Outgoing Mail Server - Offline...HELP!!!

I have an iMac and am running the latest version of Snow Leopard. Just in the past week or so I have had problems sending email. I check mail 'preferences' and see that the Outgoing Mail Server is "Cox (Offline)". I hit the down button for other server options and there is none. I then go into the edit server option and the outgoing server is listed... "smtp.cox.net". It is highlighted and I select okay. I go back into preferences and all that is shown for the outgoing server is "Cox (Offline)"
I have contacted Cox tech help to no avail.

Basically, with the "Cox (Offline)" outgoing mail sometimes works too. Strange.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Have you tried going to the Mailbox menu? Then Take All Accounts Online? Does Online Status offer any options?

Has anyone found a solution for this problem? Same thing began happening here a couple of weeks ago. Cox is no help. Tried taking accounts offline/online, changing passwords, resetting network, rebooting, deleting email accounts and setting them up again. SMTP still says "cox.net (offline)"

It sounds like the Cox server may be off line or having problems. Nothing you can do about that except keep trying. It's always a good idea to have a secondary ISP server to use for mail. GMail is free and is very easy to setup an account with Apple Mail.

Thank you! I've been able to work around it using my .mac email so not a huge problem, just annoying. Will keep on trying.