[sylpheed:32561] Gmail anyone?

[John Jason Jordan]

I have used Sylpheed for years with Ubuntu x86_64, currently Sylpheed
2.4.8 and Hardy Heron. I love it because it does all that I need and no
more. It is also rock solid.

I have always had three e-mail accounts that I use Sylpheed for: My
comcast account, which I use for Sylpheed and a couple other e-lists, a
company account, and Hotpop.com. The Hotpop account has been
troublesome on and off over the years. I use it for certain e-lists
that I subscribe to, and also occasionally when I need to give someone
an e-mail address but I'm afraid to give them my Comcast account. But
once every couple of months Hotpop has a fit and I can't download mail.
Usually after a few days the problem clears up by itself. But for the
past several days I have been unable to download mail - longer than
usual. I could log in to my Hotpop account via the web, and I could see
that there were 183 messages in my inbox, but Hotpop's web interface
only allows you to delete messages - you can't read them in a browser. 

Since all the messages were either spam or from e-lists which are
archived online anyway, I deleted all the messages. Then I decided I'd
had enough of Hotpop's flaky performance, and closed the account.

But I still need a free e-mail account, so I went shopping. I started
with Gmail, but I can't get it configured. It hangs on downloading
messages, and also on sending.

Side note: All my e-mail accounts are set to send via my university
account (mailhost.pdx.edu). I have to do so because I cannot send
e-mail from the university otherwise. I set up the Gmail account the
same way. When Gmail refused to download or send e-mail I changed the
setting to use smtp.gmail.com, and I also set all the rest of the
settings specified on the Gmail site. No go. I can neither send nor
receive.

When I try to receive I get an error in the log window:

* Connecting to POP3 server: pop.gmail.com...
* Incorporation cancelled

Can someone tell me what incorporation is and why Gmail would cancel it?

And, since Gmail seems to be rather fussy, can someone suggest another
free e-mail service instead of Gmail?