Windows Mail server terminated SMTP SSL connection

Windows Mail has suddenly begin giving an error every time I try to send email. It remains in the outbox. Yahoo/SBC tech support verified the email account works fine and problem is at my end. My email account settings are correct. The error is:

Your server has unexpectedly terminated the connection. Possible causes for this include server problems, network problems, or a long period of inactivity. Subject 'test', Account: '[email protected]', Server: 'smtp.att.yahoo.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 465, Secure(SSL): Yes, Error Number: 0x800CCC0F

The error occurs immediately upon hitting the Send button. If I change the server timeout to 5 minutes in the email options, the error still occurs immediately. I've rebooted too. I see an auto update came in yesterday.

Anyone else having this problem?

Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Ted Toal

Ted,

What is the email address that you have configured Windows Mail to put in the "From:" field of your emails?

S-

It is my full usual email address, and nothing has changed here.

A tech at my ISP remoted in and checked all the settings, then duplicated them on a different machine and tested it and it worked fine there.

I fixed it! I was poking around looking at Windows Mail settings, and under Tools, Options, Security, Digital IDs, I saw that there were three certificates issued to my computer's name. I wasn't sure what the meaning of this is (who issued the certificates and why?), but I took a chance and deleted them. Now, I can send email! I suppose that somehow one of those certificates must have been involved in the SSL port 465 transaction. But why does it work now, with NO certificates. I went back and looked, thinking that maybe Windows auto-generated a new certificate, but it did not. There is only one certificate remaining, one I made myself long ago when playing around with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). Maybe it used that one?

Microsoft must have some kind of problem with certificates and SSL and perhaps related to changing of passwords on email accounts.