistic and she gets herself into ‘issues’ all the time, and now, her AOL mail won’t send. She uses the web version and I found I can’t send her email from my computer, 15 hours away, either, so I know it’s account-based.
I tried the above and I keep getting messages such as: “The service you are trying to reach is temporarily unavailable – please try your request again” when I first try to enter the UNREADABLE challenge message. Sometimes I get the message “Please type words in image”.
I’m tired, I’m cranky and it appears someone is using her email to send crap – at least it’s my take on it.
Are there any other things to try?
I have followed the instructions…however I do not get those options: Mailbox State, Address State, Calendar State and User preferences? Those are not what shows up…just the regular drop down menu of Help…???I can receive…just not send. HELP??
addendum: I didn’t see my first question above…but I was able to reset everything as you suggested…however it did not work for me.
@Mark: Make sure you hold the Shift key down on your keyboard while you click the Help link and it should come up. Let me know if it doesn’t, and if this posts helps you, please re-post so. Thanks!
Thank you very much! Perfect and fixed the issues