I am using JavaMail to connect to a POP3 server. Further, I set the following properties, so that JavaMail won't wait to long if an email server doesn't respond: props.setProperty("mail.pop3.connectionpooltimeout", "3000"); props.setProperty("mail.pop3.connectiontimeout", "3000"); props.setProperty("mail.pop3.timeout", "3000"); However, in some cases the timeout works properly but sometimes JavaMail freezes for minutes(!) with the following debug message: DEBUG POP3: connecting to host "pop3.yahoo.com", port 110, isSSL false Changing ports or protocols (SSL, TLS..) has no effect. I assume that the host simply doesn't exist. For example, if I poll pop3.yahoo.com instead of pop.mail.yahoo.com (which would be the right host name), I have to wait very long til a timeout exception occurs. After several minutes, I get the following exception and the application continues to run: java.net.ConnectException: Operation timed out pop3.yahoo.com seems to exist but won't respond: localhost:~ me$ ping pop3.yahoo.com PING pop3.yahoo.com (206.190.46.10): 56 data bytes Request timeout for icmp_seq 0 Request timeout for icmp_seq 1 Request timeout for icmp_seq 2 Request timeout for icmp_seq 3 ^C You might be asking why I use pop3.yahoo.com instead of pop.mail.yahoo.com. Well, I simply wanted to test what happens if the user of my application inserts a wrong host name. I believe that this issue is related to this report http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/[email protected]/180946.html where the poster claims that the problem occurs if the email server closes the connection. JavaMail then seems to wait very long (don't know why). Since the issue wasn't resolved in the link I posted: Does somebody know how to fix or at least debug this? Any help would be really appreciated!