I apologise if I am not being clear, and thank you for your patience.
Scenario 1:
As per my providers settings requirements:
username: domainpop@hotgossip.co.ke
host: mail.hotgossip.co.ke
Result:
Jan 9 12:15:01 server fetchmail[5985]: Authorization failure on domainpop@hotgossip.co.ke@mail.hotgossip.co.ke
Jan 9 12:15:01 server fetchmail[5985]: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL)
Jan 9 12:30:02 server fetchmail[6244]: Authorization failure on domainpop@hotgossip.co.ke@mail.hotgossip.co.ke
Jan 9 12:30:02 server fetchmail[6244]: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL)
Scenario 2:
Adjusted settings:
username: domainpop
host: mail.hotgossip.co.ke
Result:
Jan 9 13:30:02 server fetchmail[8391]: Query status=2 (SOCKET)
Scenario 3:
username: domainpop
host: hostgossip.co.ke
Jan 9 13:30:02 server fetchmail[8391]: Query status=2 (SOCKET)
Now the reason this is occuring according to my mail host is because they are running some sort of mail cluster feature, and that the host mail.hotgossip.co.ke is in fact some sort of alias for another host. They therefore need the full email address as the username in order to forward the request to the proper host.
Now I dont pretend to understand this stuff, but it explains the socket error that occurs when incorrect credentials are given, because a connection is made, but because they are wrong the connection just fails without specifics.
Perhaps I should give up at this point....